The Selby family traditions don't include a 'coming of age'
ceremony - mostly because none of us kids liked being the center of a big fuss. We DO celebrate the yearly birthdays and some of the
citizenship milestones. However, was typically low key. My
'sweet-sixteen' was a small lunch with friends/family. (Then the rest
of the day to myself reading the books they'd gifted me.)
A
quinceañera
is about as opposite from a small lunch as you can get. There's a
church service, dancing, a 'shoeing' ceremony, more dancing, and a
dress code. It's a production on par with a wedding.
Productions and I have never mixed well - too many migraine triggers. Yet,
through a weird series of twists, October I found myself waltzing to "El Mundo Ideal" in front of a whole lot of people.
I wasn't just a wallflower guest. I was part of a quinceañera court.
It started innocently enough. The young lady, Ansleymarie,
needed another chamberlain and asked if my younger brother Daniel would help. He
accepted.
Cue
first twist. While Kid Brother is a friendly, if snarky, guy, he is
not a licensed driver or a dancer. That was simple enough to fix. The
birthday girl's mother would provide dance lessons and I'd drive him.
(I didn't mind. I could scout the church and gym for a place to hide
in case of migraines.)
The
second twist happened on the day before the first dance lesson. The
birthday girl's best friend had been pulled out by her parents. My
phone buzzed with a heartfelt plea from Ansleymarie's mother. I was
already coming up, would I please join the court?
I
blame what happened next on emotional transfer. When I got the text,
I was musing about a quinceañera gift. I wanted it to be meaningful,
special. I wanted to do something she would like.
I
said yes.
In
all fairness, the original text suggested that I would just have to
dance one short song, as my brother's partner. I'd be another face in the
crowd. I could do my wallflower thing, right?
It
only took one dance lesson to burst that bubble.
The
reason there was only one waltz was that there wasn't enough dancers
for anything else. Half the court had backed out. There would be
three couples in this. I'd be to the right of the birthday girl,
wearing a high-lo lavender dress, in front of a lot of strangers , with no trilby for protection
Actually
learning to box-step was the easy part. Once Kid Brother and I
stopped moved like we were in a Tae-Kwan-Do demo, we had a pretty
good sense of rhythm. We were starting to relax.
Unfortunately,
the birthday girl and her snarky brother partner didn't have a
good sense of rhythm. They also seemed to be trying to maim each
other. Half-way through the lesson, I suggested we switch partners.
The strong dancers could help the weaker ones.
It
worked. However, the switch made permanent. My comfort zone was
fading fast. Naively, I hoped that the third couple would add some
buffer to this ordeal.
No,
just no. If anything the classes got more stressful. We added another
snarky male to the mix.
I'm not a thick-skinned person. I also have very good hearing (I
could hear one of the dancer's artificial heart valve) When the
people around me gripe and pick at each other, I can't ignore it as
background noise.
This
group spend as much time griping about the music, each other, and the
mother's teaching ability as they did actually practicing. That third
couple's lady actually got into a ten minute debate about wanting to
restructure the whole routine because she 'couldn't do if if I don't
lead.' You could almost see the steam coming out of the mother's
ears.
All
the bickering wore on me. I was sick of all this yammering. I was
sick of the snarky bros going after each other. I was also thoroughly
fed up with the smell of tobacco and my new partner's spittoon.
(While half the class took smoke breaks, I was spending quality time
with the gym's punching bag.)
Finally,
practice was done. It was time for the real event.
My
plan was for the setup was simple - treat the coordinating mother
like 'Queen of the Universe.' It didn't matter if she contradicted
herself. Her word was law. Kid Brother wholeheartedly agreed with
this.
We
put on our formal clothes and formal manners... then the penultimate
twist to this story hit.
Despite
behind middle-class, my family's cultural magpie horde includes the
classic 'Yes sir, No sir, Right away sir,” Jeeves playbook. It's
not a snob thing. The older etiquette shifts attention from you as a
person to the guests and the honoree.
This
worked wonderfully for me. My brother... not so much.
As
I was running around the building, fetching things for the other
ladies, the snark war went nuclear.
Every
time I went by the entrance, the men were either on smoke break, out
of sight of the guests or threatening to start a actually fight.
While Kid Brother could give as good as he got, my big sister
instincts were screaming. Finally, as I was hunting down an AWOL
petticoat, I overheard one nasty comment too many, “I'll snap your
neck.”
One
of the worst elements of being a autistic adult is memory cascade.
Those words and that tone sent me hurling down memory-lane. A dozen
unpleasant leftovers bit me in the feelings.
I
was stressed, fighting a migraine, and had no chance of holding all
that inside. I was a sniffling, watered-eyed mess in the dressing
area. The dance was about to start! There was no hiding my state. The
whole quinceañera court knew something was wrong.
As
I frantically tried to pull myself together, my wonderful kid
brother, Daniel, pulled off a brilliant bit of social engineering,
“We made my sister cry. Get it together or I will punch you so hard
that {censored}.”
I
was done with this. I faked a smiled, gripped my partner by the
elbow, and stepped onto the gym floor. I was going to dance and
nothing short of the building catching fire would stop me.
...the
rest of the night went off without a hitch. Everyone waltzed in sync,
the guys did this amazing routine with scarfs, and the quinceañera
girl looked like a Disney princess. My embarrassment/ panic attack
waited until I was at home in my own room.
The
long twisty ordeal was done. I could go hide, sleep off the migraine,
and then redon my hat.
In
hindsight, I should have remembered on of my family's proverbs.
“Big
events are like sausage. Everyone enjoys them, but only if you don't
know exactly what went into them.”
