The Only Option: at 180 Beats Per Minute

According to my wrist watch heart rate monitor, my pulse was racing at 180 beats per minute. I had been dancing for around thirty minutes already, my shirt tied up into a knot right above my stomach. The ceiling fan was on high, the dog was under the covers in bed, and mentally, I was a million miles away.

I was kicking the living daylight out of someone. I was grinding my heels into their eye sockets. I was punching the air wildly, knuckles into jawbone. I was swinging out my hips, moving faster and faster away. But then back, and with a terrific smack, and the crunch of bone, the nose would break.

"How DARE you lie to me!" I was swearing. "How dare you pretend!"

It wasn't anyone in particular. But the past was swirling swirling swirling. And I thought of my exes, and my church, and my old, backstabbing, nay-saying friends and I pushed harder and harder.

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?"

Because, of course, they didn't. But did I, even? I pictured writing mean notes about infidelity to my former friend's husband. I imagined strategically ill-timed, revealing, embarassing posts on the public profiles of my exes. I imagined conveniently dropping full cups of hot coffee into their laps in passing. I imagined giving back the camera I'd recieved as a gift with a one finger salut as the only contained picture. I imagined sabotage, and the destruction of worlds.

"I'll show you! You just wait! I'll get you so good!" Punch, kick...

And then I thought about what the minister had said that past Sunday about a girl whose life changing, life determining experience had occurred in the 2nd grade, where her teacher had allowed all her classmates to write nasty things about her on the blackboard as punishment. And years later, after a failed marriage and lost jobs, her therapist had suggested that she revisit that day. Because Christ had been in the room, too. And after all the kids sat down, he had washed all the nasty words away. He had rewritten them. And hearing this, the girl was reborn. Even though she was 47 years old, and she was old and she was tired and bitter like soured rotten milk, she was reborn. She could let it all go, because he'd been there, and though she didn't know it, he'd never left.

My heartrate dropped to 156.
It just wouldn't be worth it. There are a thousand mean things I could put my effort into. And I'm conniving enough to carry out plenty of maliciously backhanded acts. In the seventh grade, I poured red food dye into Rebecca Blackwell's body lotion. Pointless, but amusing. These days I could probably get myself arrested without batting an eye. But where would I be then? It wouldn't make me any happier. My old speech coach used to say "Rise above, ladies. Rise above." Of course, there came a time years later, that I learned I had to "rise above" some of what even she said about me.

I pushed harder.

The only option, I thought, is to let it go. Its the only healthy option.
My heartrate was steady at 151, and I stared straight ahead, watching them all fade into the background, watching them slowly be erased, watching the pathway in front of me widen.

"Let me see the best version of myself."

And I kept on dancing.
And that was my Valentines Day.