We all have a moment like that. Right?

We've all experience that moment in life when... we heard the record scratch and the music stop followed by the sound of crickets... right?  The one we look back on and say, how could I have been caught so off guard?

I was going through a bit of a cultural reintegration having just moved back to Canada after spending three years in England.  We moved home just in time for me to start high school.  Co-ed high school.  The use of the word co-ed seems a bit odd to me now but I'd just spent two years in an old boys preparatory school which at times proved to be run as if in the dark ages (one that warrants its own blog entirely), and one year in one of the more posh all girls schools in England.  Co-ed high school was a very big deal.  To make things a little more tricky at an already tricky age to maneuver, I managed to pick up a bit of an accent.  Now... having an accent is fine... unless you have no business having it.  Having only been gone three years, I felt, I had no business having it and felt odd and awkward.

It was terrible walking into a new school all by yourself and figuring out where you were going.  This was compounded by so many factors.  I'd been wearing a uniform for three critical years and had no concept of what constituted cool clothing that I felt comfortable in.  I knew no one, and everyone else had graduated at one school or another with their buddies and were happy to reunite here in an exciting moment... the first day of high school!  And... there were boys.  Something I hadn't had to contend with for three whole terms at Westonbirt.  Not that schooling with all girls didn't have it's own challenges but the opposite gender at the age of 14 (back when I was 14), brought on a level of insecurity that was... uncomfortable.

But after the first day I'd found a few peeps to pad myself with and I quickly set about getting as comfortable as I could in my new world.  It was these same peeps who stood beside me as I experienced that moment I wish wish wish I could have a replay on.  

I followed the lead as my new peeps set about getting us ready for the first school dance.  I hadn't really thought about what to expect.  We put so much energy into getting ready I hadn't thought ahead to what a school dance entailed.  I was going.  I was following along.  Once there I found myself in a dark lunch cafeteria where we plunked ourselves down and started people watching. This seemed to be what it was all about.  There was music but no one was dancing.  We were all grouped with our peeps chatting about... I can't remember what.  And then we were up and heading to get a drink from the other side of the room.  On the way back... it happened.  We were approached by a guy and (OMG) he asked me to dance.  Me.  Suddenly I wasn't standing with my peeps.  They kept moving, I think.  My brain stopped processing and I had a question to answer.  I had to speak.  He'd moved towards us from his peeps, all by himself, and approached me, and asked me to dance.  To which I replied... wait for it... "I just bought a coke".  It seems to me his head tilted down and I simply can't remember the rest.  I returned to my peeps and sat down.  They seemed both excited and disappointed with me at the same time.  How had I not seen this coming and been ready?  How had I not expected that I might be asked to dance... at a dance?  How had I gone and put myself in this position?

I simply wasn't ready to dance.  But oh... how I wish I had danced.  I wish I had smiled.  I wish I had thanked him for asking me.  I wish I had been ready.  I wish I had been ready to make him feel wonderful for taking that bold move.  (Don't go there, that's not what I meant and you know it.)  And when he sent friends to me in the weeks ahead to try and figure out if he should ask me out, I wish, I so wish I'd been ready to say... I'd love to get to know him... send him over.