Comments...

Today the troupe I dance with and I had the opportunity to dance on the main stage of the biggest belly dance festival on the west coast.  My Mom made me a wicked new costume - it's totally "me;" I love it and all of the gals from the troupe want to be adopted by my Mom so she'll make them costumes too.  After the 15 minute performance, we went to a different part of the building to have a few group photos taken.  Before going backstage to get changed, I wanted to say "hello" to someone I knew who came to watch our performance while we were on stage but also worked at one of the vending booths.  On my way back to the dressing room, I got stopped by no less than six different people who told me that they wanted to seek me out to talk to me.  Most of the things they had to say to me just left me dumbfounded:

• they asked me how long I've been dancing and couldn't believe that it's been just over 5 years
• they asked if I was the instructor of the troupe
• they told me what a fabulous dancer/performer I am
• they told me how fun I was to watch
• they told me that they tried to watch the other troupe members but their gaze kept coming back to me
• they told me that they couldn't believe how much energy/emotion they felt from me
• a conversation I had with one of the women has still left me emotional:
• she told me that she felt "compelled" to come and find me to talk to me after our performance because I inspired her; she said as a "fellow big girl dancer" (she was plus size fabulous too) she often feels out of place in her studio (something that I am all too familiar with myself) and she said that she was considering not dancing anymore... until she saw me dance; she said after watching me dance with the troupe that she's going to continue to dance and that just floored me

I've had people tell me after performances before how much they enjoy watching me but hearing it today (especially from the person who said I "inspired" her) touched me differently.  Maybe one of the reasons it touched me differently is because I feel as if I've been struggling lately in multiple aspects of my life.  I watched one of my favorite movies this weekend (All About Steve) and a quote from it struck me - "Less work.  More of everything else.  Be normal."  Now, I don't know about the normal but I do think there is some validity to the statement and it is something for me to work on.

Well my dear readers, I know that this is a short post but I had an overwhelming week (more next week on that...) and a long day today so I'm going to bring this to a close for tonight.  I've also started this weird cough thing (I'm hoping it's just from allergies since I'm sick of just being sick...) so I should probably get some good sleep tonight.  I hope you each have an opportunity for fabulousness this week!  =)