leave the pantyhose behind

When I was little, I made a list of jobs that I never ever wanted to have when I grew up. At the very top of the list was:

“Any job where I have to wear pantyhose.”

Last week I heard this great interview about a business based in Yonkers, NY that doesn’t interview or do a background check on any of their employees.

Instead they have people go through a 10 month apprenticeship, and if they cut the mustard they get the job.

They are upending the paradigm and doing it their own way.

They are making their own rules, following their own set of values, and creating a way of being in the world that works for them.

You can do that too.

If you want to.

Yeah, it’s gonna take a lot of work.

Yeah, there will be a lot of trial and error.

And yeah, it’s risky.

Honestly though,

I kinda think that is the way things are going these days, so get on the boat and the rock the hell out of it.

I know I am.

It is scary and unpredictable and I am failing and falling A LOT.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way,

You know why?

Because I never have to wear pantyhose and I get to choose how I am spending my time.

It has taken me a long long time to be able to say that:

I have paid my rent and bought my groceries by counting the number of ball bearings that have fallen out of holes in giant cardboard boxes in a windowless warehouse in Massachusetts for 10 hour stretches, 6 days a week.

I have left my house at 3am with boxes full of healthy heart posters, driving to doctor’s offices all over New England to put up the new posters and take down the old ones with a screw driver and a box of screws.

I have worked as a Lancôme Lady where I was required to wear lingerie and sell make-up to women who didn’t need it (I got fired from that job two weeks after I was hired when I was heard saying that thought out loud to a group of consumers who were clustered around the make-up counter).

I have bussed tables, driven busses, done hours of data entry, changed diapers on all ages of people, mowed lawns, and trimmed trees (I trimmed the wrong tree, and got fired from that job too).

I have served and sold tea and coffee and cookies and ice cream.

I have done all of those jobs, wearing pantyhose, that I never wanted to do.

And now I am rocking the boat, falling into the water, and swimming.

Not gracefully, mind you, but swimming, nonetheless.

I am saying this to you because it is time to burst the bubble and to get out into the world to do what you were meant to do.

Do it in a way that no one has ever done it before.

There really is only one you in the world, and you are going to do it differently than anyone else around you, and we are waiting to see what it is that YOU do.

So be proud.

Be shameless.

Be unrepentant and brash.

Get on the boat, and start rocking.

Your Dance Mission for the week is to dance in unexpected places, at unexpected times.

With Warmth and Jivey Vibes, Joanna of Joanna and The Agitators sweetly agitating/persistently upending

PS:

Have you clicked on this link to check out the summer dance classes yet?

If not, do it now.

Enrollment opens on JUNE 1st and you want to make sure you know what's what so that you can make the best decision for you and your dancing time this summer.

xo jo