A Cinco de Mayo memory

I have a memory from a Cinco de Mayo that I would like to share. It's not the memory from this last Cinco de Mayo where I ended up in the hospital with appendicitis. That will certainly be a day I remember. It's a memory from High School.

I'm not entirely sure what brought this memory up but I figured I'd share it.

When I was in 10th grade, a sophomore in High School, I was part of the Hispanic Pride Club.  The club was basically a Ballet Folklorico club where we learned dances and performed them at various events and places around town: The ICC Fiesta, Elementary schools, the Zoo, and even the Public Library.

I enjoyed the club for the most part. I enjoyed learning the dances and I would have to say, I got to be pretty good at them. Good enough that even to this day, I can still perform some of the dances.

I've even performed a couple dances at a library event even though I was no longer part of the club at the time.

I even got one of my then friends to join the club and we had fun together.

The only hiccup I found with the whole thing was the Cinco de Mayo event that was held at the High School after I had joined.

There had always been more girls in the club than guys so many times, there would be a couple girls paired up together for the dances. This didn't bother any of us and I was typically one of the one that didn't have a guy partner. 

So for all the dances, I was pretty much used to not having a guy for a partner. But this became a bit of a problem when it came to the Cinco de Mayo performance at the high school.

Prior to this event, we had all learned a Salsa dance which unlike the rest of the dances I learned while in the club, I do not remember. 

We had special red dresses made and everything and we would only be performing this dance at the Cinco de Mayo program at the high school. I struggled to learn the dance. But I managed to learn it in time. During the time we were learning the dance,  a couple of us girls would partner up.

It was explained that during the program, we would simply go out into the audience and find a guy to dance with.  I was already nervous about having to do this in the first place.

So finally the day of the program comes. We perform a couple of dances in our Ballet Folklorico dresses and then we rush to an area under the bleachers to quickly change into our Salsa dresses.

Three of us girls didn't have partners, me, my friend, and another girl. We already knew that we had to find a partner in the audience. It was horrible. While the rest of the group began dancing, we went looking in the audience for someone to ask to dance with. It was horrible. My friend and the other girl quickly found partners. I couldn't find anyone who would dance with me.

It was so terrible. I hated having to ask someone in the first place and then not being able to find someone was just terrible. I saw a guy from one of my classes and I asked him. He of course said no. I don't remember if I asked someone else although I'm pretty sure I asked at least a couple people I recognized.  But they all said no.

I remember returning to the guy and almost begging him to dance with me. I vaguely remember grabbing him by the arm and trying to drag him onto the floor (although I'm not entirely sure if I did this). I was pretty desperate and was starting to fill horrible.

Finally after seeing that I wasn't going to get someone, our club sponsor came over and danced with me. I just remember feeling extremely mortified and embarrassed and feeling like I was close to tears.  It felt like my face was red. The fact that no one wanted to dance with me made me just feel awful. Like I wasn't good enough. It's not like I had a crush on the guy either. I just needed a dance partner and I thought he would help me out. I thought someone would help me out but I was wrong.

We changed back into our dresses afterwards and finished our performance. How I was able to go back out and perform is still something I can't figure out. I guess I just figured, the show must go on.

 It was definitely something that put a damper in the day's festivities. The rest of the day went pretty well. We performed at some Elementary Schools: La Luz and Yucca and also a retirement home. I know that after the high school performance, I wasn't feeling too cheery but I guess I got over it enough.

Why I remembered this now, I don't know.  Maybe it's just to further point out how I don't feel that I'm all that attractive with the way the guy turned me down. Maybe it's just to show that I've always felt like I wasn't part of something.

And I wasn't. Even though I was in this group and we all were pretty friendly to each other, again I never really felt part of them. I was always feeling "different", left out of things when I was around the group. I always found myself talking more to our sponsor (my parents knew her before I even joined) than the rest of the group.

Not that I need anymore evidence to back up why I'm the way I am. My life hasn't been easy. I've had my share of struggles. 

I just wanted to share this memory with you. Just something that popped in my head. Thanks for reading.