In 2008 I started uploading dance videos to YouTube. At the time I wanted a way to keep track of what I knew and what I taught at my dance studio, and I also wanted my students to be able to review what they learned. So each week after class, we’d film a review, and I’d post it online. Nine years later, I’ve posted 1,101 videos, which have a combined total of 5,149,733 views. That last number really blows my mind, since oftentimes the classes I taught at the studio had no more than eight or ten people in them. Sometimes, there were only one or two.

Witness the power of the internet.

Over the years, there have been quite a few comments on the videos, and most of them have been positive. I’ve even had a number of emails and phone calls from total strangers–people in Tennessee, Florida, Europe–who’ve said they’ve learned a lot from the videos. However, for the longest time, it was the negative comments that stood out to me, like the person who ripped me a new one for starting rumba on a quick instead of a slow, or the dozen of people who were pissed off that I wrongly referred to Triple Two Step as Texas Two Step, or the guy who loved the videos but said that dying my hair blonde was “a mistake.”

Five years ago, bullshit like that would upset me for days. Now, thankfully, I’m able to take most of it in stride. For one thing, I have no idea who these people really are. Maybe they know what they’re talking about, maybe they don’t. But I finally decided that if you have nothing better to do than criticize the hair color of a total stranger who’s giving you dance lessons for free, that’s your problem–not mine.

This afternoon my friend Sydnie and I performed at a local nursing home for National Lindy Hop Day. I used to get really worked up and nervous about this sort of thing, but I had a great time today. Sydnie was on her way to another dance event, so she was with a friend of hers, another dancer. He took the above picture of us, which is why he’s not in it. (Thank you for the picture. I didn’t know if it’d be okay to use your name.)

Anyway, Sydnie’s friend told me that he started watching my dance videos on YouTube a few years before he started dancing, and then he continued to watch them once life slowed down and he was able to actually learn. He said the videos had been helpful on his journey, so I was kind of like a celebrity to him. (This sort of thing has happened a couple of other times, and it always makes my day. Still, I’m never sure how to properly react other than to say, “Thank you. That makes my day.” Perhaps if it happens again, I could add, “Thank you for not criticizing my hair.”)

Ironically, when I saw the picture of Sydnie and me, I didn’t like my hair, so I sent a message to my friend Bekah to see if she could cut it. Well, sometimes miracles happen, and she said to come right on over. When I got there, both her teenage sons were there too, and although I’m sure they were speaking English, I really didn’t understand much of what they were saying. (This is one way you know you’re getting older.) But at some point, Bekah’s older son, Christian, suddenly raised both his hands over his head and struck them together in one single loud clap. He explained that when he wants a high-five from a friend but he either doesn’t have one present or his friend won’t give him a high-five, he gives himself one.

Strange, I know, but I still think it’s gold.

(Here’s a picture of the haircut. This last year, for the first time in my entire life, I started parting my hair on my right side instead of my left. I’m not sure why. But Bekah added a hard part to the right just for emphasis. The lady in the picture is my friend Betty. She’s one of the friends I was with in 2008 when I went to Dubai and was told by a witch doctor that I had “weak brain.” She was in town tonight and invited me for dinner.)

As I look at the picture, I realize you can’t actually see my hair, but I promise this won’t be the last selfie I post, so don’t go anywhere. (This is called a cliffhanger. Sort of.)

After dinner I went to return some headphones to Best Buy, and while I was there, I got a notice on my phone that a friend had commented on the blog. Like almost every other comment I’ve received so far, it was positive, but my friend asked kindly that I not use the F word. Well, I responded and said (in the spirit of honesty) that probably wasn’t going to happen.

What I don’t want is for this specific blog post to become a conversation about whether or not cussing is okay. Obviously, for me it is, although my boundary about it is that if I’m in the grocery store, the doctor’s office, or a home where people don’t cuss, I don’t cuss. Clearly, other people have different boundaries regarding the words that come out of their mouths or keyboards. But this is my blog, and I pay the bills around here, and the result of that logic is obvious to anyone who reads a single one of my posts. (I think there’s only been one post completely void of a cuss word, and it just happened that way.)

When I first started therapy, my therapist told me that she didn’t care what I did the other twenty-three hours of the day, but she said, “During the one hour we’re together, we’re going to sit in truth, and we’re not going to judge ourselves.” So for the last three years, that’s exactly what’s happened. If at any point I’ve tried to bullshit myself or her about something, she’s called me out on it. And if at any point I’ve judged myself (which I have plenty of times), she’s called me out on that too.

So my goal with the blog is the same. Here, we’re going to sit in truth. More specifically, I’m going to sit in truth because I’m the only one currently in this room, sitting behind this keyboard. Secondly, I’m going to do my level best to not judge myself. And if I do judge myself at the beginning of a blog, I hope to use my writing as a way to work myself into a more compassionate place by the end of it.

Those two rules being established, what I can promise anyone who is interested and kind enough to spend your precious time here is that I’ll be as honest with you as I am with myself, as honest as I know how to be. I know there are plenty of other things you could be doing, and there are plenty of other places you could go for fake news. So I promise I won’t bullshit you and pretend to be someone I’m not. God, I did that for the longest time, and it sucks. It’s the worst feeling to pretend you’re straight when you’re not or, maybe worse, pretend you just don’t have a sexuality when everyone else around you is talking about the person they’re interested in, or in love with, or go home to when you go home alone. Likewise, it’s the worst feeling to pretend you’re “just fine” when you’re actually falling apart.

So that shit stops here.

What I would say to anyone on YouTube who doesn’t like the way I rumba or doesn’t like my hair, or to anyone who doesn’t like the F word, is that I understand. Honestly, sometimes I don’t like the way I rumba, and I wasn’t crazy about the blonde hair either, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if the person I thought I was going to marry cheated on me and then later lied and told me he had cancer when he didn’t. And as for the F word, I remember (twenty years ago) when it used to bother me too. So I get it. We all have our opinions about how to act, and I don’t believe mine are the only ones that matter. But, again, I’m doing my best to not judge myself for failing to live up to a certain level of imagined perfection.

But back to being honest. What you see here is what you get. This is the most authentic I know how to be, and this is currently who I am–warts, cuss words, and all. Personally, I don’t like any sort of negative feedback. It never feels good to think I’ve disappointed someone, especially someone I care about. But as Abraham Lincoln said, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. And what I’ve learned about authenticity is that it doesn’t have to. Better that you’re true to yourself and the whole world be disappointed than to change who you are and the whole world be satisfied. And whereas I’m eternally grateful for every positive comment on YouTube and the blog (and there have been hundreds, thank you), I know that it has to be enough if only one person–the guy behind this keyboard–raises his hands above his head and strikes them together in one single loud clap.