I Danced In A Club For The First Time In A Year, And It Was Bloody Euphoric

You know that saying, “shake what ya mamma gave ya”?

Well, I was ready to shake it last weekend. Hell, I was ready to box it up, pay postage for delivery, and address it to Number 2 GET-YO-FREAK-ON Street. My time to dance around sweaty people was now.

“Should I wear the white crop top with the black jeans or the black crop top with the white jeans” was the first agonising decision of the night. How much skin did I want to show?!

One frantic decision later, I called an Uber and made a slow cruise to my destination. “I’m just around the corner sis,” I texted a friend.

I stepped out onto the busy road in front of the club, hearing the oompfs of the muffled beats. The neon lights flickered above the mob all lined up in single form. They were wooing, singing, smoking, laughing — the feeling, the vibe, or whatever shared frequencies that were floating through the air were infectious.

How Long Is This Damn Line? 

I leant against the brick wall as my friend lit up a ciggie, before blowing out a cloud a smoke and gesturing to me. I declined, scanning around, wondering if I would recognise anyone — secretly hoping I’d make eye contact with a handsome stranger. (I didn’t.)

I wiped a line of sweat off my forehead. It was a warm night, similar to the last time I went out last year, all the way in the top end of good ole Darwin.

It was a Friday night — Valentine’s Day — so, naturally, I was doing what all the single people were doing: drinking. Mitchell Street was the place to be, a stretch of bars and clubs that had people clambering to get over one another. I started the night underground in a dark R&B club, then hopped across the road to some Irish bar where a band was tearing the roof off. The night ended at the seediest club of all (I’ll spare them by not mentioning the name) which had a floor that could stain even your blackest jeans, probably even your skin — you did not want to fall on the floor at this place.

That was the last night I went dancing. Before long, the pandemic had hit, lockdowns were happening, and I quickly had to pack my life in my car and hightail it over the border to Western Australia, which is where I spent the remainder of 2020.

When I’m rich, middle-aged, with children I actually like, I’m going to tell the tale of the of 2020 and describe it as “kind of like Footloose“. All hell had broken loose in late March — lockdowns shuttered everything across the country, we began to social distance religiously. Rules gradually started to ease — more people could come around to your house, you could sit in pubs again, businesses began to open up. Most of the states started to move on, but NSW was the last to get on board.

I had filled the void with closet drinking, solo dance parties, and whining to friends on Houseparty. In an attempt to not feel useless during Covid, I tried to learn a new skill: palm reading. Turns out, it’s actually not a bad flirting move — would recommend.

But then it finally happened. On March 21, 2021, dancing was officially returning to the state I was in. And I was not going to waste a second before getting on the dancefloor.

A Sea Of People

My hands grabbed the back of some broad shoulders after a massive shove from behind.

“Oi! Ya idiots,” my friend roared at the two young women behind us. We’d been crab-crawling up to the entrance for the past 30 minutes, and people were restless.

We were at some bar on Oxford Street, which for the love of Wakanda I can’t recall the damn name of. My friend Layla had dragged me out — she stood there puffing, pushing her ringlets back from her face. I checked my phone for the time, the screen blinded me for a few seconds: 12.15am.

“Jeez can people relax? It’s not like we waited a year for this or anything,” she laughed, snorting. “Sis, I can’t tell you how much I needed this. Just to dance — not even having a drink or anything, but to dance — it’s almost like I’m taking a big long exhale. To lose yourself in sea of people, it’s almost spiritual for me. You can close your eyes and when you open, you see these glowing orbs of light.”

“It’s almost like I’m taking a big long exhale.”

‘Not going to lie sis, but that sounds scary,” I said.

“What I mean, it’s like a release,” she continued. “We don’t know right now while we’re standing out with the smoke butts and piss-stained ground, but once we’re inside on that floor, shaking and sweating out all that doubt and uncertainty… I’m not saying this is a life-changing moment, but we’ll definitely feel a bit lighter.”

I studied my friend’s face. She had this sureness about her, which could have been the fireball shots, but perhaps it was something else.

“Alright, I get ya — tipsy you is really philosophical,” I replied. I giggled my way up to the security guarding the door, I felt like I was in a game and this was the last level where we had to challenge the boss.

Tap Your Platforms Three Times 

I could smell the insecurities and stale body spray from inside — that’s how close we were to the door. Each time it opened, I would get a quick glimpse of the action: guys making out, a girl running to the bathroom, white people screaming ‘this my song!’, more guys making out, people taking selfies, swirling lights.

A squeaky voice came from the security’s radio, and we watched his expression as he reacted to it. He nodded his head and gestured for us to go in. We walked through the doors and the music shot through our chests and got our skeletons buzzing. We squealed like teenagers.

It hugged me as I twirled and twirled, making the world a blur.

There must have been more than a hundred people there, screaming at each other, pretending to hear what one another was saying. The smell of vodka and sweat whiffed through the air, and people in crop tops and short shorts were frantically gathered at the bar, holding out their cards hoping one of the two bartenders would notice.

We waded through the crowd of bumpers and grinders and got right in the middle. The blinking lights made everyone look like they were in slow motion. I could just make out Layla mouthing something to me — I had no idea what she said, so I just smiled and nodded, agreeing with whatever she was saying and just let the music fill my ears.

As I started to move my body, a wave of warmth crept up from my feet to my legs, my arms, chest, and my face — this is what euphoria feels like, I thought. It hugged me as I twirled and twirled, making the world a blur.

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Molly Hunt is a Sydney-based writer. You can follow her on Twitter.