I’m not drunk.

I’m comfortable in my skin. Present yet entirely unselfconscious, the happy product of two pints of Black and Tan. And we’re dancing, this large, friendly-faced stranger and I, to some song I know and like but haven’t heard in years—an old, comfortable sweater pulled from the back of a closet.

I’d been watching the band, swaying enthusiastically to the music, mouthing what words I could remember, when he pulled me onto the small, empty dance floor.

“I’ve been waiting for you all night,” he says as he happily twirls me. His hands are heavy and damp. I barely reach his shoulders. And I’m having fun! Savoring the simple pleasure of moving and this chance to enjoy the music physically.

When he twirls me (which he does often) or I twirl him, he peers into the small crowd milling aimlessly outside the dance floor. His expression is one of mild surprise, something akin to “Look at her!”

Then he says it again. “I’ve been waiting for you all night.” I’m not sure how—or whether—to respond, so I smile. Or more accurately, I smile wider. There’s no suggestiveness in his tone or expression. And c’mon, who would expect any? He might be a full-grown man, but he’s still at least ten years younger than my daughter.

By the time the band signals the end of the song, I’m a little winded but still thoroughly enjoying myself. The friendly-faced stranger releases my hands. I float back into my cocoon of friends lingering along the edge of the dance floor, smiling and clapping. As I do, I hear him behind me as he says it one last time, “I’ve been waiting for you all night.”

The evening deepens as my friends and I drift in and out of scattered conversations throughout this quaint, darkly paneled pub we’d strayed into after dinner. A man with a lilting Irish brogue and a Guinness in his hand holds my attention at the bar. I’ve told him I’m Irish, but I’m not sure which part of Ireland my father’s family came from. He insists that if I want to find my Irish relatives, I need to look at the 1911 census. “Don’t ye bother with Ancestry.com,” he says firmly, almost urgently, as if warning me of some possible calamity. "Ye must go to the 1911 census!"

I nod to signal my understanding, and as I do, I glance back at the dance floor for the first time since I left the company of the friendly stranger. The once-empty dance floor is now packed with young revelers moving together frenetically like a swarm of bees. Someone steps briefly into the center to dance amid the encouraging hoots of the others, then falls back to allow someone else to take the spotlight.

Among the throng is the friendly stranger. He looks directly at me, but his eyes are opaque, unseeing. I’m invisible, a faceless member of our tiny troupe of elders who’ve invaded this place, inconsequential in a sea of the fresh-faced and pretty.

It's then that I realize what he meant. I was the point he wanted to make. “Look at this old lady dancing!  Why aren’t you out here?”  It was a challenge, but also a forewarning. “Embrace this time. Make the most of it. It will be gone soon enough.”

I’ve served my purpose, an unwitting collaborator in a cautionary tale.

Now they dance as if their young lives depend on it.