Begin Again.. and Again.. and Again...

Last week in yoga class during savasnaya it hit me how far I have gotten away from my practice... hard. 

It has been a busy few months, spending as many nights in strange hotel rooms as I do in my own familar bed, the new job, which has as many triumphs as it does challenges, a new home, a new roommate who is a dear old friend, and trying to find a way to balance that with finding enough time for my love and the friends who bring so much joy.  I've found my practice falling by the side at a time when I need it the most.

I find myself getting agitated about things that I used to let go, clinging to my perceptions of how life should be, instead of relaxing in to how it is.  Cranky and short tempered and not present.  I don't like it, but I am trying to hold myself in a place of non judgement, while taking the steps to get back to where I was.

So last week, while snowed in in my hotel, I found the time to sit, and it was so unbelievably uncomfortable.  Every place my thoughts wandered was full of criticism, full of longing, full of pain.

And I know it will get easier, as before.  Sitting, and practicing through out my day, will become what it used to be, a way of life, and not something I need to be reminded of.

But I can't help feeling like I've let myself, and the people who loved the peaceful and kind spirit that I miss so much, down.

But I suppose it is a process and one that I will re-start as many times as needed. 

So here is to another start.

With metta.

Memories don't go away

I should have more to say and I do have more to say, but December has been exhausting, including a four day hospital stay.  I'm fine, but it was scary, and a reminder I need to slow down and pay attention when I'm not feeling well.  That may not have solved anything this time, but it could have.  Had it not been for the heavy narcotics and antibiotics I was getting every four hours or the concerned looks the doctors gave as they called in every consult imaginable to try to figure out why the antibiotics weren't helping the infection, I might have found the disconnection peaceful.  But instead I vacilated between heavily drugged and terrifed.  From here on out I pledge to remain a little more connected with what my body is telling me. 

So because of that, and the fact that I'm still reeling from another more recent four day invasion of my safety net of an atmosphere, I'll only leave you with this...

Je vais bien ne t'en fais pas

367 days

Today would have been my ten year anniversary with the ex, and instead I sit and wait for a plane to take me from Detroit to New York, to get in to a car and travel to Connecticut and present to a group of physicians...


It has been 367 days since everything I thought I had, that I wanted, came crashing down. 

367 days that I never thought I'd survive, days that I spent growing in the most painful way possible. 

367 days where I learned that you can never take your friends for granted, because they will be the ones to offer to cuddle up in bed with you, or pull you out of it when you can't even remember how to put on your shoes, let alone where you left them.  Your friends will come over and clean your apartment, pick out your clothes and understand when "I just can't" means you really can't, or when it means you just need the extra push.  I learned that family is incredible, and the comfort of those who have known you since the moment of your birth, is worth more than gold.  That the ones who will rage the loudest at your defense are the ones you might have thought always thought he was the best part of you.  I have learned that the kindness of people you barely know can lift you up.  I have learned that you should go after things that you want, even if the idea of getting it is just as terrifying as not.  I have learned that love is possible again, and it might be scary and it might be hard, but it is worth it. But most importantly I learned that a relationship, that an expectation of how your life should be, does not define you.  I have learned to stand on my own two feet, to look in the mirror and be proud of the person I have become, and for that I am grateful.

I owe the ex our security deposit on our home together.  After he broke up with me and I received the deposit in the mail, I decided I deserved it.  Not because he broke up with me, but because I was caring for his cat and our dog.  I know... I know... but in some way it was justified in my mind.  And believe me, the cat, with all her kidney issues, has cost me close to a thousand dollars. 

But now that $400 is only the difference between me and a pair of Loubitons (ok and paying down a bit of debt), well, I realize I never should have kept it in the first place.

And I'm stuck.  Will he think that I am sending the money only to hurt him?  Will he be angry?  Will it cause him pain in any way? 

I could easily rationalize not sending it.  I accumulated a bit of debt when we lived together, neither of us being able to afford the lifestyle we preferred to live, and me having the significantly larger paycheck and credit limit.  But sending it will help me, I will no longer have that debt to him hanging over my head...  but I'm not sure if that's selfish.

And what I want to do is this; give the check to his father when I bring his stuff.  Tell him to send it to him, or give it to him the next time he is in town.  I'll include a note and tell him to read it only when he's ready.

And I will say- I forgive you, I forgive me.  Someday you will wake up, look at the person you love, and think, this is why it happened.  You will think of where you are, compared to where you were before, think of how much you have grown, how you felt pain you didn't know you could ever feel, and then felt joy and love, made all that sweeter because it grew from pain.  And you will know that it is all ok.  That the ways we hurt one another, while awful, led you to this.  You would not know the sweetness of true love, if you had not known the pain of a true love lost.  You would not know what it is like to do things that terrify you, because you had not known that you were a survivor.  You would not know what it is like to wake up every day thinking this very moment is a gift, because you hadn't woken up wishing this life away.  Perhaps you've already had that moment, perhaps you have forgiven me and most importantly forgiven yourself.  And while my greatest fear when you left was this, that you would become hardened to me, and we would not be friends, I understand and respect your wishes.  I wish that someday you will dance at my wedding and hold me with a smile in your heart, but I know that is your choice.  I want you to know I will always answer if you need me and know you probably never will.    You will always have a friend in me.

365 days

Planting Flowers

I spent today working in the yard, my yard (well soon enough, not that I am in any hurry for my darling brother and sister-in-law to leave).  It is something I had missed after my year in the apartment.

Moving took a lot out of me, with emotional land mines buried everywhere.  There are several boxes waiting to be deposited at the ex's father's house, things he had asked my mom to store from his childhood, because he felt they would be safest there.  Part of me feels as if it is a bit of betrayal to send them to where he did not want them, but the other part of me knows that things have changed, and as much as I have a severe distate for those who try to hide their past, his past is not mine to store.

And there were so many things that I came across that I had not discarded, because when I moved in to that tiny apartment, I believed that our lives would be rejoined in a year on the other side of the country.  So packing became an agonizing lesson that life is not always what we think it will be, but that it will certainly go on.

As I closed the door to that empty apartment, I looked around as I did a year ago when I first saw it.  I opened that door as a woman scared because the man I loved was leaving, nervous to live all by myself for the very first time, and essentially prepared to put my life on hold for love.  I shut the door as a woman stronger than I ever imagined I could be, taking the first steps in to a new career, a new love and a very beautiful life.  I don't regret the past year, not any of it, but I am pleased to be done with it.

And as I sat planting the peony (my favorite) bush in the backyard, and the 50 some bulbs of tulips, crocuses and anemones in the front, I realized life is a little like planting bulbs in the fall.  You dig a hole, plant a seed, cover it with dirt and hope like hell that you did it right.  Sometimes you are fairly certain you did, it is hard not to spot the pointed end in a tulip bulb, but with the tiny rock shaped anemones, well you just have to try your best, and hope it all works out.  Only time will tell.  Spring may come and my front yard could be filled with an amazing array of purple blooms, or it might not. 

I can only take comfort in the fact that last fall I planted the seeds the best I knew how and what I thought was a giant mess turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Let's hope my garden yields the same results.

Green Grass All Around

My life has been full of trying to remember new people, new jobs, new directions and new hotel room numbers. My head is spinning with new,new, new.

I suppose its no wonder that sitting here in a lovely hotel, after eating a fantastic dinner, that all I want is the comfort of the old.


That's what we get, we want change so desperately, we claw at that damn door until it opens, and then we sit on the other side wondering why we can't have the things we left behind too.

I am lucky, I get to live with one foot firmly rooted at home and one foot traveling throughout the US. A marriage of my favorite things.

But right now, when everything is moving at hyper speed and the closest thing to consistency is my hotel room and the closest thing I have to real time human connection is the daily note I receive from my housekeeper, well, I want to slow down.

I want to wake up next to the cute boy and not have to hop out of bed to hit the road, I want to spend a Tuesday night staving off the fall chill with a bonfire in a friend's yard.

I know... I know... I wanted this... I still want this... But it also makes me appreciate those that I love so much.

I can't wait to kiss the cute boy's face, squeeze my bestie's hand, laugh hysterically with the favorites and cuddle with my sweet pup.

Perhaps that's the lesson here, I wanted to leave it all behind, instead, I've come to appreciate it more and I still get to keep it.

Life is so very sweet.