Namaste.

I flow through Sun Salutations. At first, I am thoughtful, thought-filled, and then, there is no thought at all. I am stilling the fluctuations of my mind. Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha. I am resigned and resilient.

I am not depressed. I am just struggling. Times are difficult. This time has been difficult. Trying. Long. Lonely. Frustrating. Scary.

It’s not about being braver. Not really. It’s about being different. Powering through. Finding a different way. I know I have it within me but sometimes, some days, the journey within takes too long and well, you know, I am fatigued.

Standing postures. I breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Ridding myself of self-doubt and regret and pain. Welcoming hope and courage. This is not a bullshit practice where I delude myself in a very profound way. This is my place where I have the ability to shut the rest of the world out. Find my quiet. Find myself without spectators and judges and points of comparison.

This is my safety zone where I can explore what I want and what I need and where those things intersect. This is where I get to make choices and explore options. This is when I get to choose. To really choose. For me, and only me. I can even look at the reality of a thing and decide that it’s not real. And still, I’m allowed to entertain it. For a moment. Just a thought. Perhaps a far-reaching thought. Perhaps something not quite possible, but still, it’s my fantasy. So, I’m allowed.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I know the way, or even a way. I don’t. That’s not how it works, at all. I’m as lost as anyone else. And still, I long to shout. I want to tell everyone that we are all in this together, because really, so few of us know what the fuck we are doing. We are all just stumbling along trying to figure all of this out, aren’t we?

Unfortunately, there are too many who are steeped in the bullshit of their own making, on both sides. Those who believe that have it all figured out and those who accept that they will never figure it out. Both sides who have resolutely decided that there is no where to meet in the middle, because there is no middle in nowhere. It is just one side or the other.

Maybe that’s my real problem. I am stuck in a place in the in between. Right in the center. I’m not sure what side to fall into. I know some things. I have some idea of where I’m going and what I’m doing and then, everything else is a crap shoot. Everything else I can’t seem to figure out, no matter how hard I try. Perhaps the worst part is that I’m okay here, in the between world. I’m okay in the gray. I don’t need to figure it out.

Some days I suppose I just wish I had more people with me here. I wish I had more people that shared their truth, the real parts. Not the fake happy shit. The real happy shit, but then also, the fears and disappointments. The real reasons why they went on that diet or stayed with that person or ordered those pants or attended that party. How they feel about that thing their spouse did or kid said or boss wrote.

I suppose I crave a sort of honesty in a world that is decidedly dishonest. It just is. We don’t like it. It makes us uncomfortable. Skin crawling kind of discomfort. It’s not that we walk around lying. That’s not what I’m trying to say. We just crave a control of the narrative.

I think that’s why social media caught on like wild fire. I think most people think it’s because we now had a window into others’ lives and thoughts and fears and loves and truths and sadness. I don’t think so. Not really. I think we just finally had the ability to cast, direct, and produce our own story. We were giving the keys to a fake kingdom, but by golly, it was ours and we were going to float around there for as long as we could, we can.

I’m not claiming that there are days where I don’t care for my story. There are so many rough bits there. There are so many places where I wish I could smooth things out or make things nicer. I want to spin things a certain way or just blur our harsh lines with some kind of filter. I want to make it prettier. More palatable. More fitting. More of a fit.

But more than that, I crave real. Real shit. Real, ugly, messy, gross shit. Ugly crying and bear hugs and stories that are incredibly cringe inducing. I want to talk about birth and death and that person you shouldn’t have fucked and also, the one you wish you could.

I want to talk about how you really feel about social constructs and how badly you fucked up that recipe and how you were despondent over not getting the promotion but secretly gleeful when neither did she.

I want to see your zits and age spots and frizzy hair and the poppy seed that got stuck in your tooth after you gleefully ate that fucking bagel. I don’t want you to tell me that celery juice tastes better than a giant cup of light and sweet coffee or you never miss eating real ice cream. I want you to not desire to defend hitting the snooze button and admit that you love your fuck me shoes because they are fuck me shoes, not because they are comfortable. Because they aren’t, comfortable. At all. Don’t even fucking try it.

Also, I want to see your chipped nail polish and scuffed sneakers and stained tote bag. I want to know that your car smells like the Thai food you got for dinner last night and your wife thinks you are a dirt bag for throwing dirty gym clothes on the bathroom floor and not in the FUCKING HAMPER.

I want you to love reality television because you are glad it isn’t your life and also, you want it to be your life and also, it’s something that you just can’t look away from. I want you to look at every picture in Vanity Fair and then admit to yourself that there are well-written articles but you don’t give a shit.

Am I done? Nah. I’m just getting started.

I want it all. And then, I want more. I find myself in a seated position again and I stretch my legs nice and long in front of me. I fold forward, resting my head fairly close to my aching quadriceps. The air is fairly fragranced now, thanks to the hipster candle maker.

I roll myself up and then roll myself almost immediately down. I pull my knees into my chest and roll gently on my spine. I think about all the things that embarrass people in yoga. Air release. See through tights. A lack of flexibility. Tardiness.

I explain to people that’s not the practice. The practice of yoga is forgiving. It is forgiveness. It is sometimes running late and always showing up with high emotions. It is expecting everything and expecting nothing.

I release my right leg down to the floor and pull my left leg up straight, heel pulling towards the ceiling. I interlace my hands behind my thigh and roll my head and shoulders off the mat, bringing my nose towards my leg. Tight abdominals. Isn’t that all we want and need in life? Abdominals? Doesn’t that cure all? Cure everything? Make us worth loving, make life worth living?

I roll down, release the left leg and pull the right leg up. I am tighter on this side. A fundamental lack of symmetry. My body holds tension and tightness here. My dominant side. It is so busy doing work that it doesn’t give itself any grace to breathe. To release. To relax.

My inability to let go is my most toxic trait. I hold onto people and places and things and sadness and heartache and tension and pain. I hold on with the tightest grip. I white knuckle all the things you should and then, everything you shouldn’t.

My right leg gently releases and I spread my legs wide, heels to the corner of the mats. I breathe from the soles of my feet to the tip of my head. I breathe deeply and fill every crevice with the oxygen we so desperately need to survive.

This is what survival looks like. Savasana. Corpse Pose.

I used to find this morbid. Corpse? Are you fucking kidding me? The final pose after a practice of self-worship and an ode to breathing is faking dead? How could I possibly accept this as so? It seems nonsensical. Ridiculous. An oversight. An overestimation.

I heard a story once, told by a death doula. She said that the one universal fact she recognized after many years of helping people die, was that there is some measure of peace in most deaths. The fear that plagues so many up until that point seemingly vanishes. The Hollywood version of death is not really so. Gone are the stresses and worries and anxieties. Death is inevitable and so, the acceptance of such is also an inevitability. There is nothing left to anticipate. The worst thing you ought to be able to imagine has arrived and suddenly, there is nothing left to fear.

Once I heard that, Savasana made sense to me. I didn’t need to read scriptures or lap up interpretations. I didn’t need to listen to lectures. I understood. That’s what these moments are for us, to us. They are not a resignation, a giving up. They are a rest. A willingness to let go. A willingness to fully understand that what will be, will be. It cannot be rewritten.

We cannot change what will happen to us, we can only control how we react. How we hold ourselves. The meaning we ascribe to such things. We can only determine what that will mean for us moving forward. What do we actually want our lives to look like within the boundaries that have been placed around us?

We have not created boundaries or barriers or restrictions. That’s not what I’m insinuating. I’m not condemning choices. I’m advising that every action has a consequence or consequences. There are results and reactions and there is a world that is shaped around us because of where we go and what we do and who we bring along. But then, we have the beautiful opportunity to take it from there.

I started my practice with the thought of sadness. The feeling of sadness. The awareness of sadness. And now, I am ending my practice with the acceptance of such things. Not a determination that I will sink into depression. No. That’s not it at all. Rather, a thought, a feeling, that this is temporary. This is fleeting. Passing. It is a dark cloud and perhaps one that has stayed for longer than others, but not one that will be here forever. It is moving through. Not at a speed I can control. There are factors well beyond my fingertips. But, the world is shifting and shaping around me and in turn, I have knowledge of such things, and I can elect where I want to go from here. What do I want to do next? How can I take all of this information and move around in the world in a way that celebrates my life, my accomplishments, my goals, my dreams, my mistakes?

There is not relentless sunshine when I close my eyes. There is no instant peace. There is a thought of peace though. There is a moment that I didn’t have before. There is a pause. A meaningful hesitation where I get to fill the space with something that I choose. That I want. That I need.

I get to take these moments, in a darkened, quiet apartment, in the middle of the night, for me. I get to move and I choose to be still. I have a busy mind that I allow to run and then, I have a quiet mind. A stilled mind. A controlled mind.

I am the master of my own fate. I am writing my story around the story that has already been written for me.

I inhale. Exhale. Wiggle my fingers. Toes. Roll my head from side to side on my skull. Allow my eyes to flutter open.

Namaste.

x

L.

P.S. Heading out for a brief R&R. Talk soon.