Tonight I pace my house. I get to go back to work tomorrow. The surgeon also said I can do yoga when I feel like it but not to do anything crazy (**scratching head, what??). I'm not quite sure she knows what Bikram yoga entails. It's hard, it's intense. I sat there in her office, in a sundress, looking at the photos of my insides (gross!) and dropped the cap to my water bottle. She bent over and picked it up for me, telling me I shouldn't be bending over yet. That made me realize that she didn't know what she was saying, releasing me to Bikram. So I'll wait. A little longer. Maybe one more week.
So I pace. Today was hard. That leaf, the one that flutters aimlessly in and out of my life, I picked it back up today. It always used to make me feel good, feel beautiful. But not today. I held the phone to my ear, listening to his voice wash over me like candy and heard what he didn't say. "Do you need anything?" "Can I pick you up anything?". That's what they all have said, everybody that cares, everybody but him. I stared at the phone when we hung up, feeling hollow and empty and understanding that it was time to stop the madness. I emailed and said goodbye, but it wasn't necessary....goodbye was said long ago.
Feeling raw, vulnerable and exposed I pace and pace. Re-invent yourself. That's what my father said after my parents divorced. Chubby, intellectual, painfull shy, glasses, I stared at him, dumfounded. Thirty something at the time, and hearbroken to lose his preteen daughter his big brown eyes, a mirror of my own pleaded with me "re invent yourself". And I did. Reinvent myself. I went from chubby painfully shy child to outgoing vice president of my class cross country running team captain of the jv swim team michelle. I reinvented myself. So I pace tonight, and I hear his voice again, telling me to do it once again. My belly is swollen, the three small incisions angry due to my restless pacing. My body is soft, less defined, and my hair hangs loosely down my back in a long thin ponytail. And I pace, trying to ignore the heart that sits so very prominently on my sleeve. Damn, why me? Why am I so open, heartfelt, transparent? Why can't I be more....bitchy? So I pace, back and forth.....chewing at my fingernails, the weight of the world on my shoulders....my thoughts swinging back to yoga and how much I miss it. That is what is important to me....first and foremost after my role as mother. I am a yogini. No need to re-invent this time. That is who I have become.
Lately, I go back and forth between thinking: a time comes when you are who you are, embrace it, own it, love that self; and, you are never too old (or young) to reinvent who you are, to open yourself, to change and grow.
ReplyDeleteDare I say...maybe it's about finding the balance between the two?? :) As in: Accept and nurture the sides of self you love, while also looking to make over the sides of self you want to shed like old skin.
Ohhhh, this balance business. Does it ever stop?!
Hannah~ There is a tshirt that says: Seek balance. I love that. I read Dancing J's post on balance today and love the way she ends it:
ReplyDelete"You've got to balance like your hair's on fire, and this is the only way out of the burning building... through your asana practice, through your meditation (moving or still), through the yoga of your life..."
I think maybe my hair is on fire....
:)