Today is the first day of the rest of my life, it also happens to be the first day of the rest of this year.
I thought I ought to dedicate, if only at least just one paragraph of this post to all things last year I had wanted and didn’t get, didn’t have a chance to, didn’t realized I had to, or should have made a change for…and, as I started to rewind my memories, to reflect on a year I am fairly certain I will never call my favorite year…ever… I was haunted by my own written words, the title of my essay “My present. Moment”. It dawned on me, that today is a brand new day, and a new year at that, a new minute and a new moment.
And, whether I tried hard to just focus in the moment, I couldn’t escape the memories of the insanity of trying to fix unfixable relationships, the sadness of being paralyzed, unable to walk, unable to act, unable to run. Having to face things because of my body’s inability to move, let alone get away…
It is true that living in the moment is the wisest and only way one should ever live, but, I cannot erase my past, and thoughts, ideas, while amazingly crafted, beautifully written are sometimes hard to practice. All is wonderful in theory, all is wonderful in prose, and, to act and live upon the ideas to which each and everyone of us is believes in, is the biggest challenge of them all.
Yogi Steve always yells in class the all-truthful, all encompassing match of words, made into a sentence, that I should tattoo into my forehead… “No fight, no flight”, the truthful and almost impossible to act upon concept.
I ended last year on a sour note, and, started this new one on the same one. Unfortunately there was no sage bath, no amount of grapes that could wash off the sense of loss, the lack of hope, of despair almost.
I cried, I felt alone, I felt unloved. I had wished for 2011 to end fast. My Yoga mind and spirit were nowhere to be found before midnight, and as the clock turned to 12:00, my 11:59 feelings of 2011 still remained, untouched, here, in 2012, a year I desperately needed to be perfect. And so, I ran away again, from my most loved one, from myself. I couldn’t bear these old feelings to have remained robust with me, to have traveled through time by my side. I was not only fleeing, I was also fighting my deepest fear, that the clock wouldn’t miraculously and magically just erase the all pain I had inside. I was right.
My Yoga spirit has failed me for most of the day on this first day of the year, the day I needed it the most. I would have hoped that the taste of this New Year would have been sweeter, but my fears, my past, and my ego are so very hard to escape. It’s New Years’ and I didn’t feel blissful, happy, or hopeful.
I know sadness and pain are sometimes unavoidable steps one needs to walk to get somewhere better. I also know I’m not supposed to hope for something better, but, to live “in the present moment”, and while I’m working very hard toward that goal, I am still, light years away from ever truly achieving it. I guess that is the beauty of Yoga in my life. Yoga has the key to opening a place in my heart were there is a deep understanding that whatever is going on right now, old pains, my past, my biggest oops, my own insecurities are not me, they are the rides that have brought me here, to this exact moment, so I can know that I am the strength of my heart and not its pain.
Life isn’t about instant midnight happiness or unrealistic expectations, is it about accepting whatever it throws at you, and boy, does it throw. It’s not about having every moment be a replica of our sometimes foolish and unrealistic end of the year expectations. Life is like holding on to crow while you feel like an ass, and, the beauty isn’t in the pose itself, but on the strength one gets by not quitting, not ever.
I love you Dee O.
