Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hiatus...

Sooo… it’s been a while. I apologize. I freaked out when school started. Blogging seemed like one more thing I had to keep up with while simultaneously trying to rearrange my schedule, learn to study…really study… plus work, Jeff, working out, life, etc…I thought that if I couldn’t write regularly, I shouldn’t write at all. I have a lil problem with “black and white” thinking. I forget there are 8,000 shades of gray in between. My shades of gray may look like writing regularly again, or periodically. Either way I guess the point is to simply write. Right?
Currently I’m on spring break. The school’s terms run in trimesters so every 14 weeks, we’re off for 3 or 4 weeks. My first and so far only, term went very well. I fell in love with having a very regular, regimented schedule. I got up and went to bed at the same time every day. This is something I haven’t done since I was in school for hair. I also fell in love with the material I was learning, my teachers and classmates. I took 3 classes that were 3 hours each in the evening on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I reduced my work hours from 40 to 32 to accommodate this without losing my mind.
Monday night was Chinese Medical Theory, Tuesday was Stress Management and Wednesday was Anatomy. Very quickly I began to develop an appreciation not only for my own body but for other bodies with their different shapes and sizes. We are so perfectly put together that it blows my mind. Our bodies do so much for us without our needing to do a single thing. Palpating each other’s muscles and bones in Anatomy brought awareness like I have never known to each and every movement that we make.
Once I locked down my schedule and routine I noticed I was seeing more of Jeff now than I was before school started. Time between work and class was first spent at Intelligentsia but it gets a lil rowdy in there so I moved my study/stare at/talk to Jeff sessions over to the Chicago Cultural Center. It’s just a couple of doors down from Intelli. There are art exhibits, musical performances and a giant room where people can hang out, study, read or relax. It’s a lovely escape from the chaos of downtown Chicago. No matter what though, Friday’s are our nights for just us. I am off from work and school and Jeff’s work day wraps up early leaving time for us to do something, or absolutely nothing. His presence kept me sane during the excruciating process of studying for midterms and finals. I don’t test well. I have such stupid amounts of anxiety over tests that I tend to get squirrelly in the weeks leading up to the exam. I eat my way through studying, and feel quite snippy with people. During the test I freeze, staring at sections of questions knowing that I know the answers but they won’t make their way to my pen and to the paper.
Despite all this, I managed to make good grades and feel ecstatic that I juggled everything and still came out ok. I ran an half marathon, entered my second erotic fiction contest benefiting Chicago Women’s Health Center, kept up with my journal and began a regular yoga practice while still hitting the gym 3-4 days a week. I also got new glasses and cut all my hair off. Somehow cutting my hair short helps me to feel more like “myself” again.

A classmate told me about a style of yoga called “Forrest Yoga”. A woman named Ana Forrest developed this kind of practice. She wrote a book about it titled “Fierce Medicine”. The poses are held for longer amounts of time than in other practices allowing for the emotions trapped in our muscles to be released. Turns out the only studio that offers this kind of yoga is… within walking distance of my apartment. Of course I signed up immediately.
Never have I ever felt so strong, so physically capable, in my life. Never have I ever cried during a yoga class. Never have I ever felt surges of energy coursing through my body and never have I ever felt such intense amounts of anger, grief, and giddiness (not at the same time!) simply by holding a pose. Obviously they aren’t all just holding a simple pose. A lot of the time I’m twisted into something that I had no idea was possible and in holding that pose, standing in that awkward place, the feelings come to the surface. Just when I think I can’t hold it anymore, when I think I’m going to fall out of it because my thighs or arms are shaking so hard, I remind myself that I am much stronger than I believed to be true. Showing up to these classes, being enveloped in the love and kindness the teachers and other students so readily give has helped to unwind the tapes that play over and over in my head telling me negative, self-deprecating things that no longer serve me.

Very carefully I am learning to loosen the tight grip I maintain on myself. I’m questioning everything I’ve ever believed…about myself, my relationships with people, and what it actually means to be happy. Slowly, so very slowly I feel a kind of peace coming over me in the learning process that is accepting my body for what it is today.
Jeff and I are headed to San Francisco on April 20th. Rob will have been gone 4 years on that day. The sadness of that loss is quieting down and I’m ecstatic to be taking a much needed trip with Jeff. More on that later though. I need to pack!

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