It’s been about three years since I went to a yoga class in a proper yoga studio. I love yoga, so I don’t really know why I’ve kept myself absent from it for so long. Well, that’s not totally true. I have my notions, theories of why I stayed away. Tonight, though, I went back. On the way in, I met the woman who was my first yoga teacher back in 2007. Lana Boyuk is a yogi and spiritual guru of the highest order. When I was at my most darkest place in life, in the midst of a full fledged episode of major depressive disorder, back between 2008 and 2010, she was the one whose ‘beginners’ class I took for about two years straight, repeatedly, until, one night, she came over and put her hand on my shoulder and said kindly, but firmly, “I think you can move up to ‘All Levels’ now, Kim.” I had no self-confidence then, and I felt like a blobby creature on the mat. I was obese, puffed out by a high dosage of Remeron that killed the depression but mysteriously seemed to add weight while I slept. (I hated Remeron because it blew me up physically, but it pulled me out of suicidal ideation, so you had to thank it for that.)
When my dad died in December 2011, I weighed about 230 lbs. I don’t say that often, but it’s true. The weight of the world pressed down on my shoulders. Taking care of ill parents isn’t a pleasant experience. Watching them slip away and die is even worse. At my darkest point, I found yoga class at OM Yoga Space and then, later, at Cedar Street Yoga, which then evolved into Myoga. Lana was my first yoga teacher. (I still remember her saying, one night, “Let your bottom blossom like a flower….let your sit bones root into the floor.”) My second teacher was Willa Paterson, a woman who knew how to adjust my overweight body so that I wouldn’t hurt myself. (I have a weird staple in my left hip from a childhood surgery at Sick Kids…so I’m always mindful of the fact that my left leg sort of just ‘sticks’ sometimes during Zumba, or yoga, or even sometimes hitches painfully when I’m walking. At times, it can cripple me and it takes everything not to buckle to the ground. Still, I know that, if I don’t move, it will all seize up and be much worse. I can never wear a dress without a cardigan because of the stupid staple that is lodged in my hip. I look lopsided…it’s the one thing I really don’t like about my body…that and the fact that, when I get tired, I start to limp because of it. Then I feel just a wee bit broken. True story.)
Willa Paterson was my second teacher, and the person who was teaching me again tonight. I went in, thinking that–for the first time ever–this would actually be the very first yoga class in my life that I would take while I was both physically and mentally well. I’ve never been healthier, physically, and I know I’m the healthiest I’ve been mentally in my entire life. I’m more content and physically fit than I was in my 20s. That’s quite an accomplishment. I’m proud of it. It didn’t come easily. I worked hard for it all. I lost 55 lbs between the time my dad died, in December 2011 and 2014. Most of that is due to weekly Zumba sessions and about two years of Weight Watchers weigh ins. Then, I just started walking…and I never really stopped. 🙂
In the last year or so, I stopped weighing myself. I only know that I’ve lost weight because of dropping clothing sizes…and because people mention it to me. It isn’t about sizes or weight, though. To be honest, it’s the ghost of sick parents who didn’t take care of themselves that has motivated me the most. That will haunt you, as it should, and it served as a wake-up call. In the last year, and especially in the last few months, I’ve shrunk again. My confidence has grown. I feel strong and sexy, which I would never have said two years ago. I’ve rooted myself in my writing, which has given me more joy than I’d ever imagined. When you step into yourself, after most of your life trying to please others and be dutiful (even if you wrongly mistake duty for love), well, it’s quite brilliant. 🙂
Tonight, standing on that mat in Myoga, listening to Willa talk about pointing your feet forward, to move forward in life, I thought, “Yes! My feet are finally pointed forward. How fucking brilliant is that?!” It took so much work. Medication, therapy, yoga, walking, singing, Zumba, writing, and a few very good friends. Eight years of work. Hard, hard, slogging work. I’m exhausted now, to be honest. Being strong is hard work. When your family is fairly small–almost non-existent, really–you learn to cultivate a family of friends. I’ve been blessed to find like minded and kindred souls here in Sudbury (and farther afield) who take me as I am. That’s new for me. I’m blessed. Those closest to me, and they know who they are because I talk to them every week on the phone, or in person, or in a conversation via email or texting, don’t just ‘take’ from me, but ‘give’ me more love than I sometimes even feel I deserve…
So…why did I stay away from it so long, when yoga only ever makes me feel freer and more empowered? I think, lately, it’s been my energy. Since my ‘encounter with the wretched snowbank’ outside Oro-Medonte on my way home from Bobcaygeon after Christmas break, my energy has ramped up. I couldn’t figure it out at first. Maybe it was just that I’d finally fully accepted my new ‘self,’ or that I was anxious for exciting new things that seemed to just hover on the edges of my life, teasing me with possibility. Today, I figured it out. (I’m slow sometimes….when it comes to deciphering signs and messages from the Universe!) What I just passed off lightly as an ‘encounter with a wretched snowbank’ was actually–as my friend, Jason, said a couple of weeks ago, with a very concerned look on his face–an actual car accident. I was very shaken by it, but tried to deny it to myself. I was lucky to have not seriously hurt myself, or the dogs. (I know…they’re ‘just dogs’…and people will sort of be reading this saying, “Whatever…get over it…dogs are replaceable.” But they aren’t. Not to me. To me, they’re my family. That I nearly hurt myself, and them, makes me feel sick inside.)
Here’s what I think: I think my energy ramped up in January because I realized, on some level, that I had very nearly died. That sounds dramatic, but it was a terrifying accident. I downplayed it in writing, so as not to scare myself, or my dearest friends. But it was terrifying. Thank God for the Scotsman who took me in and made me sit in his garage while he puffed smoke in my general direction…and talked to me to be sure I wasn’t too shaken to continue on driving home that day. You see…and here it is, really…I think that accident made me realize, yet again, that we really don’t know how much time we have here on the planet. We can’t dawdle. The result of me making it through that accident meant that my soul ‘kicked it up a notch,’ sending energy surging through my physical and spiritual body with an intensity I’ve never felt before.
The result has been excessive Zumba dancing, walking, and (seemingly) overly exuberant shows of poetic and creative fervour. Now, as it levels off, I know what it means…that, maybe, I’m lucky to have found an outlet to exorcise the physical discomfort I feel if I feel bored or ‘stopped’ in my life. It was a wake up call, that ‘little’ accident. January and part of February have served as proof that it changed, again, the way I look at how I live each day. My friend Jen said the other day, “Um, you do get that this energy isn’t normal, right? Like, ‘P.S., it’s a bit too intense and I’m worried about you.'” I just laughed.
Maybe it’s the new me. I’m okay with it. It makes me feel content and confident. I feel it’s a gift…to realize you might have died, to realize that, when snow is flying over your windshield when you hit black ice on a farm road, well, your life doesn’t really flash before you. All I thought was, “Well, if it’s time, it’s time.” I felt calm. Too calm. But I was glad I felt calm. It meant, on some level, that I felt I’ve done a good job with my life thus far. I don’t have any regrets…well, maybe a couple to do with loves from my 20s, but nothing more that would break me. There are times when I wish I’d kissed someone more often, but that’s in the distant past now…and he’s married with kids, so I wish him well. Always.
Tonight’s yoga class…made me realize that I can move more easily now that my belly has shrunk. I can twist more easily. I can stretch into myself, into the spaces inside my rib cage and heart, and open up even more of myself to what will come in the years that haven’t arrived yet. So, yes, my feet are pointing forward. Finally. They are pointed forward…and it’s bloody well about time.
peace,
k.
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