Braved the detritus at the end of a difficult week and asked my people for help (HELP!!) - sometimes the hardest ask- so that I could get a minute, a moment, to myself at the start of the weekend before Chris is gone for the week and I am leading the charge for all of the things. Maple showed up for me and braved a few hours of tears with a little boy- her brother- who wanted so badly his mother/her mother and nothing that she steered him toward could shake the sorrow of that separation.
But I took a 26&2 class in MY VERY OWN TOWN and when I walked in studio owner and teacher G was wearing a shirt that said: Beg, Steal, Borrow; and I cannot make this shit up that was my mantra as I peeled myself out of my daily track and into my car and down the hill and through the door of this new space. And I started a relationship today with the infrared heat in that space and the wonder that is subtle yet deep heat from the inside versus set to sear from the outside. It has me curious and excited to explore practice + teaching in that climate.
I left yoga to texts of overdrawn accounts and inconsolable toddlers and gave myself a mental bravo high five for not being too distraught over either. Shit happens and I am doing my best which by the way is enough even when it hurts and folks get frustrated.
Then braved poorly timed car naps and paltry snack situations for some snow and ski play before the freeze thaw cycle that starts up again tomorrow. Maybe we will get the trees tapped now. Maybe not. But time spent in play is still the very best time. And the way that Chris smiles at me when Wilfred skis fast into Eider’s arms and Eider embraces him as only he can is just about every single thing that caused me to incarnate to begin with.
And it continues to be strange and beautiful and tragic to me that choosing myself over my kids is such an impossibility. That in my fatigue and emptiness, I still rather play with them or listen to them or drive them than fill my own cup, because their cups are still mine too… For the time being, or forever, and I feel the cliche and small death in that even as I fight to choose something new. Something distinct. Something that maybe can place one foot in both worlds.
I don’t know. But I am learning new lessons these days and it is uncomfortable as ever and stretching me in some new ways and I think I can do it even though sometimes I cannot imagine how I could ever love myself more than them and see into form the next chapter of our lives through today’s heavy curtain of tears, and hope, and promise. Forgiveness, and compassion, and generosity continue to be the path forward and my faltering steps continue to follow it. Imperfectly as ever. Dissolving and becoming with each one.