hello 2014

acroyoga beauty at playa hermosa, costa rica

the second half of 2013 was a big one for me.  after a few tough months of contemplation, adam and i broke up in early october.  we had been together so long that making the decision felt as a surreal as it did sad.  i just couldn't believe that the person--this best-friend person, this everyday-in-my-life person, this stability person, this co-dog parent person, this person who i had thought i'd be with in my life for a good long while--just wasn't there anymore.  still as strange and sad as it was, it also felt right.  we had a good relationship but there were divisive differences in the way we envisioned life and i could see things getting harder instead of easier.  we saw a therapist which was helpful but not enough to fix things.

in the months of indecision prior to the break-up, i was so afraid of how hard it would be to separate out our lives.  i wondered who would live where and how we would share poncho and what our families would say.  in my most private moments, i also worried that the grounding and stability i had found in myself through our relationship would melt away when he packed up his things.  i pretty much knew that wasn't true, but there was a little nasty voice in my head that told me i would fall apart and it would take a good long while to recover.

of course, the reality of things was much softer than my fear.  we made the decision, i called friends to cry the immediate tears, and then, feeling a bit numb, went with my brother to see "gravity" in 3d imax.  my mom was in town so she took me to the korean spa and spent the day reassuring me that everything would be ok and i would get through it.  we maturely divided our things in less than a hour, found a reasonable way to share poncho, and the timing worked out so i was in mexico when he moved out.  i felt every emotion that i expected but also a bedrock of ok-in-myself beneath it all.  my heart was sad but my self-esteem was intact.

now fall is officially over and 2014 is here and i guess i am ready to write about it (i sat down to write something else and then this came up). i'm doing pretty well and i think what helped me the most through it all was the thought that it wasn't supposed to be easy. if it was hard i let it be hard and watched as it passed.  it's still hard a lot, but thank everything for my yoga practice which teaches me on a daily basis how to breath through lots of sensation and then watch as it changes into something else.  everything ends, and everything changes and the only thing that remains the same is that i can observe it all. yoga teaches me to identify more with the observer of my experience.  this helps me to really think about how i want to respond to a situation instead of flying crazy with my first emotional impulses.

once the truth of adam and i ending our relationship came to the front, i felt a lot of relief. i could let it fall apart and trust that this would bring us both to better places.  we ended up relationship with gratitude and very little bitterness. it was a shift for me to understand that all good relationships won't last forever and that all break-ups don't have to be bad.  as we divided everything up and said our goodbyes, i kept thinking about those tibetan monks who go around the world making sand mandalas.  they work so hard for days to make these beautiful, intricate sand designs.  and after all that work, they end their demonstration by blowing the design away.  it's a reminder of the beauty and impermanence of all things in this life and that despite that, the building is still worth it.

so 2013 was hard and it was also amazing.  i have to take both of those at once.  i ended my year on a beach in costa rica and welcomed 2014 with a showering of bright white fireworks and a swim through the luminescent ocean. it felt good to be there, just as myself, soaking in what i could of my life.  i am surrounded by so many true people these days and still i feel a deep loneliness at times that i can't change but only breath into.  the work i do feels vital and important to me and i get anxious sometimes that it should be more than it is.  in my still, honest moments i feel so content with the up and down of my development and i know i couldn't have gotten here without my time with adam.  still, i don't need him to continue my trajectory. who knows what comes next?  i'm sure some wonderful things mixed with harder emotions.  life will keep moving me and my dedication to going with the flow of things has never felt stronger.