100 Days of Happy Day 3

It’s single parenting take II starting today as John works from Portland. On these days I count myself successful if the kids have clothing on, are not starving, and remain alive. It’s all very uncivilized. I ended the afternoon with a medley of broccoli, peas and pears on my sweatshirt shoulder. And perhaps a bit of snot – it’s tough to tell. There was little (no) time for myself between getting all The Things done for the girls to start back at school tomorrow, and keeping O occupied. But I did manage to get my entire bed laundered and looking fresh to death like a million bucks. One of my favorite things in the world… If one of my deepest desires came true and I was given a laundry goddess to do *ALL* my laundry each day, she would probably find me very difficult and indulgent… because I would have her wash all my sheets every day. That’s how much I love fresh clean sheets. There is nothing like it, and they are different even after one night. But tonight… they are brand new, crisp-ity fresh from the dryer, and I get to sleep in them all by myself.  HAPPY.

100 Days of Happy Day 2

Back in the day, there was not a Starbucks on every corner. People didn’t walk around with their quad skinny mocha fraps. My mom drank Folgers crystals. From a can. To tell you the truth, it seemed gross and I had no desire to drink it. I didn’t start drinking coffee until college – finals time. Even then, I choked it down and found it less than delightful. It wasn’t until my 20’s that I developed a true appreciation for the java. When living in San Francisco, I discovered Spinelli’s – a narrow little coffee shop that, if I lay down on the floor perpendicularly, I could touch the entire place at the same time. (I never did this). They roasted the darkest coffee around. I bought their beans and made my coffee every day. Love was born…

I was out late last night – which for me, is rare… bordering on never. In addition, I was up in the middle of the night settling my little teething sir back to sleep. (As an aside, teething is the antithesis of happy).

At any rate, waking up this morning I had that all-too-familiar cotton head feeling that I know to be utter exhaustion. But I knew what was waiting for me in the kitchen – my sweet coffee. Does it make me happy? You bet it does.

100 Days of Happy... Day 1

Happiness is an interesting topic to me. I think so many of us are looking to “be happy.” We try to acquire it. We try to attain it. We try to keep it and make it stretch on indefinitely. If we don’t succeed we feel like we’re failing at life in some way. To me, happiness is not something to acquire, attain, or keep. It is something you hold delicately in the palm of your hand, on the roof of your mouth, in the deepest part of your bones, for seconds, minutes, perhaps days… But it is a delicate balance of holding and releasing it. Just as it comes, it will pass. And so, for me it is about cherishing those beautiful moments to their fullest when they come. I have found they are everywhere, if you look. And, if you don’t care that you are wearing your old pajama pants and it’s rainy outside and your kids have the flu when they happen. They can *still happen* everyday. It takes effort of appreciate them. But I think it’s great to try and find those moments, see them – appreciate them.

See, I’m long-winded as shit. It’s a good thing I’m writing this on my blog.

Here’s my Day 1:

One of my most terrifying moments as a parent to date came just 3 days in. I was recovering from Peyton’s long birth, and had the stomach flu to boot. Needless to say, I was exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to sleep – for days, really. But Peyton needed me. She was hungry. She wanted me to hold her close and take care of her. I realized with the enormity of a truckload of bricks on my chest what this all meant. I would never again be able to lie in bed because *I* was sick. I would never again be able to call in to work and say, “You know, I’m just not feeling so hot today. I better just stay home (and watch The Love Boat all day)” Those days were over. I know – DUH. That’s what parenting is all about. But for the first time I really FELT what that meant. It scared me to my core. I was terrified. But I picked her up and gazed at her and realized that though the road ahead would be filled with challenges, it would be filled with amazing joyful moments too. Like the way she looked at me just then -- filled with love and trust. It is those moments I love as a parent. It is those moments that steal the show in the happiness department on a day to day basis. Today it was THIS little moment. Brooklyn in a pair of my high heels, which much to her chagrin, I NEVER wear… She is “teaching” her baby brother, in his bouncy swing, how to file his nails. As you can see, he is a very captive audience. These little moments are the thread of my life. They are the heart, soul and bottom line of who I am. They make me Happy.

On The Edge... Of 40

I have already been asked… and if you’re over 40 you know the question because you were probably asked, too. “How does it FEEL?”

Because turning 40 is a big deal apparently. Not like turning 37 or 39 or 42. Feelings come along with graduating to the fourth decade.

So I’ve thought about it, taking careful stock of how I might feel.  And, well… it appears (so far anyway, 2 weeks from the big day) that it’s all good. I’m here now. Life is a progression, so really, I can’t imagine NOT turning 40. Though if you had asked me years ago, I would have told you that 40 is old as dirt.

I remember my Mom turning 40. I was a sophomore in high school. There was a banner on the wall that said “Lordy Lordy, Marty is Forty!” I distinctly remember thinking: well, so now my mom is OLD. But looking back, she was anything but. There is a picture of her from that night. She is wearing a pair of skinny Guess jeans. Her arm is looped over one of her best friend’s shoulders. She has long black hair and she’s smiling really big and happy-like for the camera. She was a far cry from OLD.  

Perhaps I’m okay with moving forward because I really have no desire to go back. There is certainly not an age from my past I would prefer being. My twenties were a time for learning, making mistakes, fumbling around, and ultimately searching for what truly brings me authentic joy. Hint: 4 martinis in a row does not bring joy. Neither do cigarettes. Memories from this era are cringe-worthy in retrospect – as they should be. They are entertaining as well. The lessons I learned were learned the hard way – the messy way. And that was okay because it was just me on the journey. The discovery process sounded a bit like: "Oh crap. That sucked. Better not do that again. Or... maybe I will do it again just a few more times to be sure..." I had a lot of fun too, but it’s not the kind of fun that appeals to me these days. I do thank God and Jesus that smart phones and social media did not yet exist – lest I be faced with photographic documentation for the rest of my life.

Though my teen years for all intents and purposes were pretty idyllic, I would never want to repeat them either. It makes me sad to see someone who feels their glory days have been lived out in their teens and everything else is downhill.  I was extremely blessed to live in a safe place where my ultimate responsibility was to go to school and have fun. But as is typical for that age, I didn’t know I was blessed and I wanted desperately to move to the next thing. It is true at that age I could eat pizza followed by ice cream only to wash it all down with dr. pepper, and somehow not gain weight and/or feel like I would fall into a refined sugar/carbohydrate induced coma and eventually die… But it still doesn’t make me want to be a teenager.

My late twenties and the entirety of my thirties consisted of getting married and building our family. We crashed into adult-life and parenthood the way a bus crashes into a semi truck. The day after our wedding we discovered we were also pregnant. Surprise! So in one fell swoop I was newly married, and a mother. It has been non-stop from there. Peyton, then quickly Quincy, and a few short years later – Brooklyn. Then low and behold, just when things started to slow down a little – Owen!! It has been a whirlwind, and it hasn’t always been easy. In fact, it has often been quite challenging. Bringing little humans into the world and attempting to raise them is really exhausting and hard work. But it is also wonderful. The lessons I’ve learned this decade have been the most rewarding… the joy I have felt has been the most pure.   Though again, I would never ever want to re-live these years…  

So here I am now, with all of these people who belong to me – who I belong to… And it feels like just the beginning. I am fully aware the years ahead will come with their own set of obstacles. The years always do… But hopefully, now that I am a seasoned woman of forty (snort) who has been jostled and bounced around a bit with all these life experiences, I will be able to charge onward and find the blessings and beauty in the things I have yet to experience. Hopefully I will be able to face the darker moments with courage and strength.  I am so excited to watch my kids grow. I am so excited that this is a “new chapter” for me and for John. It’s bananas to think that in another decade I will have a 21 year old (Peyton) and a 10 year old (Owen).

So, I “FEEL” good. I hope my body cooperates and stays healthy. But I won’t complain about getting older because it is a gift. In fact, I will try to remember to be thankful for every day that I’m given. (I would have never been able to do that in my 20’s). And maybe (God-willing) when I’m writing a post on my 90^th birthday I’ll admit that I’m actually getting up there in years. But not yet.  

Owen's Birth Story

 Surprise pregnancies are comedic and terrifying. The afternoon I decided to go buy the test was the same afternoon I earlier found myself sitting down after a not-so-exhausting or uncommon morning… and yet I wanted – no, needed really, to just sit down, kick my feet up and... collect myself. The next thing I knew I woke up drooling on myself as the sun was slanting significantly lower in the sky. Pieces started to fit together… All the telltale signs and the light bulb went off, along with the accompanying thought, “holy crap.”

I bought the usual things at the store… stuff for dinner, things to make lunches for the girls the following week… And the pink box with the test in it. As John put the groceries away, unbeknownst to him I snuck the box into the bathroom, locked the door and pee’d on the white piece of plastic. Low and behold, I watched not one, but two dark lines appear. My initial reaction? Laughter. Oh, I got a good laugh at that test sitting there on the counter telling me I was pregnant. I mean, the humor of it really… After years of contemplating a fourth child, we had finally decided “we were done.” A point that was emphasized by the purchase of our large, and quite frankly (though I love him dearly) pain in the ass dog. I will admit, newborns still pulled at my heart. But we had experienced the heartbreak of early losses… We felt completely blessed by our girls… It wasn’t as if we were spring chickens any longer, and well… we were done. That was our decision: DONE.

The test mocked me on the counter. It wasn’t real... “John,” I called nonchalantly out the bathroom door. He was dealing with the chaos of the girls and organizing the groceries. “WHAT!?” he answered, in probably not his most cool calm and collected tone. Things were already out of control in our lives. This was not real. “Would you please come here and take a look at something?” I called. He met me at the bathroom door, his eyes saying I love you but wtf?? “Just go look on the counter…” I said. He looked. He knew. I saw him processing, and then… the smallest tiniest smile appeared. He said in mock seriousness “what did you DO?”

“This isn’t real,” I told him. He nodded and we went about our evening. That’s the funny thing that happens when you’ve been heartbroken before. It’s hard to believe a gift – an unasked for gift, could just… happen.

But when I woke up in the morning I was still pregnant. And after the weekend, I was still pregnant. I called my doctor, and after my visit she said I was still pregnant, and showed me the heartbeat to back it up. I really was. Pregnant. I was elated. And pretty scared.

The weeks went by, and milestones passed. Ultrasounds and blood tests confirmed that not only was I having a baby, it was a healthy baby – and a boy baby. As my jeans became impossible to button and my body was clearly changing I allowed myself to believe – this was real.

The time passed at light speed. I suppose that’s what happens when you have 3 other children to look after. Before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a rather hearty bump, feeling like I could pop at any moment.  At 39 weeks my blood pressure was escalating and my concerned doctor, in an attempt to get my labor rolling, “swept my membranes” like they have never been swept before. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t quite ready, my mom wasn’t in town yet, but she was already sweeping, and the contractions began almost immediately.

I went home and waited… And at 1 o’clock in the morning the first real-deal-keel-over contraction hit. I timed them for an hour before waking John up. By the time we were heading out the door 45 minutes later, it was on like donkey kong. The contractions were not only coming consistently, but rather quickly, and they were debilitating. In my previous pregnancies this intensity didn’t come until hours into labor, so just getting to the hospital at this point became of utmost concern. We made it (thank God) but not without me stumbling through the parking lot, grabbing on to ledges and taking breaks on benches to curse and get through the contractions as they hit. I heard John tell the front desk in the ER to *HURRY* with the wheelchair.

Rhonda, the nurse from Labor and Delivery, calmly arrived with the wheelchair which I buckled into and in no time I was deposited in the delivery room. I was quickly in the gown and hooked up to the monitors… But the mf’ing contractions -- they were so close and ridiculously powerful. I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I could do this… my body was meant to do this… I had done it before… women do it all the time… I could manage the pain… Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. But it felt very unmanageable and what I wanted quite frankly was the anesthesiologist to come and make it all better. Rhonda kept quietly telling me, “you’re doing great, girl… you’re doing great.”   When I was checked, I was 5 cm dilated, and I was told I could get the epidural. In what felt a lifetime later, but what was really only 20 minutes, the anesthesiologist arrived and made the magic happen. Just as the contractions eased and I finally relaxed, feeling like I was dialed and all I had to do was wait for my little one to arrive, an entire team of people with Rhonda in the lead, bum rushed the room. “Get on your hands and knees right now,” Rhonda told me, “And push!” Though I had no idea what the H was going on, I did what she said because anybody could see she meant serious business. She then put me on my left side where I faced the wall and strained to hear from the bustling crowd what was going on. Then the on-call doctor was there and in a blur of voices I heard that the baby’s heart rate had decelerated. Not only had it decelerated, I realized, the galloping sound had altogether disappeared from the monitor. The one thing I processed in the midst of chaos and the growing team of people in the room was “we need to get this baby OUT.” The doctor broke my water, and there was more concern. There was meconium in the fluid, which not only meant the baby was distressed, but that he could – would be breathing in that fluid. There was more rushing, and before I felt even vaguely ready I was being told to push. The monitors were being watched with growing concern. I could tell the doctor was considering a c-section, which in all honesty I would have happily undergone. I would have allowed them to cut me open right then and there, and pull my baby from me that very second because I was terrified and I wanted him with me and safe. Because the love I already felt for him – this person I had only felt, and not yet seen, was primal and ferocious. I would have done anything. A pediatric team arrived and waited in the corner. I pushed with everything, praying for my baby to be okay and praying for him to come out quickly. I suppose having birthed three other children worked to my advantage here. Call it muscle memory call it what you will, but my body knew what to do and my little guy came – Owen Jeffrey… completely limp and not breathing. My other births were joyful, filled with tears of elation as our pink crying baby was placed on my chest and we locked eyes for the first time. This was nothing like that. The doctor started to put Owen close to me, but before I could even see his face the team of Pediatricians whisked him away. I saw his tiny limp body leaving me and my heart sank into a deep dark quiet pit. The room was silent efficiency. The doctors began working on Owen off in a corner where I couldn’t see. I couldn’t process the possibility that this little person I had grown and held inside me… my unbelievable miracle who came without me asking… could not be alright. And yet, he wasn’t alright.  I kept asking, “Is he okay? Is he okay? Is he OKAY?” I asked the doctor, I asked Rhonda, I asked John… over and over and over. The doctor nodded but was very non-committal with her answer. Rhonda looked very serious. And John, well John looked just as confused and horrified as I felt… And I suppose that’s what scared me the most – seeing John look absolutely unsure, shaken and scared. I could not have known, in that moment, that things would be “okay.” As I sit here typing in the calm early morning, I feel safe in the knowledge that my baby is sleeping peacefully just upstairs. He is warm and cozy in his monkey pajamas that say “bananas for mommy” on the chest. He has fabulously chubby cheeks and thighs. I have gotten to bask in his smiles and coos. I have had time to learn which cries mean hunger, and tiredness… I’ve had the pleasure of kissing his toes (1 million times) as well as his ears, his eyebrows, his dimpled knuckles and his knees… I’ve stood over him just watching his sweet face while he sleeps. But at that moment, as I lay paralyzed on the hospital bed with my baby out of view, I could not know that he would be okay.

Outside of the communication between the doctors working on Owen, the room was heavy and quiet. John paced back and forth – from me, to the table where Owen lay. For what seemed an unfathomably long time the doctors worked on him. Finally, I heard him gurgle and cough. Relief, relief, relief! He was breathing and the room seemed to decompress. Rhonda smiled and the doctor sighed as she continued to stitch me up. But was he okay? I hadn’t seen his face, his toes and fingers, his eyes… They were pumping fluid from his lungs while John watched. The woman working on Owen was talking to him. Slowly the team of specialists and support staff began to trickle off, until there was just Rhonda and the doctor who was helping Owen. “He looks great,” the Pediatrician told us with the first genuine smile I had seen. “We just want to x-ray his lungs to make sure they are clear.” And they did – x-ray his teensy lungs… and they looked perfect. Thank God.

Finally, I was able to hold my baby. They brought him to me, perfect as can be, and put him in my arms. I searched his eyes for the connection I always seem to magically tap into with my brand new babies, but realized as his eyes darted all over my face, and what seemed like everywhere else in the room, that he was just as scared as I was. The one message I tried to convey to him, with my heart that was breaking and filling all at once… with my eyes and with every last little piece of my bones was, “I’ve got you now.” I said it a million times to him, in my mind and with my eyes. And maybe a few times out loud. Soon he settled in to me, as I held him so very tight.

Without a doubt I felt God in the room with me. I felt a powerful sense of goodness and I know I was blessed to be holding my little Owen, healthy and sweet, in my arms. But when I thought about it later, I felt conflicted about this feeling. What about all the women who went through the very same thing, but were not able to take their baby home? Why weren’t they blessed with a positive outcome? I’m sure it is a question those mothers ask themselves every day… I can only say that I am so grateful that it was part of God’s plan to keep our baby boy with us. I still think about his arrival all the time, and it makes me shudder… It makes me realize how fragile and vulnerable I am, and how terrifying it can be to have children I love so deeply it could irrevocably break me to pieces if anything were to happen to them. But mostly… mostly, mostly it makes me indescribably thankful, for the gift of Owen. 

A Daddy and His Girls



I’m married to one of the most guy-ishy guys in the world. Having been raised by a single mom and not knowing what it was like to be around a man every day, John has been both fascinating and mysterious to me. He likes sports. A lot. He fixes things. He fixes things with duct tape. When I asked how he resolved conflicts when he was growing up, he told me a story which essentially involved him and his two brothers beating each other up…

So it would be natural to assume that he would be a fish out of water with his little family of a wife and three daughters. People we meet, and even people we know love to joke about it… “Your poor husband!” they say. When I was pregnant with Brookie, John took me out to a Mother’s Day dinner in Seattle. I escorted both Peyton and Quincy, who were 5 and 3 at the time, to the restroom with me. There was a woman in there, who in my memory has taken on the appearance of Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island. She regarded the two girls with me and then my pregnant belly. “That one is a boy?” she asked, pointing at my bump. “Another girl,” I told her. And she literally tsk’d at me and shook her head. “I’ll bet your husband is mad at YOU,” she said and walked away. At first it rolled off me. It was a joke, right? But the more I thought about it – the more those words bounced around in my thickly hormonally charged brain, the angrier I got. I wanted to go find her in the restaurant and say, “I bet your husband is mad at YOU.” But I didn’t. And that was just the beginning. We have heard that, and/or similar commentary quite frequently in our 5+ years of carting around 3 girls. John always smiles good-naturedly or just says, I love having my girls. And I will say similar things for the most part, though something inside of me wants to reach out to the moron who has made the comment and thump them in the forehead with my thumb and index finger.

So it makes sense to think that John would be elated with the idea of having a boy. Believe me, he is. But not in the way I imagined. The morning we found out our newest little one has boy parts, I expected John to lose his marbles – finally, a boy for him! I kept asking, “are you so excited, are you so excited, are you so excited!?” He calmly told me, “yes… but I would have been just as happy with another girl. I love having our girls.” And he meant it and I knew it. This week, my “guy-ishy guy” had the great pleasure of telling his three daughters some highly anticipated news. The date had been set for the annual Father/Daughter Ball. This, as the name suggests, is a dance in which Daddies take their coiffed and dressed up daughters to drink punch, eat cookies and dance the evening away to the likes of Taylor Swift and “Call me Maybe.” John has gone every year since Peyton was 2, and needless to say, it’s a pretty big deal around here. Huge deal. To my surprise, John also went out and bought all three girls their dresses and shoes. To my even greater surprise, he got Quincy to agree to wear a dress – a pink dress, no less, and fancy shoes. For the last year when I have attempted to get her in a dress, Quincy says shaking her head, “Mom, dresses are NOT my style. Pink is NOT my style.”

Make no mistake about it. This little boy child is going to be loved and spoiled like no other. He already has an impressive sports jersey collection going (that I’m not altogether stoked about) and both his Dad and sisters cannot wait for him. I cannot wait for him. I cannot wait to see what it is like to raise a son. But I think it’s important to know that we felt blessed beyond words with our three girls, too.

In closing, might I suggest something as a PSA of sorts? The next time you see a mom carting around her multiple daughters, instead of saying something along the lines of, “holy shit, that must suuuuuck… hope you have a gun think about all the hormones in a few years you poor thing your poor husband that’s a lot of estrogen think about when they all get their periods when are you going to try for a boy?” Say something along the lines of, “Wow 3 girls (or 4 or 5 or whatever) how cool.” After you help pick this mom off the floor, be prepared for a kiss… or at the very least some quiet gratitude for acknowledging that having all of one sex isn’t a deficiency of some sort. It’s a gift.

Bending In a New Direction ~ Yoga

A common word yoga instructors use while guiding the class through a difficult pose, is “eventually” -- “eventually,” and “someday.” Eventually, your ear will rest on the floor. Someday your leg will be perpendicular to the mat. Eventually you’ll be able to reach for the other hand. When I started practicing three years ago, everything was an “eventually.” First and foremost: eventually you won’t feel like dying after 90 minutes of class. Eventually that was true, but it was a long road. I came to yoga because I was injured. Injured again. From running. It seems all I have to do is sign up for a marathon and my IT Band creates a pain so ridiculous and debilitating it makes running all but impossible. If my body had access to language it would say something along the lines of: “So you think you’ll train for a marathon, eh? Try running through this pain, shithead…” The first time it happened I tried to run through it, thinking pain and struggle are but a natural part of running. I ended up sidelined for over three months, all the while visiting physical therapy twice a week. That is precisely what happened three years ago after I signed up for the Rock-n-Roll marathon in Seattle. My training began ramping up, and in short order my IT Band reacquainted me with the pain it is capable of inflicting. I tried stretching, foam rolling, shoe inserts, extremely technical shoes a team of the world’s finest scientists engineered (one would imagine anyway, from the price alone) and as I mentioned – physical therapy. In utter frustration, I went on the Runners World website for advice. I wanted answers, and moreover, solutions. And there it was all over the forums – runners doing yoga for injury prevention… A long term solution. I was in. I won’t say I thought yoga would be easy. But I certainly didn’t think it would be hard. I had passed studios while an entire class held what looked to be a peaceful pose, eyes transfixed on something seemingly far off in the distance. It all looked very calm, and graceful. Okay, I’ll admit it. I kinda thought it would be easy. I arrived on my first day to 90 minute hot power yoga in old running pants and a tech shirt. The door flew open as I stood hesitantly before it, and a woman in a tiny tank top and tight capri pants emerged fanning herself. “Whoa! It’s a hot one in there today,” she said. And yes, sure enough a gust of dry, hot air followed her. Very hot air. Coming in from the 50 degree morning, it felt good for exactly 4 seconds before it began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. I found a spot I hoped would be inconspicuous to lay my mat down. I had purchased this mat 7 years earlier when I did prenatal yoga videos (my only yoga experience to date) while pregnant with Peyton. The air began to quickly remind me of Lake Havasu – the desert lake we would go waterskiing in as kids. The weather was such that we wouldn’t dare stay out for longer than five minutes without submerging ourselves in the water. The room was filling up quickly. I had to shuffle over a few times to make room for newcomers until all of our mats were less than 10 inches apart. The woman who ended up on my left regarded me for a moment. “This your first time?” she asked, looking at my shirt and pants. She was wearing a tiny tank like the first woman, which was beginning to make sense given the intense heat. I nodded. Then she asked, “Where’s your towel?” I held up the towel I brought – a washcloth-size square. Her eyebrows shot up at this. “That,” she told me ominously, “won’t be enough.” As I was seriously considering marching my already perspiring, over-dressed, under-prepared self right back out the door into fresh 50 degree air, the door breezed open and a vision of core muscles, blonde hair, lovely smiles, and tiny yoga shorts entered the room. It was the instructor, and probably fittest woman I’d ever seen in real life. She sat cross legged in front of the group and chatted for a moment. When class was ready to begin she asked if it was anybody’s first time to her class. I raised my hand and explained that I had done, you know, like… lots of prenatal videos, er, like 6 or 7 years ago –? Yes, 7 years ago… She nodded kindly and suggested I keep an eye on the woman to my left – the one who had already essentially told me I was screwed due to my towel choice. I’m a runner, I told myself. I can do this… But as the class went down into child’s pose, I was more than a little bit unsure. By the time we hit the first downward dog I knew I was in for it. My shoulders burned explosively and I shook under the pressure of my own body weight as the instructor informed the class, “This… is your resting pose.” The sweat that had started accumulating before class started was flowing in earnest now, dripping into little pools on my mat. I had 85 more minutes of class to survive. We did crow. We did bird of paradise. We did eagle, and we did pigeon. All the major birds were covered. We did one-legged balancing poses, and planks and an abdominal portion that would make any normal human weep… I tried my hardest to keep up but I’m sure I must have spent a significant part of the class standing there with my mouth gaping. It’s lucky they don’t have mirrors in the yoga studio. If I had caught a glimpse of myself at any point I may have never come back. But I did come back. Because, even though after class I felt very much like dying, and barfing, and/or passing out, I was intrigued. During those early months practicing, I approached yoga very much like a difficult run in which the goal is simply to complete it, and not die. Each pose was a challenging obstacle I wanted to conquer. It wasn’t until many classes later, when I had adjusted to the heat and could do many of the poses without fear of keeling over that I heard the instructor speaking to us. The first thing I heard, which she had probably been saying all along, was “let it go.” Such a simple invitation, and yet when I really heard it, processed it, and made a concerted effort to “let it go” it was quite incredible. Then there was the breathing. All along the instructor had been encouraging one breath per movement. Deep Inhale… Long Exhale… I began practicing that as well. And for quite some time -- months and months, that is where I was with yoga… Letting it go, breathing, and trying to keep up. Somewhere in there, the poses started to become more accessible to me, and what’s more, instead of making me want to curl up and go fetal on my mat, the challenging poses started to feel good. And that’s when it happened: yoga became invaluable to me – just as, if not more enjoyable at times than running. I will never give up running. It is a love of mine I am committed to – even though I am aware of our sometimes dysfunctional relationship. Yoga is a different experience all together, and more of a mystery to me. Yoga gives back in ways I could have never imagined. Every now and again, during a particularly twisty or challenging pose – one that causes the mind to roam in a thousand different directions that all seem pinpointed toward a very specific concept: “this sucks and I want it to end”… Something sinks in… or peels away… or both. It is an incredibly vulnerable state to put the body in, but also strangely powerful. It has also allowed me to see that yoga, in many ways, is a metaphor for life. Doing something challenging and uncomfortable in class with composure and strength is very much like riding out a difficult situation in life. And to prove this point, life has dealt me some pretty serious upheavals this last year. I have never been more eager to get to my mat. I am still so very new to yoga. There are years of learning and practicing ahead of me, and that is one of the things I love. There are many, many “eventually's” and “somedays” I am looking forward to meeting on the other side.