Alive and Kicking, Kinda

So much of the time it’s like, “Raaaaaah I’m alive!!!!” in a chest-pounding way is how it’s supposed to be, like I’m supposed to feel like Rocky, at that running up the steps moment, all the time. Running, jazzed, adrenalized. Pumped. I don’t feel that way all the time, and when I have felt that way, like the music’s rising and getting louder, thump, thump, thump, and it’s time to Go For It and Just Do It, I don’t think it’s worked out that well for me.

Like, taking wild leaps, literally, that hurt my body. Or taking wild leaps, figuratively, that weren’t super-kind to my soul. Stuff that seemed cool, seemed like a good idea, in the abstract. One-handed handstands? Sure! Dancing all night in heels? Yes! Working 24/7 for years and years? Rooooar!!!!

So I gotta take it easy as I keep going, if I want to take care of myself, which I do. If I value myself, my true self, more than some abstract idea of what I should, could, would be if I push through, pump up the volume, and go go go.

And I do. Value myself. I haven’t, historically. I haven’t, not really. Not enough to stop trying to be just a little more this or that, or a lot more this or that, or just different, better, something.

I haven’t been willing to accept that it is what it is, I am what I am and I’m lovable, worthy, and acceptable as I am. That I won’t fly off into some disconnected other world of sloth and alone-ness if I ease up on the pedal just a bit, or maybe a bit more than a bit, turn down the background music, and see what happens.

I’m debating whether or not to do this yoga teacher training that starts this weekend. I don’t intend to teach yoga, it’s just what the Yoga peeps call an intensive, or something. Evie is having a field day with the prospect. She’s been brutal about it. There’s fear, plus terror wrapped in totally reasonable practical and objectively correct observations about the (in)appropriateness of this commitment for “someone like me” in my situation, right now.

I shared my ambivalence with a friend and she said, “Well if you’re going to spend that much time and energy on something is that really the best thing to spend it on?”

And I said, “Well, I think it’s more like, I saw this thing, I felt excited about it, and I could just follow that feeling and see what happens.”

She said, “Oh I’ve lived my whole life that way I’m trying to do the other thing.”

I said, “I’ve been trying to do the looking for the best thing all my life and now I’m trying to see what shows up and seems appealing.”

And we laughed because there is no effing recipe to how to live, and I want one so badly sometimes, and I can see my friend would like one too. But we make our own, and then I guess we modify, modify, modify as needed.

Thank you Universe for this life. For this chance to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed, to enjoy being me, in this body, in this life, at this moment. I’m gonna keep going.