181 days in Denver
I realized yesterday that I had been here 6 months, minus a week and a few days to return to New York for that mini-appreciation kick, you know, the state of mind you put yourself in to recognize the differences between the two paces and parts of the country. I was going to acupuncture before I returned to NY almost weekly, and I had not been since yesterday in all of that time, some 6 weeks. During this time I lost my mind for quite a spell, causing all manner of problems for myself and those around me. I got all needy, all insecure and started questioning myself and the motives of those around me instead of just going with the flow. Granted I was, um, hormonally affected for almost that entire time, but I usually have a better grasp on myself than that. In fact, I realize I made scathing political editorials during those spaces in time and really didn’t know why I felt the need to throw fire at everyone else around me. Well, the people I care about, I guess. Everyone else? Eh. If I care, I reach out, if I don’t, well, sorry. But when I sat in front of my dude…I just exploded into a fit of tears, mumbling about everything. And so I sat on the table, tears flowing down my face into the leather face ring…he said he had some needles in my spine to tweak the emotional ends and that I would be experiencing a lot, but to just let the emotions roll. I think he was working on some pent up frustration and expectation and trust issues I have had as of late and once I left, I felt a million times lighter. I just wish I had gone the day I came back from NYC–so many things I did acting out would not have occurred had I done that…
I started doing yoga, but I also recognize that if I do not do yoga for a day, I start doubting myself and questioning all manner of things in regards to the progress of my life. And it really struck me today when I was walking in the park why I have such a strong magnetic bond to yoga. I never really had a way to really get over my stuff aside from writing. I didn’t know how to meditate–my mind was always running a million miles a minute when I was in New York and I had no ability to really settle it and not always be moving and trying and starting things. It was the energy flow I was inside of, kind of trapped in a river of madness, waiting to be let off the ride.
And I stepped off of it and just…left. I did the thing that so many people are afraid of, and the thing that people always told me I would never do. After 12 years, people pretty much assume you are settled, but as I always said, “Watch me.”
I arrived here and started this little blog. I renovated my whole apartment and made it a home. I joined a writer’s group and got a lot of feedback that was inherently more valuable than the half education I received from Columbia University. I started running around with dozens of dates dates and then friend dates. I kept the good ones in my circle and ignored the rest. I started going for acupuncture and started learning Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Then I started yoga. And then I started feeling less…well, less tragic, shall we say. Though I never really find it hard to be myself, I do find it almost impossible to reconcile being myself in the world. I can’t really explain it, but it has to do with the nature of things and how I feel like I relate to everyone and everything around me. Sometimes I feel invisible, sometimes I feel like an alien, and sometimes, sometimes I feel like nothing short of hot shit. But at the core of all of this is a language that I have spoken in my life that most have not, and that is the language of death and dying. I am no longer fixated on it with quite so much focus–in fact when I am sticking to a consistent yoga practice it kind of just dissipates into the paranoid ether.
And so, I have decided I am learning yoga to the nth degree. Meaning I am starting a teaching program the first week of November which lasts 6 months. This is something I hope will accentuate everything else I am doing in my life, and help kind of push along the energy flow and keep my focus positive and not so tangential. I recognized as I was doing tree yoga (this is my term for the stretching I did hanging on two trees in Wash Park today) that I never had the ability to figure out a way to heal myself. Sure, I did go see a therapist once or twice in NYC, but once I recognized that I actually was very aware of who I was and what I needed, and did not need to go apply for disability to go to school (how empowering right?)…well, it wasn’t a far leap to understand that I am actually too smart for most therapists…I have yet to meet a professional advice giver that showed me more than conversations with normal people have been able to convey.
But this, this is a different kind of therapy, and the antithesis of the east coast NYC life. It is the kind of stuff that will likely lengthen my life in terms of general and specific physical and mental health. It is not destructive as so many jobs I have held have been. It is a thousand percent positive, and when I do it, I feel better. It’s not even that I am starting on a negative plane and somehow this is the answer to all of my prayers…it’s that no matter how good I am, I tend to get better the more I practice. And if I can show others who’ve had these surgeries how positive it really can be to meditate and stretch your sternum and chest out, well–I consider that a victory.
Of course it’s unusual to withhold any negative commentary that I might have, but I am not going to do it…I am going to let it sit where it sits…and really, tra la la la la right now.
It’s all starting to flow in better directions…and that, that is the sweetest…
