after an exhaustive and stress-filled week, having saturday morning to myself has been quite the recovery. i finally got around to practicing yoga this morning for the first time in a week (eek!). i have made myself feel so guilty about not taking time for myself to practice this week. and at the same time, i feel like i should give myself a break... it's been hard this week and i find myself wondering how much of it is directly a result of not making time for the yoga. i don't know. all i know is that i felt like i barely kept my head above water this week.
i want so badly to be 'at peace' and stronger/more graceful. but i have really not handled the last few years that way. i've held on to hurt and anger; i made an honest effort to build walls - many of them. i hid from growth and commitment. and i am in the place in my life that those choices have led me.
this week i had lunch with a friend that i love and adore and admire. i'm so grateful for the opportunity to let my guard down - to legitimately forget feeling the anxiety, though free to discuss that as well as anything else under the sun - no judgement. i feel so blessed to have the friends that i do. real, genuine people who are comfortable not only with themselves, but with the fumbling, discombobulated mess that i sometimes become. i treasure it, truly. i hope and pray that as i go to/through all the places life takes me, i am able to pay the same love and acceptance forward. ideally, i'd like to take my friends with me for the rest of my life - we'd share everything and continually develop these relationships.
these last 3 years (really, 8) have been a blur. people told me when i was 16 that i'd change more than i could imagine between 16 and 20. at 18 my grandmother told me that i wouldn't even recognize the 25 year old me. i think that when the news leaked of the failure of my first marriage, people stopped telling me to make sure that life wouldn't pass me by because my life was over. or so i believed. and they were right... i am not that same girl. in every way. my life was over. that old life, anyway. i have a new life now. and while i wish i were better at maintaining friendships, that girl, the old me, wasn't either. there were many people that i truly adored and do to this day. but i haven't maintained those relationships. and some friendships, as much as i wanted them to last forever, just weren't meant to do so.
all of this makes me wonder... where will i be next year? where will i be in 3, 5, 10 years? i think that at this point, i'm just hopeful. i am so glad that there's a positivity to my outlook, as i have missed the positivity that i'd given up those dark years/months ago. while still a greyish hue, i feel as though the color palate i'm painting with has much lighter shades... [hopeful and contented sigh]
so, i hope these changes i'm making in my life - and the changes i really want to make - do not cause a divide between myself and the people i hold so dear to my heart. that being said, just like making time for myself (for yoga/prayer/pedicures/whatever), i need to and will continue to metamorphose. my primary focus needs to shift so that i can find some equilibrium in being better at sustaining/cultivating important relationships in my life and also giving myself the time and space necessary to facilitate my own growth.
so, take it or leave it: after my yoga practice today, i took a looong hot shower and settled in, clean and relaxed - turned on the radio and listened to "whad'ya know?"... anyway, somewhere in there a woman who's name i wrote down but cannot locate played her version of kate wolf's "give yourself to love". and it spoke to me. so, that is why i posted today, and here it is:
Kind friends all gathered 'round, there's something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside.
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can't hide.
You must give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.
I've walked these mountains in the rain and learned to love the wind;
I've been up before the sunrise to watch the day begin.
I've always knew I'd find you, though I never did know how;
Like sunshine on a cloudy day stand before me now.
So give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.
Love is born in fire; it's planted like a seed.
Love can't give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
And love comes when you're ready, love comes when you're afraid;
It'll be your greatest teacher, the best friend you have made.
So give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.
Give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love
Photo found [here]
