Yoga diary - entry 19

This morning I rose an hour earlier than usual. Went through the routine, as usual and felt an immediate benefit.

I may not be slim (yet) but I am much calmer than before.

The passage of time is what I'm learning now. It has been nearly seven weeks since I left Austin. Never mind that I have four times that distance to go before I can return, the time is beginning to pass swiftly. I am beginning to accept that I am passing time here and just like my practice, which seems unbearably long when I start, the progression is beginning to seem fluid and inevitable.

By the end maybe it will even be pleasant. It always is with yoga. There are times when I am even reluctant (a little) to be done.

The most interesting thing happened last night. At the Writers' Trust gala, I ran into a young woman who recognized me as my former partner's former spouse. She is a reporter now, when I knew her she was in high school, the best friend of my partner's little sister who was like a little sister to me too. I was thrilled to hear about her life now and even happier to hear that all is well with my former partner's sister. She has the life I would have wished for her.

On the other hand, the young man I left behind? More than a decade my junior and the recipient of a kidney from his best friend a year before I left - he has done nothing.

He sits in his parents' house waiting for life to take hold of him as though he had nothing to do with it. Even his little sister can only say, it's in his hands now.

And while this may not seem like a yoga lesson, it certainly is. Time passes second by second, nothing you can ever do will bring it back that's true. But you can step into the flow of it at any time and you can move forward too, second by second, sliver by sliver, ounce by ounce. I may not see any progress from yoga. I may be utterly discontented and sometimes even anguished by how my life has gone to this point. I may feel I've had every loss a human being can sustain and still remain upright but I tell you this - I have not stopped trying. I have not given up. Even if I move forward by the breadth of an eyelash, I move forward and after a few years, it accumulates. I have changed a lot since I left that boy. He has changed not at all.

I am grateful for the path of my life today and yoga taught me that.