Carry Me Home

I went to yoga for the first time tonight in months.  Not surprisingly, I found myself crying during savasana.  After an hour plus of twisting, stretching and moving to soothing music, silence and candlelight, it all came pouring out.  I had this subconscious thought that arose, that I was home.  Why home?  Because for those 90 minutes, even though I was in a room with other people, I was focused solely on me.  Thoughts and stress fell away as I moved.  I realized how much I miss me and how lost me has become.

We are nearing the one year mark of a family at home  (Dec. 26).  We have all been physically here, in one place, under one roof, but we have all in one way or another been trying to find out what home really means.  For all of us, it has meant an upheaval, a turning upside down of everything we once knew.  It has been a stressful (to say the least) journey, but it has also been a journey filled with unmatched gratitude and amazement. 

I just went to check on the boys in their room as they sleep.  They are so beautiful and wonderful that my heart aches thinking about them.  They are also so needy, so tantrum filled, so present 24/7, that I feel as though a tornado picked me up at the end of last year.  It has been twirling me around and I've been getting hit with debris, only to be put down (I think I've been put down) to find myself completely and utterly off balance, lost and light headed.

But I do feel (hope) that I am feeling some solid ground beneath me.  What I need is some major courage.  For the last couple of years, especially during the wait, I found that mindlessness and staying away from the depths, the heavy stuff, was one way to ward off the intense pain of longing for my children.  It seemed easier to stay "light." Only it became a habit, one that has kind of kept me in a fog this year (along with those two sweet boys, who are demanding something of me ALL of the time).  I have avoided the deep end - the pain of my children's history, the pain of the transtornation of my life.  For a while, it was literally more than I could bear (thank God for medication)!

I am tired of shallowness.  There are some amazing things I have missed this year because I was either too caught up in that tornado or too afraid of experiencing the enormity of what has been happening to me.  Going back to yoga tonight reminded me of what it feels like to live more deeply.  I have a Brian Andreas print by my dresser that a friend once gave me.  He recognized me in it once, but it has most certainly not been me lately.  On it, there is a quote that says:

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.

Today, I cried - not out of utter exhaustion or frustration, as my cries have been lately.  I cried with relief to be with myself again.  I cried because in 90 minutes of silence, I connected with my own soul.  The last song that played in class brought it all to perfection:  "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home."  It was sung by a woman with the sweetest voice, in a slow, Celtic kind of way.  It was a strange selection for yoga class, but perfect for me. 


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 Note:  Reading blogs has been something that I have had a hard time doing, too.  I have been avoiding both pain and beauty.  Don't give up on me!  I want to come back.