Packing your house

Life with a 4-1/2 month old is pretty amazing.  Yes... I did say 4-1/2 months!!  Anyone know where the past 3 months flew off to?  Somehow Labor Day weekend is right around the corner and I've only been to the beach 2 times.  Quite the travesty.  So much has gone on in the last 3 months of my life!

I got back to teaching at the end of June.  I think I took a total of 12 weeks off, which is certainly the longest I've ever gone without teaching.  It was amazing to get back up on that podium.  My adrenaline was flying high.  It was a pretty big class of about 25-30 people, who were all very unfamiliar to me.  The dialogue mostly came out... I definitely needed a tune up though!  I had some fun and funny stories to tell about coming back to practicing, as well as some personal experiences that I went through while not practicing, which I tried my best to eloquently bring back around to the fact that yoga just makes you a better you. 

At the beginning of July, we had our first family vacation down the Cape.  My mom and step-dad rent a place down there every year, and we end up joining them for a few days.  We almost stayed the whole week this year.  It is always a fabulous time, and this time was certainly no different --- but at the same time SO DIFFERENT!!  We stayed in a lot more than usual, because taking a 3 month old to nice restaurants can be rather stressful, and you tend to get funny looks from people at bars.  So this time, we laid low.  Consumed our alcohol in the privacy of the house (and did lots of pumping and dumping).  My son got to sleep on the beach and get tons of love and attention from my family.  It was such a good time that my husband and I decided that next year, we will be crashing my mom's vacation for the whole week! 

The next big thing: we finally sold our house!  We had to scramble and get out pretty quickly, like 3 weeks from the offer being accepted to the final closing date.  Oh - and we don't actually have a replacement house quite yet, so we moved everything into storage and are bunking up with my mom and step dad again.  (Good thing we all get along so well!!) 

Now...  moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in life, right?  Adding a 4 month old baby into the mix makes it even more difficult.  AND having your sister's wedding 3 days before the closing makes it HELL!  I knew it was going to be hellish, so as soon as things were finalized, I started packing up the house. 

For the first few days of packing, the trend went a little bit like this: 
1) Go into a room. 
2) Begin packing a box in said room. 
3) Pace around said room. 
4) Leave said room and go into another room, look around and get incredibly overwhelmed. 
5) Go back into room to put more shit in the box. 
6) Pace some more. 
7) Leave said room and sit down on couch and decide I'll really start packing tomorrow. 

The prospect of packing up a house full of 7 years of my life into boxes made my head spin.  The problem was that I was trying to "pack up my house".  But packing up a house into small boxes is overwhelmingly impossible.  You have to stop what you are doing and back up.  One room at a time.  And when you get to that room, one closet at a time.  And when you get into that closet, you pack one shelf at a time.  Of course, it all comes back to yoga.  When you first begin practicing, you see all these beautiful people around you doing amazing postures, seemingly effortlessly.  You can so easily get overwhelmed with the fact that "I will NEVER be able to do THAT."  Either that, or you try to push your body in a place it is not ready to go and you end up hurting yourself.  But after a little while, you back up.  You take things one step at a time.  And soon, in standing head to knee, the closet is packed up and you are kicking out.  Then the room is completely cleaned out and both knees are locked.  You finally get the final items out of the garage and the floor swept up, and your forehead touches your knee.  And slowly, gently, the moving truck drives away and you come out exactly the opposite way you went in. 

We just have to sometimes take a step back in order to move forward. 

Another funny thing is that when I finally got a friend to help me, that is when I was able to get things moving.  Think about how much easier it is to pack up someone else's shit!  You have no attachment to their stuff.  You just know that what they have - needs to go into a box.  As teachers, we have no real attachment to students' injuries.  We just know that if they listen and only do what they can, honestly, trying the right way, their bodies will improve.  We know how neatly that equation fits into the box.  But we have not lived in their bodies for all of their lives.  Their house has closets full of junk that they can't let go of.  Years of old bank statements and bills and clutter that if they just let go of it, there would be so much more clean space to move into.  Rather than "become your injury", if you can let it go, detach yourself from it and know that it all somehow needs to get into the box... the shelves get emptied, the closets cleaned, and the house emptied so you can start rebuilding again.

I look forward to writing again.  I got a lovely note from a reader that has inspired me to try to get back to it a little more.  I can't make any promises, but I can try, and truly hope that I do!