Tonight I said goodbye to the past year by getting half-naked and sweaty in a candlelit, 105-degree room with 50 other people.
That is to say, I took a silent Bikram yoga class that started at 10:30 (and therefore ended right before midnight). The “silent” part is important, because the normal class is based on a pretty much scripted dialogue that varies little from class to class. For me, hearing that dialogue througout every class, even though it is repetitive, often means that I have a hard time getting into the “yoga zone,” where my deeply hidden thoughts begin to surface. You would think that after doing something anywhere from 3 to 14 times a week for seven years, I’d be able to find the “zen place” easily, but no such luck.
Tonight’s silent class was a new experience for me, and even as I flowed through the series of postures, I realized a lot about myself and about this year.
It is hard to say goodbye to what I call my “early 20s dream,” that idea of a “perfect year” where I accomplish every last thing on my list and meet key people who will change my life. I finally see that every year, every day, is full of potential for both opportunities and setbacks, and it all depends on which of those I wish to see.
At the beginning of class, I surprised myself by looking into the mirror and deciding that staring back at me was a beautiful creature. On that positive note, I began class thinking about the past year and the themes that seemed to run through it.
It was a year of drawing lines, crossing lines, erasing lines, blurring lines. It was a year of answering questions and asking still more–what is friendship, what is love, what really makes someone “family”? It was a year of reconnections, new connections, and severed ties.
This year, either in reality or just temporarily or just in my mind, I was: a chihuahua mom, a best friend, a greek goddess, a comic book heroine, an intergalactic space traveler, a counselor, a chemistry geek, a raw food vegan, an advocate, a cute bartender, a secret, a confidante, a lover, a savior, a writer, a rock star, a foreign tourist, a fashionista, a muse, a happy girl. And more.
I decided a few things during that 90 minutes earlier tonight. I am not stuck in a dead-end job, I am taking this time (while I can) to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’m not avoiding making decisions, I’m living in the moment. Love can exist in many forms and can be shown in many ways. And sometimes, nobody understands me better than my developmentally disabled chihuahua.
I couldn’t completely finish the final breathing exercise at the end of class–I was crying too hard. Just like the year, like every year, I felt like the class was over even though it had just begun. I’m sure by now I have done the series 2000+ times…but how many years will I get? If I’m lucky, 100, 105, 110?
Lying in final savasana, I made a final decision: I’m giving up the search for the elusive “perfect year” and starting a search for perfect moments every day. It’s just as ambitious, but a lot less daunting. Even during my bad weeks, I can recall just one perfect moment of each day.
…and this time next year, maybe I won’t be writing about how it seems like the year ended before it really began. Until then…
