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The First Birthday

I wrote a post this morning with a short recap of my Thursday, a story of comparison and running that came up for me after my last post, some recent eats and a shout out about my friend Teri’s blog. It’s been sitting in drafts ever since. I wrote the post and then I was like, “What is this? How can I publish this? While this may be what life looks like right now, it’s far from what if feels like.

Today is my brother’s birthday. He would have been 28. My dad also had a heart procedure this morning and is in the hospital overnight for monitoring. Both on the same day has been…a lot. When they called to schedule my dad’s procedure and said the date was October 21, my mom and I couldn’t believe it. (My mom called a couple of hours ago to let me know he was out of surgery and in recovery. The procedure went as well as it could have and we’ll know more soon.)

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I’m going through the motions but feeling like I’m on the outside looking in and there’s a huge wall between what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. I wish I could be with my family today.

When was teaching yoga this morning I said “downward facing dog” instead of “forward fold” (these two postures are not quite the same thing) just a few minutes into the warm up. I caught myself and realized that my mind was in another place. I told my students what was on my mind and then we kept doing yoga and we got through class. I was grateful for their strength and support. Teaching is still pushing me to my edges. One one hand, motivating and inspiring others when you feel empty doesn’t feel all that great. On the other, I am able to connect with one of the main reasons why I teach…and that is to help others feel strong, empowered and connected with their bodies, hearts and minds. I’m able to see teaching as a way that I can give back more of what I wish for the world during this difficult time.

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That said, I just subbed out my afternoon class. The anxiety I felt over having to walk into that room to teach was too much.

Instead I’m going to take my girls for a long walk while I think, process, breathe the fresh air and feel the sunshine and wish him a happy birthday somewhere that I pray he his happier and healthier.

I don’t know what else to say. I’ll copy and paste today’s post into a new post and schedule it for tomorrow. This is a very difficult balance to figure out and I’m doing the best I can.

I hope you’ve had a good Friday and enjoy the fall weekend that’s ahead of us.

Love,
Jen

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