After a life time of learning how to numb myself, I took efforts not to repeat this pattern of indifference after my partner decided he wanted us to go our separate ways. I wanted to feel emotions. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to feel what it meant to care.

So I took my yoga practice to a new level. I started taking bikram at my friend’s studio. Classes with Dash kicks my butt every time but classes need to be sporadic for my body to recuperate from the exertion. After the separation from my partner, I amped up the frequency, sometimes taking his classes on several days in succession.

It worked. To the extreme. I was physically exhausted during class, incapacitated after, and put my body into stress related heat rashes, and headaches. Emotionally I was a mess, unable to prevent outbursts of crying. It felt unfamiliar to have my emotions be so accessible. To have pain so visceral. To feel the physical impact on my chest, in my heart and not have it be some theoretical notion. At some point, I began to feel like I was being masochist and that I was punishing my body at a time when I most needed healing.

How do we allow others take such a prominent place in our heart that their absence seems like unfillable void? When do we come to rely on them to find stability in our lives, leaning on them for support? Is that what love requires? Does love require us to be attached to them?

I don’t know the answers to these questions yet. That’ll probably be the subject of a future post.

With a little perspective that a month of grieving can give, I saw to my dismay the same destructive habitual patterns that I had been perpetuating unknowingly with my partner. I had once again started to follow the way of the stronger individual who knew decidedly what they wanted in life in lieu of the meandering journey of my own life. A life where at 49 years of age, I’m still learning what it is that I want to do with the second half.

I wanted security of the known path, of the path that has been tread by others. But I’m learning that my happiness is elusive when I’m treading that path – the path of the career with a dependable retirement, a partner with a second income. I’ve found that neither has afforded me any true fulfillment or lasting comfort. And I’m bored.

But I knew I couldn’t follow him where he wanted me to go. On his path, to follow his dreams. I knew I couldn’t go until I knew what I wanted. I knew that if I did go along now, I would once again lose my path towards myself. Yet I couldn’t say those words aloud to him. I didn’t trust myself. So I sought the advice of others, of family, of friends, even an astrologer until their words strengthened my resolve.

My love for him wasn’t what I questioned. I loved him, adored him, thought him handsome and brilliant. I felt lucky to be with him. But I was questioning myself on why I was so willing to subjugate myself for someone else, even someone I was so in love with, when I didn’t even know if he was willing to do that for me, when signs seem to indicate that he wouldn’t. How do I balance prioritizing taking care of myself without feeling guilty for doing so? It’s the basic tenets of life that we all seem to forget until we get on an airplane and we hear again the instructions of the flight attendant for putting on our oxygen mask first before helping others. Makes perfect sense when our basic survival depends on it but how many of us can actually do that in our normal lives? How many of us can listen to our inner voice of intuition and wisdom and actually pay attention? I certainly have trouble with that even after more than a decade of meditation practice. Obviously, I was overdue for more contemplation and reflection and hopefully insight.

So I signed up for a Vipassana silent retreat, was waitlisted, and then later was accepted to my great excitement. I was primed and ready to go find my inner self. And then my mom fell. And everything changed again.