Day Twenty-four

It's funny. When things go 'wrong' it seems that the brain starts looking for all the things that have gone wrong, like some sort of cosmic proof that today is the the worst day. We don't do that with good things. I don't at least. I found myself doing this day (the latter) and finding that as much as I (sickly) wanted it to be 'bad' it never ended up being quite as bad as it seemed initially.

1. Carrying my five hundred bags out the door this morning, my coffee splashed all over, spilling on to a bag and my hand. I yelled - loudly enough that the neighbors probably heard - God Dammit! Charming, I know. The thing is, none of it spilled on me. It just splashed a little on my workout bag, which I don't mind if that gets dirty, and my hand. It actually was much more of an avoidance of disaster than a disaster itself. (I use the word disaster rather dramatically, because that is how every small thing felt today)

2. At about 4:00am this morning I remembered I completely forgot to do the one errand that I had intended to do this weekend: buy beads. This was followed by a series of anxiety dreams having to do with the project I needed the beads for, being a total failure. Usually, in such tight, emergency situations, I would just go out during the day and buy the necessary materials; but math was at 9:20 and I wasn't sure if Michaels would be open soon enough for me to drive there and be back in time. As the universe would have it, I had beads in my trunk (Thank you Scott) and there were a stash in a cupboard at school (Thank you Molly) and the activity went off splendidly. My lack of planning and preparation didn't hinder it one bit.

3. I was making copies during lunch and managed to jam the machine in about 8 different places. Then, soon after, I daringly decided to make packets in the machine...which I needed in 10 minutes. This also came after battling the printer to print a PDF with correct margins. After wasting so much paper printing, I for thought it a good idea to gamble on the copy machine which I had already managed to break at one point in the day. But, in the end, I got it all done: printed, copied, stapled, and taught. It was all fine.

4. During yoga I had no balance. I was toppling and wavering during poses that are commonplace and familiar. I was thinking about the symbolism of this, being off balance, especially considering my mindset of late. I realized though, that the reason I was having so much difficulty standing on two feet was because I was completely distracted. My mind was wandering the whole time.  I was thinking about work (which I do a lot during yoga, but am training myself not to) and ways to reach the kids. It was all inspired by my yoga teacher's initial talk, about the collective nature of yoga: how we all affect one another, our energy, our breath, our effort... It was really inspiring and as soon as she said I immediately started of thinking of ways to discuss and teach this to the kids. So, my mind was racing, I was completely unfocused and therefore off balance, but I think I have a great idea for an activity to illustrate a valuable point about working together and respecting other's space.

5. And something that was just great: my Saturday yoga teacher is back. She has been absent for almost three weeks due to doctor's orders of bed rest (she's pregnant) and not only have I been worried about her, I've missed her classes terribly. I saw her today at the gym. She's back! This tipped the scales tonight.