Life After You

Yesterday something shifted inside me. It's something that has been shifting for a long time, but there was a finality yesterday, a willingness to let go, that I haven't felt before.

It was in some ways a continuation of what I wrote about a couple of days ago -- the rewriting of many, many love songs I hear all the time about NOT letting go when heartbroken about a lost love. They've been my theme song for a long time now, and it's time for that to change.

I think a bunch of things have kept me from moving on, some of which are:

1) A feeling that it's up to me to care for the New Englander, and if I don't do it, no one else will. This is of course the deeply flawed logic of the heart talking, especially since me caring for him didn't change his deep emotional wounds before and it isn't going to work now. I know that he needs to care for himself, and call on his own higher power, and I know now that I can hand that off to my idea of a higher power and greatly increase the odds that he will heal for reals.

2) A feeling that I don't want anything I say or do to deter him from potentially coming back/us getting back together someday. I finally realized that if that were to happen, it would not have anything to do with anything that I am, do or say, and everything to do with his own sense of wholeness, personal agency and worthiness. I don't have that much control, and I'm ready to let go of the thought that I need to do anything, or stop doing anything, in order for that to happen. If it happens, it won't be because of me or my actions, but because things have changed on his end.

3) I just really f*#%ing love him.

Nothing I can do about that last one, and it's time for me to accept that loving him does not mean we'll ever get back together any more than it precludes me from loving someone else.

This year, starting on this first day of the third month, I begin life after the New Englander. It's time. I need to let in all the love around me and stop living in the past.

So Daughtry, while your song title is apropos, I gotta beg to differ with the lyrics of the song I'm choosing to mark this day:

Ten miles from town and I just broke down
Spittin' out smoke on the side of the road
I'm out here alone just tryin' to get home
To tell you I was wrong but you already know
Believe me I won't stop at nothin'
To see you so I've started runnin'

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter
As long as I'm laughing with you
I'm thinkin' that all that still matters is love ever after
After the life we've been through
'Cause I know there's no life after you

Yessir, I'm after a life full of laughter, but I no longer think it has to be with a particular person. I'm leaving it wide open now, which I have a funny feeling is going to lead to a much more satisfying outcome.

That's right, Universe, I know there IS life after him.

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter
Without you God knows what I'd do

Truer words were never spoken/written: Only god knows what I'd do without him, but I am looking forward to being let in on the secret and I am ready for life after him to begin!

Oh Love

The merging of my policy & yoga selves

This past weekend was the pre-launch for an organization I'm helping found to train teachers to teach yoga in schools.

It's the confluence of my education policy self and my yoga self and I am so excited about it!

Tonight I attended my first of the weekly group meetings held by the organization, and before the meeting I went with one of the other founding members to a yoga class near her apartment.

It wasn't my style of yoga -- heated room, powerflow -- but the instructor was awesome. At one point, I stopped to rest in child's pose and he came over and pressed down on my low back and then ran his hands up my spine to my neck.

It felt incredible, and after class I thanked him for that gift and told him I knew I loved him from that moment. And I'm kinda serious. He may not actually be my next love -- he has a girlfriend, for starters, and there are many things I don't know about him -- but if he isn't, he is a beacon for the kind of man I want to be with. Super present. That's at the top of my list.

Here to help me mark my return to love are my pals from Green Day:

Oh Love, oh love
Won't you rain on me tonight?
Oh life, oh life
Please don't pass me by
Don't stop, don't stop
Don't stop when the red lights flash
Oh ride, free ride
Won't you take me close to you

Far away, far away
Waste away tonight
I'm wearing my heart on a noose

Far away, far away
Waste away tonight
Tonight my heart's on the loose

Oh lights and action
I just can't be satisfied
Oh losers and choosers
Won't you please hold on my life
Oh hours and hours
Like the dog years of the day
Old story, same old story
Won't you see the light of day

Far away, far away
Waste away tonight
I'm wearing my heart on a noose

Far away, far away
Waste away tonight
Tonight my heart's on the loose

Talk myself out of feeling
Talk my way out of control
Talk myself out of falling in love
Falling in love with you

Oh love, oh Love
Won't you rain on me tonight
Oh ride, free ride
Won't you take me close to you

Tonight my heart's on the loose...
Tonight my heart's on the loose...

Yes it is, and the freedom feels so delicious after so much time in a noose!