Stay On Your Own Mat

In yoga they tell you to stay on your own mat. Practice your yoga, not your neighbors, or the yoga you did yesterday or three days ago or last year. This is a principle I try to keep in mind whenever I hear about one of my friends moving on to bigger and better things and the jealousy starts to creep in. I get cranky, I want to be moving on too! I want to be living my dream! I want to be buying houses and getting married and getting my dream job! WTF! When do I get to start living again!

Then I remember that if I were given any of those things right now I would be a bleeding mess, I would sabotage it and end up back where I am now anyway. It is better to build a proper foundation before trying to build too high up. Still, this laying foundation shit is not glamorous, nor does it give you much to talk about at parties.

I am so pissed at Edie for taking so much away from me, for setting me back so far, I almost feel like an athlete who tore some kind of very vital ligament and is now on the bench for a few years until it fully heals. I know that if I get back in the game too early it will just set me back even further, but it is so hard to see all my teammates out there living it up, becoming better athletes. Soon I think I will walk away from this team, change sports, or careers, see what else there is out there for me.

But that is terrifying! Leave the life I know? For what? I suppose I have already left, I just need to let go. If I don't belong here, where do I belong? Where do I look for friends? How do I meet people?

If I was ready for a real job, I'd have it. If I was ready to live alone, I would. If I was ready to fall in love again, I would. But this is what I am ready for, I am ready to learn how to set boundaries and stick to them, I'm ready to figure out what I need and want and how to get it and then how to hold on to it. I am ready to learn what I can give and what I need to keep. I am ready to figure out what I want to do, what makes me happy and how to avoid the things that destroy me. So, that is what I am doing, I am in a place where I can learn all of those things before its too late. And when it comes down to it, I wouldn't trade this for anything right now.