Day 20 Post-Op: October Fog and the New Shoreline
Tuesday arrived with a true shift in the weather. While I could happily live in endless summer year-round, there is a quiet comfort in looking out the living room window this morning at the fog and the welcome moisture gathering on our deck. The world outside has slowed to match the stillness inside the house.
As the post-op physical fog begins to lift, my mind is naturally drifting toward the next milestone on the horizon: our upcoming November yoga retreat in Nosara.
I carry a lot of layered, vulnerable emotion about this retreat, feelings I am still sorting through that will have to wait for another day. On a practical level, though, it was time to start putting pieces in place. In an effort to make some forward momentum, Matt and I sat down for a meeting with Ella.
Ella is a lifelong family friend whom I have known literally since the day she was born. Two summers ago, she graduated from my 200-hour yoga teacher training intensive. In addition to her regular job, she has been teaching her own classes and stepped into an assistant role with Five Parks Yoga. Next, she is coming along to assist me in Costa Rica.
The meeting was short and sweet. My main objective was simple: to ask and confirm that she would be willing to teach some of the classes on the schedule. She met the “ask” with an immediate, enthusiastic yes.
While I still plan on teaching nearly every class of the retreat, having an assistant step in and take over a few full classes is something I have wanted to incorporate forever anyway. This retreat will be the proving ground for how that dynamic works.
Normally, after leading retreats for so many years, I do not have to do much advance planning. The rhythm of a retreat is completely ingrained in me now; it flows without second thought.
November, however, is going to demand a completely different preparation. It requires letting go of the ease of predictability and control.
I am entering this retreat in an entirely new headspace, stripped of what I have always done, and what I have habitually relied upon. Going from a place of mastery and ease into a place that is still completely undetermined is daunting, yet this rich space of the unknown is a genuine opportunity for something entirely new.
This is the fertile ground of self discovery and growth.
It is the stripping away of all that I rely upon, forcing me to find an unfamiliar part of myself. It requires leaning into others, trusting Ella to hold space, and learning how to stand on the new shoreline of the life I will now be living.
I am simply not the person I was before this surgery. That truth challenges my ego and interrogates my identity at every level.
A trial like this only becomes a true rite of passage if I allow it to be. I refuse to walk through this challenging time with blinders on, just trying to survive until I can pretend things are back to the way they were. They won’t ever be what they were. This is a rare, hard-won opening to learn something deeper about who I am when so much is stripped away. I intend to meet it with my eyes and my heart open.
The calendar is moving forward, and one breath at a time, the future is opening back up.
