“Maybe you can start writing again now that you have some time…” said my 95 year old Mimi about 6 weeks ago. That sounded wonderful. I wanted to. I could see it in my mind. I felt it in my heart. My fingers ached to type… it”s been three years since I wrote for my beloved blog… it saw me through a transformational journey. It saw me through devastating heartbreak. It saw me through single girl trips, trips with my precious Dad, and many adventures. A lot has happened since then… everything changed.
Let’s back up just a little, shall we? In 2017, I moved out of my bachelorette nest, married my human, moved to a new city, moved into a house, started my own personal training company, started teaching group fitness, left my job in my hometown, left my hometown and everything I had ever known… and fell into a horrible depression.
I had been in a hole of heartbreak – I had dealt with anxiety – I knew those feelings. This was drastically different. I was trying to figure out how to BE so many things that I couldn’t find ME anymore. Be a newlywed, be a housewife, be a boss babe. I had no friends or family in this new place.
Nothing SHOULD have been wrong. I was married to my best friend, we had a beautiful new home, we were healthy, we had great careers, but everything had changed. I couldn’t find my footing – I couldn’t make this new shift work inside. I lost interest in the very thing that got me through so many hard times – working out. I loved training my clients and teaching, but I had no desire to be physically active myself. I cried – a lot.
I had a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. My husband begged me to find a new counselor (another loss – my therapist!) … I had broken down in tears and not being able to breathe the day before and he made me promise to make an appointment to talk to someone. I tried and the first attempt was a bust. I tried, right? I would lie on the couch like a zombie during the day while my husband worked downstairs, coming to check on me like a wilted flower who needed frequent watering.
One morning I woke up and thought to myself, “I wish I hadn’t woken up today.” This continued for months… I would see glimmers of normalcy in walks with a new friend, in going to church, in traveling with my husband, in seeing our families, but it would never last. It felt like a temporary high with an unavoidable drop to the bottom.
In September of that year – almost 5 months into this spiral of depression I began to pick up yoga again. I went one time… I felt a shift. I went the next day, and the next. I could find myself feeling like ME again… a new me, but me. I could get through the day without an anxiety attack or crying. My husband would ask me every day, “When are you going to yoga?” He was noticing it, too. If I said, “I think I feel okay today,” he would reply and say, “No – you need to go. You’re going.” He knew I had to keep swimming.
After about 6 weeks, the fog finally started to lift. Life started to take on a NEW NORMAL… there were new routines, new opportunities, new friends. Yes, there had been loss. Loss of the old… a shedding of old things. Things that had birthed me into a new season. Everything changed. Much like the painful journey I went through in 2015, 2017 was a different kind of painful journey. Everything changed.
And, then, 2020… the year that in my heart I believed would be a year of “Less” became another chapter in everything changed…
to be continued…
xoxo, patty lauren
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