Sunday, July 13, 2014

Day 342 of 365: Being Emotional

Most people who know me personally know how emotional I am. It's honestly to the point that I'll start crying because someone else in the room has started crying. Shit, if a judge on So You Think You Can Dance starts crying, I tear up. In terms of handling emotions, I'm a wreck.


Now, confession time: at every weekend-intensive training session, I've always found myself on the verge of crying at some point. It's just an emotionally-charged time and we were even warned that we might start crying. But somehow I've been able to keep it together. Usually this would result in the most random-ass thing popping up in my mind on the drive back (and me crying big ol' tears for a solid 5 minutes like someone released the fucking Kraken).


Now, to backtrack even further: last week, I met with a director at a homeless shelter in Manchester. He's looking for someone to teach yoga to the homeless once a week. After a few emails, I had a one-on-one interview with the director. He made no bones about it: this wasn't going to be a usual yoga class. These are people who are drug-addled, who have been abused in ways that make them unfit for the regular world, these are people who are down on their luck in the worst way. It scared the piss out of me, but there was still something in me to do it.


So we can now jump up to present day. Today, we had a presenter talk about her time as a yoga instructor at a jail. That hit me right in the heart, especially since I've been dealing with the emotional baggage that being a yoga instructor for the homeless could be. By the end of the day, the instructor leading the training opened the floor for comments.


I was already charged up, because I wanted to say exactly that. And, right before I am to go, a yoga trainee talked about how important training has been, especially in the midst of a very nasty situation (which I have no right to say in a public forum so this is exactly where I'll stop). She starts crying and ... I start crying. And then I cry even more when it's my turn to talk. And then I don't stop crying.


On the way out, I note to one of my friends that I'm honestly surprised it took me this long to cry in class. And she noted that she was honestly surprised that I would ever be so emotional. She always took as me kind of a rock -- the type of person who is emotionally stable and secure. And I guess that wasn't an uncommon sentiment.


Boy, were they proven wrong.


I get it, though. I'm 5'11" (although technically 5'10" because somewhere along the line, I lost an inch). Thanks to yoga and tai chi, I have very defined muscles that can make me look even more intimidating. I'm sarcastic and quick with a snarky comment. Yeah, that person looks like she's never blubbered like a baby when Mufasa died (but I mean how could you not? Simba was pawing at his dad! He wanted him to get up! Oh man someone get me a Kleenex...).


It's just funny how perception is. Because here I am, feeling silly for crying in front of the group, when I was person #3 to do it publically, and person #12 overall to cry. Here I am, feeling like I must've looked like a hysterical mess, when some were just shocked I was capable of crying in the first place.


There's a lot more I want to talk about, especially how that particular person with the current situation and I keep meeting up randomly (which is also how I knew about her story and partly why I latched onto her crying the way that I did), or how I feel like a whole confluence of events are downright conspiring towards something big. But I am completely spent from this weekend. I think it's time for me to just call it a day and be happy I was able to write the way I did, even after crying my eyes out and feeling crazy-silly after.

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