Life, Death and Yoga

“I think I’m going to have a psychotic breakdown.”

“Well thank you for telling me.”

“I just wanted you to know so you don’t have to, like all the other people say, I never saw it coming. You can say proudly, ‘yes I saw it coming all along.’”

“Yes, I saw it coming all along - and just let it happen.’”

“Well you can manipulate those details any way you want.”

I could let you in on where it all started, what all this entails, but it would take oh so long to introduce you to all the various players, it may be easier to just pick up at the breakdown part. So I was well on my way to a psychotic breakdown. I tried to continue business as usual, but after the first mention, “are you dead?” (no I’m putting my head down while this person on the phone is yelling at me) and the second “you really not dead?” (no I’m plugging things in under my desk and it’s also safer under here) I need to prioritize my sanity.

In an owners manual to life’s stead, I settled on some practical fixes to apply to what looked like the complete breakdown of my relationship with reality.

I tried a bath with aromatherapy crystals. I tried a bottle of wine. I tried yoga.

So on the verge of psychosis, and now in pigeon pose, remembering by pain I had bruised the top of my knee caps the week prior, and trying not to fall over or embarrass myself in any similar way, I took deep cleansing breaths, found my center, focused on the now, straightened my back, tightened my core and tried to regrip reality.

“If you want to make this more difficult, lift up your right hand, wrap it around your back, pick up your heel. And don’t forget to keep breathing.”

Could this exercise in twister bring me back from the brink of a breakdown?

As I lay on my back, arms in air, feet extended up, in a pose I’d wondered if the great yoga masters had created to be hilarious, and whispered, “hey – do you think this makes us look like cockroaches…?” I’m now even more certain yoga is just disguised exercise, driving me probably even closer to breakdown - of both mind and now body.

I will probably survive this. With little fan fare go on. Killed not by work or yoga but old age sometime far from now, with my sanity put together by duct tape and cheap non-factory parts. Just a crazy old woman, with a sea of grandchildren, and a lot of stories to tell.