Joy Above Resentment

I'll grant you that it took an act of God to get me there this morning.  Running out the door with an apple in my mouth, water bottle dripping in my purse, yoga mat half rolled, car keys no where to be found.  FUUUCKKK...why is my life so God damned chaotic and why can't someone get ME ready to get out the door.  With moments to spare, I walked in the door a little flustered.

In retrospect, I did show up a little pissy.  It's that time of the month and I was hot and feeling fat and fine, I wasn't in my happy place.

Scanning a packed room of mats neatly adorning a circle, I found the lone spot next to him.  From the minute it began, he wouldn't stop smiling and then laughing and ugh.

The class was particularly challenging and I was in no mood for this spontaneous, joy-filled nonsense.  Come on, be a real yogi, dude...take it seriously for Christ sake.  Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face and focus on deepening the poses. 

But he didn't, every time I looked over, he was just smiling away seemingly making a mockery of it all.  And then, bent down trying to balance my legs on my elbows, I glanced and he was looking at me with big eyes as if it to say, "Good luck with that sister...you're inches away from falling on your face or your ass or both and that's pretty funny."

I fell out of the pose and started laughing which made him laugh and her laugh and all of us start wearing shit-eating grins. 

And while in shivasana (resting pose), it hit me.  We all walk around feeling the weight of the world, the stress of the day or week, the exhaustion of responsibilities, obligations, the anxieties of what has been and what is to come.  And when we harbor these things for too long, we get angry at people who seem to rise above it and recognize that all of it is laughable to an extent.  Because really nothing in life is so extraordinarily serious that it doesn't merit a good belly laugh from time to time.  And even those very tragic, heart breakingly traumatic acts that are thrust upon us have moments of joy, little bits of silver lining, ancillary blessings that we might have not experienced had we not endured the pain.

When it was over, he rolled up his mat and jetted out of the room.  I wanted to say thanks.  Thanks for helping me to recognize that joy is far more contagious than resentment.  And that no matter how hard I try to hold on to my big, important, serious life...well, someone will always come, knock me off my pompous elbows and remind me that joy, laughter and love always win.