making up with Love

credit: Sarah ClarkSomehow, without me realizing it, all this time that I've been breaking up with crazy, I managed to lose something along the way. 

There I was last night, standing in the audience watching Michael Franti sing against a backdrop of an enormous anatomical heart, bright pink one moment, blue the next, and suddenly there it was. For the last year or so, I have kinda been going without something big:

Love.

Standing there, a part of this huge wave of the audience singing louder than the band, I realized the extent to which I spend most days totally disconnected from what's most important. 

Where the love at?

I say this with full awareness of and gratitude for how much love there truly is in my life. I adore my husband and feel his love for me every single day. After 24 years together, that's really something. I adore my son and bask in his love, too. And on top of that, there's the steady drumbeat always of the love of family and friends. Oh, so many precious, delightful, beloved friends! I love and am loved.

But in my day-to-day existence -- by which mostly I mean on those days when I am at work -- I forget all about love.

I spend most of my days operating on a Get Shit Done auto-pilot, blasting through obstacles, slaying the tasks on my list like a little Kali warrior slicing the heads of demons. Slice, slice, slice. Repeat.

Last night I realized the extent to which I don't want that. I just absolutely want to have fun in my work. Sure, yeah, I want to get shit done, but how about being fueled by some love, instead of all that chopping and hacking?

Maybe, just maybe, breaking up with crazy really means making up with love.

And love was what I got an earful, a bodyful, of last night, song after song a celebration. I went in a little resistant -- people seem to always be on me about going soft -- but that was silly. That goofy let's-all-just-love-one-another thing that people like to snark about, including me?

Guess what? That is me.

I don't think I'll ever not be that person, even though I can get lost like the best of 'em. I can get so caught up in jesus-how-are-we-going-to-pay-these-bills, put my nose to the grindstone and work like a mother fucker. But scratch that surface, wipe that grime from the mirror, and there I am again: big heart just wanting to love.

I'm calling this thing that happened to me last night an epiphany, because it really felt that way. A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me -- that was the feeling. And I can't shake it.

And I don't want to.

On my mat this morning with Laura, I felt it again, more strongly, that call to be my authentic self, that call I've been missing in my long absence from yoga, in this long year and a half of injury, pain, surgery, recovery. I'm listening.

Crazy, git on out. Love is back in town.

XX

BIG, big Thank You to Michael Franti for creating the moment and to Sarah for years of best friendship. LOVE to you both.