I don’t know what it is about today but every time I move my body I cry.

Yesterday was rough. I can’t explain it - just rough. I have days where I feel inexplicably heavy; I can’t put my finger on it (which drives me crazy, it’s in my nature to have to make sense of all things) but I wake up in the morning and something is just off. I didn’t sleep well so I didn’t rise well.

I decided not to get up early for my morning practice, hoping that sleeping a few extra hours would make me feel better. It didn’t. That heavy feeling lingered with me all day. It eased up in the evening when we went for a swim. Dennis bought Lea new goggles for the ocean and for the first time in her life, she could dive without getting salt water in her eyes (her old ones weren’t great and kept leaking). I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her so happy. Imagine swimming in the ocean almost every day of your life but never actually having seen what’s underneath the surface? She nearly lost it with excitement. “*So many fishies!!!! Seaweed!!! STARFISH!!!*” Just looking at her made my heart relax a little bit.

I decided to go for a swim on my own and every time I came back to her and Dennis she said “go swim a little further mamma”; knowing I am the one who will eventually call it a day and let her know its time to start going back home. I think she dove hundreds of times; taking the deepest breath she could, swimming to the bottom to look at the fish, the coral, the rocks.

I felt good there, swimming under a gray sky, watching my husband and daughter share a new level of joy.

Coming back home, the heaviness returned. I put Lea to bed and decided; no. This day isn’t going to get any better. So at 7.30pm I went to bed. This is brand new for me; feeling low and choosing sleep. Normally when I feel low I reach for things to distract me, or to bring me to a high. One of my go-to’s after a heavy day is to order in from one of our favorite restaurants, light candles, drink some wine, crank up the music. That little “extra”; like eating my favorite vegan truffle mac&cheese with a glass of wine instead of leftovers from lunch with water, usually brings me back up. But lately I feel drawn to something different. And I’m also questioning the “up” that that mac&cheese actually brings me. Is it real? Or am I distracting from whats really there? I’m not sure. Im curious, though.

So last night I went to bed. 7.30pm. Woke up at 5am but could have easily slept another few hours. I rolled out my mat, upper back feeling stiff, sleep still in my eyes, and the moment my body arrived in Child's pose... I started crying. I cried all practice through. Still not knowing exactly why or what’s there or what’s going on. I just cried. Then I journaled, drank tea, watched the sunrise. Lea woke up and joined me. I felt a tiny bit better, but that heaviness was still there. Later in the day I did The Class online (if you’ve never tried it, do, its amazing) and same thing. The moment my feet hit my yoga mat I started bawling. Only this time, I couldn’t stop. I cried through the whole thing. Snot, gasping for air, making wild noises; the whole 9 yards. It’s like every time I close my eyes and drop into my body I flick a switch and something cracks open and every single emotion I’ve felt since the last time I dropped into my body just comes pouring out of me. Or maybe it’s already cracked open, because I feel that, too. I’m cracked open. I don’t know when it happened; if my heart incrementally just started opening up one day and now it’s been expanding one millimeter at a time for months or if it happened in one swift go but that’s the feeling. Open heart. Walls down. All the time.

The thing is, I can’t walk around with a crack in my heart all day because I wouldn’t be able to make it through the parenting and the working and all the other -ings that make up my day as an adult. So I hold it together but it doesn’t work for long moments at a time. It’s tiring, too. And as I’m writing this I realize: that’s the heaviness. That’s exactly it. I feel heavy because holding your heart together when it’s as wide as the sky takes tremendous effort. So of course, every single time I come back home to myself; every time I move my body enough to arrive here, now... I cry.

Everything makes sense now.

That is all.

Thank you.

Rachel