Thursday, February 14, 2013

Ten. YOU – Five.


Oh how long has it been since you wrote a post? Oh but shouldn’t you wait and write a positive post? I mean really, does the internet really need another Delta airlines horror story? The facebook posts were melodrama enough, dear.

Oh, true friendship is three days of cleaning out an empty cat litter bucket of your vomit? Save it. Really, we don’t need to hear that. (I love you guys!)

So what have I been thinking? Probably that some adventures can be summarized or skipped over, and just left at that. That and my immune system hates me. Or maybe I’ve not been nice enough to it.

It’s Valentine’s Day. And no, that doesn’t mean I’m wallowing about ambiguous situations with the opposite gender. Actually – I’m most disturbed that this year, I’m not getting up on stage and yelling at a crowd of strangers about my genitalia. And while I’m blushing typing that this year, in the previous two years I proudly marched up in front of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand to a packed house and proceeded to give voice to how ridiculous tampons are (which is ironic, in itself). This year – I have backed down from even helping run an art table at a combination dance marathon/monologue event representing the same women’s causes. Sure, I can blame my food poisoning and my throbbing back pain and I really do feel like utter crap. But I think that’s a further indication of being off course not just from eating the street food (It was chicken soup! There were more than 20 people eating there. Hrmph.) It’s an indication that I’m not really headed on a path I identify with lately. And that is the upsetting thing.

And frankly, that’s a disconnect I’ve been loathe to give voice to, because in the space of the disconnect, I’ve let plenty of other voices that do not resonate with me get under my skin. Worse still, plenty that do resonate have gotten under my skin too. I’ve balked because I haven’t had the next thing ready to go in verbal combat. And holding up the armor, and my focus away from my physical self, has taken a toll.

I’m not peeling back my façade, but I’m going to admit that my battle has been a lot more uphill lately. And I’ve considered a lot of things for the coming year that were not on the table even two months ago. But I’m going to nurture those ideas the same way I now need to focus on my physical body.

You might be wondering about the title. I tried a yoga class this week. Twice, actually. And as I joined the class, the teacher was well aware of my physical state. As he directed the class to do ten repetitions of something, he looked me in the eye several times and declared, “YOU, five.” I am not strong enough to do ten right now. So I will do five.