Malady vs. me

 I've been stricken by this virus which has halted me from my active tempo.

It's been three days now and I hate it - started with a mild sore throat which progressed into colds and I thought that was it but then the headache came and the body chills.

So, no exercise since Thursday. I miss my hot yoga classes, I miss my routine. I feel restless to be confined to house arrest, reading a pointless book for the new book club I've joined for next week.

May this be completely over tonight. Come on, antibodies, win this battle and end it today, please!

Random thoughts dump # 1

 There are a few things in my head I've been meaning to write about but can't really compose one whole entry for each one of them. Hence, I am going to start this thoughts dumping entries! (Work smarter, not harder 😉)

1)       I love that the yoga studio I regularly go to smells like pizza. I've been wondering if I've just been imagining that it is actually pizza smell 🍕 or just a combination of their cleaning materials and what nots. Last week after class, I realized that it's because the smell is from the pizza shop at the back of the studio since they are connected in the same building! Duh! Took me two years to realize this?!? LOL 😆

2)      During my hot yoga class, our yoga teacher said "Yoga does not get easier, you are getting stronger."  Wow, that was such an excellent way of shifting perspective! It felt so encouraging. Indeed, it is not the poses and movements that change, these are constant, so what makes it feel easier and easier the longer you practice is because you get stronger! So, now I can confidently say that I am stronger than before, awesome! 💪

3)     A few weeks ago, while gardening on our front yard, I decided to harvest the seeds of the Wild Iris (Scientific name: Iris versicola) plants. The seeds were in the pods which was what the flowers become after they've dried up. Last year I've been wondering what were the seeds I've been seeing on the soil. It looked like those Thai tamarind candy pellets. After opening the pods did I realize did I realize that these were the wild iris seeds! Duh! Why did I not even think of that?!?  ⚘💜

Saved by the hat (hopefully!)

 Well well well.

Of all the days that I choose to be lax with my outer appearance, it turns out to be the day that I get into the exact scenario I have been dreading for a school pick up.

There I was, in the most casual outfit of jeans and oversized sweater hoodie, with the hair all down and smelling of the fried fish from lunch, waiting for the offspring's class to come out. On my peripheral I got a glimpse of something familiar, but which I doubted so I did a double take. I told myself there was a chance it was just my imagination, but a combination of two familiar components turned out to be a high chance. Indeed, it was the nemesis' visage. Thankfully, it was drizzling and it was not odd for little old me to be docked under a black umbrella. 

I should have seen this coming. Did I already forget fate's love of humoring me with their ironic tricks all the time? My only saving grace, if it actually did give me some salvation, was my cherished newspaper boy hat I decided to don at the last minute before facing the crowd. 

Will this ever happen again? Perhaps. But what I am aiming for is that next time, I won't care anymore.

Friendship fatigue

I was in line to the cashier, holding a pink sweater that I've finally found would be a suitable birthday present for a new friend I was about to meet up with. Then seven minutes from our meetup time I got a message from the said new friend saying that she lost track of time and would not be able to make it to our meetup.I immediately got out of the line, returned the sweater to the rack and got out of the shop. I felt like I woke up from a trance and realized why the heck did I spend so much effort looking for a gift for someone who obviously didn't value me?!

Then I realized it's another pattern I have with making new friends, I go way above and beyond because I want the friendship to develop but then it turns out there's no equal reciprocation in the end. Then I get brokenhearted and disappointed big time.

But yes, I do give second chances. So when the said new friend asked to reschedule I said yes. But this time I made sure that I would not exert any effort to go out of my way to make this happen. So we did get to get together today and she did sincerely apologize. But I just felt tired the whole time and I didn't feel any enthusiasm anymore to pursue this friendship. To begin with, the history behind our lives crossing came with heavy excess baggage, and yet I gave it a chance, but after that sudden cancellation I've just totally lost interest already and my attempt to redeem it with a second chance today didn't amend it. So, all I can say is, well, too bad because I'm tired.

Be Still My Mind

 At my hot yoga class today, our teacher closed it by reciting to us a line from the Yoga Sutras:

(In Sanskrit) "Yoga chitta vritti nirodha."

"Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind."

This is exactly how I feel when I do yoga! My mind is just focused on breathing and doing the poses so all other thoughts are temporarily gone while I'm in yoga class. The harder the movement, the less the chances of my thoughts lingering away, so I like it very much.

It's been two years now that I've been going to hot yoga classes. I've been doing non-hot yoga even before that but it's hot yoga that was really life changing for me. The added challenge of the hot temperature really made me push myself beyond my perceived limits and I can say that I have progressed so well because now I could do some poses I couldn't do before and now I could also do harder flow movements. I am quite proud of myself for this achievement. I am looking forward to improving some more, there's still a lot of hard poses I can't do. Then maybe one day I'll be able to even do a headstand ^_^.
Nevertheless, the most important thing is, being in my hot yoga class is my safe space, where my mind and body are at peace.

Lost and not found

 I've lost a couple of things in the past couple of months.

Things that are not just things but quite symbolic in my life.

I lost my ring in June this year. It was a silver ring I bought when I perhaps seventeen or eighteen. A ring that I intended to be meant to be worn on my finger that was not my ring finger. I wore it on my right thumb or forefinger. That ring was my expression of my "not-so-goody-two-shoes-girl" in me during my teens. I wore it again this year to mark my self rediscovery, feeling seventeen again. But as fate has spoken clearly about that phase in my life, it was stopped abruptly. I have not found my ring still and I don't think I'll ever find it again since I don't even know where I lost it exactly, it just disappeared from my finger at the end of a busy day in the park. So perhaps I'm not supposed to feel seventeen again...maybe it was too far back, maybe I should aim for just twenty five instead?

I lost the key to my diary in July this year. This time I am certain where I lost it, at a hotel in Iceland. I did try my luck, emailed the hotel about it but sadly, no reply. It wasn't a special key. The lock it opens  is quite generic, one that can be easily picked. I also have a key from a new diary I bought which use identical keys. But I have not dared still to open my old diary. That's why here I have been writing in this blog instead. I am still pondering if fate wanted me to stop writing my deepest thoughts down because it messes my mind. But I thought journaling is supposed to help ease anxiety down? In my case though, I may have been too imaginative and got carried away with my creative story writing mind? Is it really fate my reason for not opening my diary again or I am just afraid to see again how ridiculous I had been this year?

As always, I will need a sign. I just hope that this time, I will interpret the sign objectively, and not as how I want it to be...