The Last Class

Tonight was the last time that my yoga sisters and I met in classroom.  Our next meeting will be a more formal presentation of our final projects which the new teacher trainees will attend and our final gathering will be a graduation ceremony.  I am becoming acutely aware of the fact that this is all ending and it's beyond frightening.

It's funny, I can remember our very first class together- I looked around the circle at a group of strangers I'd never met before and I knew- because of the nature of the program, because of a gut feeling, because I was told that this was how it works- that I would grow to love all of them so fiercely that I wouldn't be able to fathom losing them.  I think I may have even said something of that nature at the time.

And even though I've known for a while that this was ending, even though the dates and times of final meetings were prepared well in advance, and even though I theoretically love and embrace change I'm still devastated.  I don't know how you give yourself so completely to a group of souls and not be when that connection ends.

Well, perhaps "ends" isn't fair.  I've been through endings before- time periods during which intense emotional contact cannot continue simply because of the details of life- and I know it's possible to keep those connections going.  The real ones, they say, never leave you.  But the context changes.  A LOT.  And coordinating schedules, making phone calls, following through on proposed visits is never easy, even though the person you're missing is close by.

And, of course, it's not the same.  My yoga sisters and I did battle with our greatest shadows.  We looked at some hard truths about ourselves that many of us kept so close to the chest for so long it's a miracle we were able to bring it out into the light.  We experienced each other in a way that we have not experienced any other human being on the planet.  And while I am nothing but grateful in the knowledge that that can never be taken away I am still floored by the impending end of it.

But, I'm smart enough to know that's just how change works.