Blame It On The Balance

Having a slightly strange weekend.

Haven't really felt myself this week at all, but I started my blaming my hormones. As the week went on things started to settle again, but then yesterday was just a bizarre day. It was a big week of training, most of it cross-training and different classes to what I normally do. I felt like a bit of a change just to mix it up and it seemed that the variety was enough to challenge my energy levels and leave me tired at the end of the week.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon was the Body Balance workshop. Body balance is pre-choreographed and every three months they release a new routine and all the instructors are expected to go along to these workshops to learn more about the program and to get some tips on instructing the release. We were very lucky in that the top Body Balance instructor in the world made a trip to Cairns to be our presenter this weekend. In aerobics world that's a bit like having John Mayer turn up to teach you how to write a song. It was a big deal.

The theme of the new release is opening your heart. There's lots of chest lifting in the stretches and keeping the arms wide so that the chest is high and open, emphasising moving the chest forward so the heart is pushed out. Usually I don't buy into the whole spiritual side of balance (though I will acknowledge that I feel calmer and more centered when I do it regularly) but yesterday something strange happened.

The last time I did a class as a participant would be well over 12months ago. Doing 4-5 a week as a teacher doesn't leave a lot of participant time. During the class I kept finding my thoughts drifting off to strange and deep places, thinking about things that I haven't thought about in so long, and things that I had never thought about at all. When we reached the meditation part, initially I was critiquing the instructor, making note of what things I thought worked and what didn't and the next thing I know my thoughts are back to the relationship that Todd and I had and I was trying to remember exactly what every little inch of his face looked like. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't thinking back longingly or wistfully, I was reflecting on how he looked to me when I first met him, how new, fresh and full of wonder someone's face is when you see it for the first time and I found myself wondering when was the last time I'd looked at him like that.

Towards the end I don't know if I looked at him at all. Of course, our eyes met, we addressed each other and saw each other's faces, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd really looked at him and taken in his facial expressions, mannerisms. All those things that made him Todd.

It made me so sad to know that I too had switched off towards the end and taken him for granted as much as I felt I was being taken for granted. It was like I felt I knew him so well that I didn't really bother to see him anymore.

Prior to that it had been so long since I had really thought about Todd, it's been nearly 18months since we went our separate ways. What I wanted to share was just the power of those few moments of reflection and I hope so much that people sometimes get lost there in my class too. The downside is that I found I was a little emotional - not crying or upset or anything, perhaps emotional is the wrong word - last night. Very switched on to what i was feeling (and if you know me, then you know that is not me!) and where I'm at. I realised, at about 8:30pm last night while watching a sad movie with a glass of wine, that I am well and truly ready for love again. I miss love. When I say that there isn't a face that comes to mind or a boy from the past. I'm not pining for anyone, I just miss being in love and being part of something special.

With the theme of yesterday's class being 'opening your heart' it's hard not to wonder how much of these thoughts came about because of the music and the moves. It was a very new experience for me, but it feels like it was something special. It was so nice to have that moment and realise my own mistakes, where I am now and what it is I want. For the first time i my life I think I'm ready to put my heart out there and take the risks regardless of what the cost may be. No longer scared about being hurt or that it won't work out, just very open to the idea of letting someone special steal my heart away. And that seems kind of exciting and special too...