School bells

As adults, we experience so many things differently than we did as children.  When we look back at those early experiences now, we can't help but see them through adult eyes.  That beloved Saturday morning tv show seems suddenly creepy.  The landmark we once visited as kids is somehow smaller than we remembered. The holidays are a little less magical when you know what the inside of a half frozen turkey really feels like at 6 am. 

I assumed that this same principle works in reverse, too.  If delightful situations are dulled because you know better, perhaps scary situations are less so as a grown-up. I have recently come to understand that this is NOT necessarily true.  

Today was my first day of school. Yoga teacher training school.  Not first grade, but I certainly felt those first day jitters. There were some subtle differences. Rather than new shoes and a haircut, i made sure to have my toes painted and remembered to wear earrings.

Beforegad, I only knew one person that would be in the class.  This brought out the old "what if I don't make friends?" There was a scheduling conflict for the first day, so I was sure that everyone already had a friend to sit with.  

Clutching my bag, I walked into the studio where I have been hundreds of times. But this time, it felt different. Like I was walking into someplace unfamiliar and scary. There were teachers siting at the front desk when I walked in. The teacher whose class I have taken several times, started to sign me in. "Oh, umm... No, I ...I think we're upstairs?"  He dropped the pen and half smiled, "I see how it is."  

To get upstairs, you have to walk through two classrooms of people setting up for practice.  I've been watching others tiptoe through this path for years. They quietly scamper through and into themysterious magical  world of teacher training. This is surreal!

Once I get upstairs, there are smiling faces on mats and milling about. We chat. We introduce. We fuss a little. And only when we find ourselves in a comfortable crossed legged seat and we exhale the sacred sound of OM, does the anxiety dissipate.  I am not a scared little girl.  I am a 35 year old woman and I am exactly where I should be.