Tag Archives: pilates

Just keep breathing

12 Oct

I went to Pilates for the second time today. I’m really enjoying it, and how light and stretchy I feel afterwards. I am also pleased to report that there are no intimidatingly skinny people in the class.

Last week I left class on a high. I grabbed a pumpkin spice latte, I went shopping. I felt great all day. And I hardly thought about him. This week, I have to admit, I felt good after class, but my mood plummeted. For some reason he is back in my thoughts almost constantly. It’s so damn tiring that not even a pumpkin spice latte could pick me up.

But something I’ve already learned from Pilates is that my body is capable of more than I know. Just when I think I’ve stretched as far as I can – inhale – and on the exhale and I can stretch even further – inhale – and on the exhale further still. I can do all kinds of things I didn’t think possible if I just keep breathing.

I’ve mused before over the fact that, through the greatest pain I’ve ever been through, I somehow kept breathing. After the pizza of doom I didn’t feel like I could get through the next hour, let alone make it to the end of the year. Now I find myself in mid-October, and somehow I’m still here. It hurts. Every day. But – inhale exhale – if I just keep breathing I will make it to the end of the year.

And 2014 is going to be fabulous. I won’t let it be anything but.

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I’m doing it anyway

4 Oct

Something happened to me immediately after the pizza of doom.

I’ve always thought of myself as fairly tough. But, I’ll admit, in some ways I’m also a massive scaredy cat.

When the person you love more than anyone (except family, always except family) crushes you, a certain feeling of invincibility kicks in. The one thing I would have done anything to avoid happened anyway. And, although I took to bed for a week, broke down in public (regularly), and became unable to dress myself or feed myself or sleep, life went on. It seemed cruel at the time, but the sun still got his hat on every morning; clients still wanted their work done; London got on with its hustling, bustling life; the days raced on, and on, and on. Somehow I kept breathing.

Two months later, and able to get out of bed in the morning without howling like a tortured animal, that invincibility has proper meaning: I am stronger than I thought I was. And my guts are telling me to live a little differently from usual. To live a little dangerously.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to a Pilates class. That might not sound like the act of a daredevil, but I’ve never been before. I have absolutely no core strength, so it’s a little terrifying. I’m doing it anyway.

My new job scares me in every imaginable way. I’m doing it anyway.

Oh, and I just casually dropped Wedding Boy an email asking him to go for a drink when I’m in Edinburgh in two weeks’ time. He might say no. It might be very awkward. I’m doing it anyway.

OK, so it’s all relative. I’m not about to go bungee jumping or paddle around the world in a canoe (why would I want to do these things?).

But for now, this scaredy cat is crossing her paws and taking a few risks.

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