Last night in my “room” I was doing some yoga…well Baptiste style of course and my roommates asked what I was doing?
“You look like a sculpture! Like you’re doing the ballet!? Is that what you’re doing? Are you a ballerina?”
It’s funny they referred to my yoga as ballet…but I agree, ballet is a beautiful dance of grace and breathing and yoga is just the same.
Yesterday was Christmas and I got to get out for work…I only have one week left and that is the greatest gift of them all. In one week I’m absolutely free…
It’s crazy how much you change in here…I remember crying, not sobbing, but tears were in my eyes waving to my parents as they were tearing as well saying bye to me while I was heading towards my temporary home with the officer holding my small duffel of clothes and bed mat. I remember choosing a bunk and not making eye contact with the other girls because all that I knew about jail was what I saw on television. My deep fear for going to jail was irrational. The way people are afraid of commitment, jumping out of planes, spiders, anything…well jail was my fear. I didn’t know anything about it other than the over-catastrophic version of ‘prison’…so I found a book, got on my bunk and prayed the 3 months would fly by.
Flash to 17 months prior when initially getting arrested I remember saying to Officer Christ:
“If you put me in jail I will commit suicide.” And then she looked at me in horror telling me that saying things like that is going to put me in a mental institution which is worse than jail.
I proceeded: “If you put me in jail or a mental institution, when I get out, which I will at some point, I will commit suicide.”
She never put me in jail that night, and told me I needed help and that her father had similar issues as I. Halfway through sobriety, I wrote her a long apology/thank you for the wrongs I did that night by putting her in that position. So that night I had someone pick me up from the station and spent the next three days in bed crying over my broken life.
The sad thing is that no one really knew how broken I truly was. No one knew that the words I said to her that night were not just dramatic sentences to help manipulate her to keep me out of jail but the truth. It’s how I felt and though it is dramatic, my life was secretly falling apart.
Today life is amazing. I’m not just saying that either, I’m not trying to plaster some beautiful fake happy image but the sheer truth. Since that day I got sober and never looked back, I got closer to my family than I have in my entire life and don’t know what I would do without any of them. My parents visit me every single week, my brothers are like my best friends, I’ve figured out who truly is a friend in my life and who is just a person who texts me “I miss you’s” every so often to make themselves feel better. I truly appreciate my day-job which has coworkers who are more like family, I have taken up a deep love for the mountains and nature and even more than that…yoga. Today I get to practice the beautiful dance in life through yoga and through authenticity.
So tonight I do yoga in between the bunks and the girls thank I’m doing ballet. To be able to embrace such a life-changer and go through these three months with the grace of a ballerina is something I never thought possible. I faced a HUGE fear and honestly, when I get out, life will be unstoppable 😊
