Graduation Day

Its the morning of graduation day. My roommate has left early. Unable to hide her disappointment she felt she couldn't bring herelf to "celebrate" our graduation and so she changed her flight and flew out this morning.

I watched her pack early this morning with envy. I don't fly home until Wednesday. Having booked my flights 3 months ago it was impossible to know how I would feel at the end of this journey so I had allowed a few extra days here to relax and unwind, and had the thought I might be able to teach my first class at a local studio. (Unfort 430 other yogis had the same idea and it has been impossible to get a class anywhere.) It will cost $700 to change my flight. A cost that needless to say after 3 months of not working I simply can not afford.

So my dear wonderful roommate is gone and I miss her already. A stranger just 9 weeks ago, and someone so different from myself, yet who I believe will now be a life long friend. Often we would lie here at night in the darkness talking about the days experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We shared laughter, tears, moments of hysteria, and luckily the same dark sense of humour. You helped keep me sane and I will forever be thankful to the Angels who arranged for us to room together.

And so I sit here, alone for the first time in 9 weeks. And the tears come. Tears for the disappointment, for the expectations and hopes that were not met. For the times that this all felt "uselessly hard". For the times it was so challenging, not because of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and forcing growth but for the endless hours it was so mind-numbingly uninspiring.

And so though I can now fulfill my dream of becoming a yoga teacher it is bittersweet. Would I do it having known ahead of time it would be like this? I think because teaching this yoga is something I want so much to do, that I would say yes. But I would have come with a different mindset, maybe more prepared for the bootcamp style of journey that it has been.

I find it so sad that instead of coming away feeling empowered and inspired it has simply been a task that I have completed. Is my greatest lesson from this just going to be to learn to accept that "it is what it is"?

We had our final lecture last night. It finished agonizingly late. Bikram seemingly keen to relish in our last hours together while we were eager just to be be done. How ironic that his last words to us were about how disappointed in us he was.