Going on maternity leave from flying was a welcome break. Of
course it is difficult knowing I have no income coming in on my end but to stop
flying at 36 weeks meant nothing to me. I work with a company of over three
hundred flight attendants in Denver
alone so I rarely see or fly with the same group. Stepping away from that job
has further enforced I have no emotional attachment to that line of work.
Passengers don’t know I’m gone, pilots and flight attendants don’t know I’m
gone (except the very few I’m friends with) and it’s the same thing day in and
day out so I’m not missing anything important.
Stepping away from teaching fitness however, well it’s been
a really long good-bye.
Anyone that knows me knows I have a hard time saying good-bye
even to my friends I know I’ll see again in the next day or two. I’m one of
those persons that lingers. I can’t ever quite cut the conversation. I am sure
on more than one occasion I have annoyed my husband as he will be waiting in
the car while I’m still saying my last good-byes at a get together. I’m that
person that will say good-bye to you and walk the opposite way then turn around
and watch you go when you probably don’t even know I’m watching you. I hate
endings- whether that’s in a book, a movie or my own life. I stay awake far
past when I should because I don’t want the day to end. I really try and hold
on to each moment and that’s probably why I document so much of life in
photographs. So I guess it should come as no surprise that I have spent the
past few weeks trying to figure out how to say good-bye to teaching yoga, spin,
kettlebells and barre.
I wrestled over when to take my leave- even extending it a
week past when I thought I would. This weekend marks the last of my classes and
I almost cried after yoga Saturday. I spent time after class lingering in the
studio. I knew I would be back to take classes in the next few days but for me
it would be the last time to lock the studio door as a teacher for awhile. It’s
not that I don’t think I’ll ever be back, it’s just that I know the person who
will come back won’t be the person that left. I’m stepping back to embark on
one of life’s hardest and probably most important journey and the person who
comes back and stands in front of class won’t be the same.
It’s hard letting that person go. The person who had the
freedom to come and go as she pleases. The person who can get up at 7am on a
Saturday and rush out of the house to teach an eager group of kore barre
students. The person who can teach at 6am
on a Friday then take a nap and go back out and teach spin at noon. The person who can have lunch after class
with a friend or go get their hair done or run any other of those simple
errands you take for granted when you don’t have a child in tow. I guess the
current version of myself is grieving as she watches the simple life version
walk away – knowing now I have to turn and walk into an uncertain life in
another direction.
Some of my day classes I don’t know if I can come back to
teach and that makes it hard. We don’t have family in town so I don’t have
built in babysitters or child care lined up. I haven’t thought that far into
the future yet but I know something will have to give. While I am excited to
take some time for myself and to just enjoy these last few weeks of being
“alone” I am also sad to be taking a step away from teaching. I have worked
hard to build up relationships with my students and to build up my classes. I
know that time will not stop just because I am gone and they may move on in the
meantime. When you teach yoga and group fitness classes you get to a point
where you realize that a lot of these students are there for YOU. To be
inspired by you, to have you lead them and to have you kick their butts. And
the ego inside wonders, “if I’m not there who will take care of them?” Of
course my studio has many many great teachers who will in the meantime – I
guess I just don’t want to be forgotten.
So I have drawn out the good-bye. And sometimes stories
don’t end like you think they will. There’s a scene in my favorite movie, “Big
Fish,” where the son is talking to the dad at the end as the dad lay in the
hospital bed dying and the son is telling the dad a story. In this story they
escape from the hospital and the son takes the dad down by the river and to say
good-bye and set him free and there’s every person the dad’s ever known there
so say good-bye and wish him on his way. His whole life is there on the banks
waving good-bye as the dad is put in the river by his son and sent out to sea.
Of course in reality the dad is in the hospital bed and it’s just him and his
son and that’s how he leaves this world. (I cry buckets every damn time I watch this part below)
And at the end of the day that’s how I left the respective
studios this weekend. Without fan fare. Without a line of all the students I’d ever
met waving good-bye; just a hug here and there and a lingering. Then it was
just me alone as it was meant to be. Turning out the lights and closing and
locking the door. Knowing I’ll be back in a new form when I do return and being
ok with the uncertainty of the future. For me it took great courage to step
into the shoes of a teacher so I guess it’s no surprise that it took the equal
amount to know when it was time to step away. I’ll miss it I really will.
I guess that’s the true test of loving something – knowing when to let go but also the invitation to miss it when it’s gone.
You're very brave, Natalie. You're embarking on and accepting a world you didn't plan for. And you're doing it beautifully. Enjoy your few weeks of rest. I took a mothers' yoga class once, where the moms did yoga while the children played on the edges of the studio or just lay there, depending on their ages...maybe you could teach one during the day at your studio.
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