Well, I think that it’s finally setting in, the trip and all that it meant and will come to mean, it’s starting to settle, start to make sense, coming together, starting to. Last night I was taking a yoga class at Katie and her Mum’s shala in Burlington (I’m home in Ontario right now visiting my family and trying to figure out the next year…still) and I had a pretty good practice, although my mind seemed to be wandering more than usual, but when it came time for savasana, there I was and for the second time in my short yoga history the whole crying thing hit me. The last time it happened was in Mysore when on a particularly low day, I was sick and couldn’t finish practice and therefore frustrated with my body, I went into the finishing room and sobbed because all I wanted was to be at home with my mum to look after me. Funny, because last night all I could think was that I wanted to be in India, back practicing in Mysore, hanging out with the crowd there who I miss so much more that I can begin to say or even understand myself, hearing Sharath say, “very gooood,” and shopping for glass bangles at Devraja Market and yogic books at Ashok Book Centre
…But I’m back at home, back where I was so desperately longing to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be here, I find myself having newfound appreciation for everything so innately Ontarian, like the endless stretches of green, rolling farmland and the small-town mentality of so many people here who insist that Stephen Harper should be the next PM because he wants to get rid of the gun registry and who say, “India? Why’d you wanna go there?”. I even find myself enjoying the massive shopping centres and power centres that litter the landscape of the GTA. I love how the Canadians (and particularly the Calgarians) have rallied around the Calgary Flames even though they lost the Stanley Cup, everything about it is so damn Canadian and it makes me smile, but I guess I’m starting to see how much the trip has affected me.
So last night I was thinking about Mysore, and thinking about how lucky I am to have been there, how lucky I am to have had the experience throughout Asia that I did and how it’s all over now. It’s like that post-trip depression is setting in. Don’t be alarmed, it’s nothing serious, it’s just that I’m home now, the excitement about my return is over, graduation is over, I’m back in Ontario and it’s all normal again and the thing that I was looking so forward to for the past year and a half, hell, for longer than I can remember, is over. My trip is over, and I don’t know what’s next, and I don’t belong anywhere right now. Before I was always a student, a Hillfield student, a McGill student, then a backpacker and a yogi and now, now what am I ? Unemployed. Unsure. Without a place or a plan. This huge, defining, punctuating trip has ended, school has ended and the path is unclear and I’m fucking scared, I am. I’m confused and I want to be in Montreal, but I like it here, but I need to make money and I feel like I’m wasting time etcetera etcetera etcetera. Okay, in retrospect I can see how all that might bring about a few tears, it’s a time of transition and change and lack of routine, but soon, soon it will all work out, I will have a routine again and things will make sense….
"But some things they stay the same/Like time, there's always time/On my mind/So pass me by, I'll be fine/Just give me time..." --Damien Rice, "Older Chests"

- posted by Andrea @ 12:24 a.m.