Let's talk about ADHD, let's talk about you and me...

(This is my brain on Adderall.)

Spinderella cut it up one time...

OK, sorry.

Anyway.

For years I've joked about being all, "Oh, look, a squirrel!" And then getting totally derailed from whatever I was thinking or doing. 

I've mentioned humorously that I was never able to create outlines, because you had to decide on the importance of the information for Roman numerals I, II, and III and their sub-letters and numbers. 

All the information at each level had to be of parallel importance. This was impossible for me.

I could never figure out the exact parallel importance. What if II was slightly less important than I? Could I still put it as its own whole thing? Or should it go underneath?

I'd wind up with a Roman numeral I with a million items underneath.

Which does not a decent-grade-worthy outline make.

Now I make my outlines with dashes. All dashes. Or dashes with dots underneath.

Maybe they're just more lists?

And when I had to organize things like events for work, I'd tape all of the pieces of information to my office wall. This surely looked crazy and chaotic, but I assure you it was nothing compared to the inside of my brain trying to keep all that information organized.

So, back to the squirrel. Or any kind of interruption in task, either created by someone else or myself.

I'd leave the task and not loop back to it for...who knows how long. Because 17 other little tasks can always get in the way.

Typically I bounce from one to the next, not necessarily completing anything until I'm up against a deadline. Then I'm great at being balls to the wall and getting it done.

"Balls to the wall" is an expression I quite enjoy. It's so visual and really rather uncomfortable, isn't it?

Anyway, on any given day at home, I might start in the kitchen making tea, leaving it to steep on the counter while I go in the back to start laundry, which makes me remember that I need to order more detergent, which leads me into email to a return label I need to send Nick to print out, which reminds me that I should ask him about taking India to basketball on Sunday, and oh my gosh, I have to make that appointment for my mom...

I might return to my steeping cup of tea two hours later, because I happen to walk through the kitchen and notice it.

By then it's no longer freshly steeping, no longer piping hot. I put it in the microwave and walk away, and...

Ultimately brew a whole new cup hours later. 

So.

Early in the pandemic, Jordan was diagnosed with inattentive type ADHD. 

And the more I read about executive functioning and executive dysfunction, the more I felt like I was reading about myself.

Around the same time a very dear friend of mine and her son got diagnosed together, and she told me I needed to get diagnosed. Because we struggle with so many of the same things. And medication helped her not just organize and accomplish things, but actually feel better about herself.

Because it's easy to feel like a loser when you struggle to get much of anything done.

Shortly after this, I mentioned it in a call with my psychiatrist. I told him about Jordan and about how so many of the described cognitive struggles resonate with me. I said, "I think I have ADHD!"

And he said something along the lines of, "Everyone feels like they have ADHD in Covid." 

So I did nothing about it. Because everything was hard and I wasn't in a position to pay a bunch of money for a diagnosis for myself. Getting Jordan diagnosed felt critical, and truly, it's changed his life. 

But me? I am not in school. I no longer work in an office. I have some freelance projects, but mostly I'm home taking care of my mom and the kids.

It didn't feel as important to pursue.

Then this year, two years after that phone appointment with my shrink, I relayed the conversation to a friend who said, "His response was very dismissive!" 

She was right. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to say that to him.

And this year, after a break of about a decade, I got back into therapy. I brought it up with my therapist.

We had some in-depth conversations, and she offered to speak to my psychiatrist or doctor about a diagnosis and medication.

I told her about what my shrink had said, and how I didn't feel inclined to reach out to him. Instead I reached out to my PC to see if she was comfortable with diagnosis and ask if we might have an appointment to discuss this.

I used to have a doctor who didn't even pretend to know who I was whenever I went to see him, but in the past couple years I've been seeing someone I adore. I switched practices to follow her across town. She's so smart and thoughtful and I both like and respect her.

In 53 years on this planet, this for me is a first.

So these two amazing, bright, highly educated women had a conversation about me, about my mental health and the best approach to my care, and I just don't know if I've felt so cared for by health care  professionals before.

At my appointment with my PC we discussed options, and she suggested trying the short-acting form of Adderall to start with, to see how I reacted to it and if it helped.

Unlike antidepressants, where you titrate up over weeks and wait to see if you feel better, with Adderall you feel the effects almost immediately. 

This was a nice change. I'm so used to waiting and waiting to see how I feel, and trying to figure out if I actually feel better or just want to feel better so I think I do.

(It took me a long time to figure out that Wellbutrin made me angry. It didn't take away any of the darkness in my brain, but it filled every single nook and cranny of me with rage. Which super fucking sucks. To use an industry term.)

Anyway, Adderall.

I took it, and what I felt was calm. My brain, usually busy oh so busy, was quiet.

Honestly, and I know for most people this is weird, I don't listen to music when I'm home alone. My brain is already too noisy. No TV unless it's something I'm watching, and no music, unless I'm walking/running or driving.

When Nick has music on in the kitchen and also wants to talk to me it makes me feel physically angry. 

I'm not suggesting my big brain is always occupied processing such important things. No. It's that there are too many things happening at the same time, and multiple inputs on top of that make my head melt.

Adderall mitigated the swirly chaos of the constant everything.

I thought I was a great at multitasking, but as it turns out, I am not. 

What I've been good at, at least at work, is being pleasant about being interrupted in the middle of a task, because it's so easy to turn my attention to something else.

(You're not troubling me because I was going to get up anyway.)

This one is perhaps my favorite: You know what else people with ADHD struggle with? Time management.

You know what I suck at? Time.

I've had friends who get insulted if you are at all late, because they think it's a reflection of how you feel about them.

These are friends I can love dearly but not make plans with.

Because time. My god, I've been so challenged by the space-time continuum my entire life.

I remember sending Nick a calendar appointment—I think it was for my amnio when I was pregnant with Jordan—and he thought we needed to be there an hour and a half ahead of time. But really that was my time buffer because I was terrified of being late.

Nick, as it turns out, just walks through life tightly scheduling all kinds of important meetings and actually attending them without anxiety drama trauma.

Perhaps you do, too. I imagine this is nice. I don't mean this at all sarcastically. 

Anyway, reading about it and being like, oh, it's not just me failing to grasp the concept of clocks and hours and minutes and living in a linear fashion made me feel a hell of a lot better. 

It's my brain chemistry soup. And I am not alone in the struggle.

I don't mean to suggest that I've been a complete disaster for my over half a century on this planet. 

I've functioned as a reasonable human in society for quite some time now. I went to decent schools and got a graduate degree and held jobs and bought a condo and paid my bills on time.

But my gosh, I now realize things could've been easier. 

I remember feeling this way when I got on medication for depression. For so many years, things could've been easier. So much easier.

This is really the beginning of my journey with this, because I don't actually think Adderall is the right medication for me. 

Which I'm not concerned about, because I've tried so many antidepressants over the years, and I know medication is a Goldilocks kind of process.

I see that things can be different, and I'm happy about it.

But I've gone on too long, so that needs to be a whole nother post.

October and the trees are stripped bare of all they wear

Dear Dad,

Today is your birthday.

This morning I said to Mama, "It's Dad's birthday today." 

To which she quietly replied, "I know."

Of course she knows. You were together over 50 years. That's a lot of birthdays together.

I guess I just said it to recognize it.

***

It's grey and chilly and pouring in DC, and really kind of wretched. I walked Wanda this morning and was rather shocked and insulted by how cold it was, in fact.

I thought hurricanes were all about warm air.

You used to pronounce it "hyuricane" and I never knew why.

***

Recently I learned that I walk like you.

I was walking with my yoga teacher  and his partner after class and he told me that the way I walk contributes to my issue with tightness in my lower back. 

And then he demonstrated my walk. It was an exact imitation. 

So then he also showed us how his partner walks, in contrast to me. Also spot on. She said, "I walk like my dad."

I said, "You know, I bet I walk like my dad."

And a couple days later I told a dear friend about Asrat imitating my walk and she said, "You walk just like your dad."

Which makes me think about how you and I would go out for walks together and you'd say, "Stand up straight! Shoulders back! Stomach in!" 

I'd do all those things and then you'd say, "Sphincter tight!" 

I laughed every time.

*** 

Sometimes these realizations make me think about my brother. I wonder if he notices things like this in himself once in a while. 

I wonder if his children have features or expressions or whatever that are just so exactly you or Mama or me.

Distance, after all, doesn't erase DNA. 

***

In August, when Nick, the kids and I went to camp, Phil came and stayed with Mom so she wasn't all alone. They had a great time.

During that week, one of your friends from when you were in Afghanistan called to say one of your Peace Corps friends had died. I asked how many were left from your group, and Mom said three.

I think of how lucky you were (and by extension how lucky I was and still am) to have met such extraordinary people and kept them in your lives for so long. 

Maude's daughter Iris and our India will be friends one day.  Geography is challenging, but let's be clear: Denver and DC are a lot closer than Bangladesh to Philippines or just about everywhere else Maude and I were growing up. 

We're all in the same country, and we will make this happen.

***

Jordan is well and away taller than me now, and India is getting there. She's outgrown my sneakers.

I realized this fall when India started 5th grade that she was the same age I was when we moved to the US for the first time.

I remember my first day of 5th grade. We were supposed to fill out an index card with our home phone number and the number of our bus and I didn't know either.

She walks to school, and it's a school she's attended since she was four.

Halloween is fast approaching, and our alley is doing trick-or-treating. I remember how, until we moved to the US, you'd drive us from American house to American house to trick-or-treat. 

I think Halloween is fairly popular globally now.

***

We're all doing OK. Pretty well, in fact. Maybe you know this.

I hope you know this. 

It's your birthday, and I miss you.

Love,

Lisa

Let me explain...No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Dear Nick,

I woke up this morning thinking about how to write about 14 years of marriage.

When I was younger, even past the age where I thought my freckles would magically disappear when I was all grown up, I believed that marriage would make me happy. Like, the fabric of my universe would fundamentally alter and I'd be happy.

Even though I was unhappy much of the time--something that would change with therapy and meds. But not for years and years.

But marriage is like moving; wherever you go, there you are, and you can't escape yourself. And marriage is unlike moving in that you're you, with all your own whatevers, having to try to build a compatible life with another human with all of their own whatevers. 

And then you add small humans into the mix, and the various stresses of jobs and life, and harmony becomes further complicated.

It would've been helpful for me to know ahead of time that in our marriage we could have tremendous, enraged, yelling disagreements and still ultimately be OK. 

I wish someone had explained to me that there could be an entire year that would suck, but then a really good year could follow it.

Recently a photo from our trip to Maine in 2014 popped up. We were laughing, looking so happy. And I remember what a horrible time you and I were having that summer. In fact, that whole year was wretched. 

We discussed divorce. And then decided to affirmatively work on our relationship.

That was six years into marriage, and here we are eight years later.

Which is not to say that it's all been sunshine and puppies. More that we have ups and downs but agree that it's something we both think is worth working on.

Because, jeez, loving someone and being harmoniously married to them are two different things.

At some point you told me that me joking about stabbing you really bothered you. So I no longer joke about it in front of you.

(Although please understand that I don't actually trust women who never admit to feelings like this.)

But, anyway, the other night we were sitting on the couch annoyed with each other about, I don't even know, something, and you made a Lisa face and said in a falsetto, "I'm going to stab you!"

I laughed and laughed. I don't honestly know what we'd do if we didn't find each other funny.

Today it's been 14 years since we stood up in front of so many loved ones and promised to love each other forever and ever or something along those lines. I loved our simple vows; I just don't seem to have a copy.

Honestly, I think the idea of committing forever is a daunting one at the outset. I see how it promotes societal stability, but practically speaking, it's kind of weird.

Which is not to say that my goal—which I know is our shared goal—isn't forever. Our hope is till death does us part. We sometimes joke about the other going first and what we're going to do when that happens, and other people don't seem to find those conversations as funny as we do.

But back to forever: it's more like how do you pick one person whose jokes you'll want to hear, whose hand you'll want to hold, whose air you'll be willing to breathe for the rest of your life?

It's such a leap of faith.

And then a lot of work. I mean, I suppose if it's work to be together at all, then it's just the wrong thing. But it's work to communicate effectively. And to listen to the other person and try to understand where they're coming from.

And all the compromise. My hell, the compromise.

I think what I find most important, and maybe most interesting, is the ability to see you for who you are and accept all of you despite the parts that annoy or frustrate me.

The things I love and admire about you are the easy things.

This is not something I thought about prior to marriage.

I didn't anticipate having to grow so much. I had no idea I'd need to learn so many skills in order to advocate for what I want and actually hear-—not just listen to—what you want. I didn't think about needing to work as a team to achieve shared goals, like raising secure children.

Who knew we'd need to work so hard to build something together? I'm still my own whole person, as are you, and then our marriage is this whole entire, I don't know, thing unto itself.

I don't actually care about cut flowers or chocolates or fancy dinners. Gifts, as it turns out, are not my love language.

I don't know what other marriages are like, or what other people like about their marriages. But one of the things I appreciate so much is knowing that you always, always have my back. I'm independent, but I'm not alone. 

We are in it—and what "it" is varies—together.  

What I want is to be seen and heard and loved for who I am. Because of and despite who I am, as an entire, multifaceted person. I want to feel secure in the knowledge that that love is not predicated on me looking or behaving a certain way.

And in this, I have what I want. (Although I'd never turn down chocolate. Or a ticket to Cartagena.)

I love you. Happy 14.

Lisa

And now I am 53

Yesterday was a glorious day for a birthday.

I like to write a birthday post on the day, but the entire day was just so busy.  Well, the entire day up until 4:00 pm, at which point I commenced celebrating.

And I have learned that I do not have the fortitude to drink with a Russian.

Nick and I are currently headed to Maine, so we spent much of the day preparing to go, and getting the house/dog sitters acquainted with the house and dog. 

Plus I had to bake a cake. And get ready for my wee party. 

Initially I was going to let my birthday pass mostly unremarked upon, but a couple friends said I just had to celebrate in some small way. Which, honestly, I wanted to but I guess I needed some prodding. 

So on Thursday I sent an email to a few friends recognizing the last-minuteness of the situation and inviting them for afternoon drinks and snacks and cake.

The fact is that I'm an inviter, and I have great taste in people, (really, I do). And even though I regularly loathe humanity, I seem to meet amazing people with some frequency. 

That said, I'm also not a very good organizer. So being a disorganized inviter, I tend to wind up preparing for large parties in a state of utter anxiety.

Fortunately, Nick is a terrific organizer, and ultimately our parties turn out well because the people are so interesting and we have lots of food and drinks.

But! Being that it is still Covid times, and this is the first party we have had, and we all needed to fit in the shade of the umbrella on our deck, I kept it very small. 

Honestly, limiting a list is something that takes effort. Much like how I have to focus hard on the amount of popcorn kernels I pour into the pot so that I don't wind up with twice the pot capacity when it pops.

I've only managed the appropriate amount once or twice.

Anyway.

After a couple weeks of the kind of heat and humidity that gives a bad name to summer in DC, it was suddenly and inexplicably perfect. I mean, I guess it is explicable, in that I heard on NPR that this weather is coming all the way from Greenland (I think? Somewhere very north and cold.).

So instead of being soaked the moment you leave the house and then slogging down the sidewalk dripping, the morning was actually chilly! Or, maybe not for most humans, but my friend Meg and I like to text each other about how cold it is when it drops below 80.

I don't mean to go on about the weather but it's been a big topic because the heat has gotten so hot. Somehow we have been talking about how hot it is every single day. It's been so hot.

Not, like, Spanish vacation hot where the heat was coming straight from Africa we had no AC and I took to drinking first thing in the morning right after my coffee because everything was so hard. Or maybe it has been that hot, but we do have AC and no beach so we just stay inside.

Further anyway:

This past year has been one of emotional growth for me. 

You know how however you feel is your reality, whether or not it's factually real, and no matter how much your reality doesn't line up with other people's?

Like, not total fantasy, but maybe your perception of yourself and your place in the world is a yellow circle, and other people's perception of you is a red circle, and while there is some percentage of orange where they overlap there's still plenty of separation as well.

Inconvenient but true.

So, I think my biggest revelation is that I have always been loved, and never actually been alone, no matter how isolated I felt. So many people reassured me that I was loved and cared for, but there were many periods where I didn't actually believe that.

In my awake life, I feel confident that I'm loved, and that I'm surrounded by people who care about me.

In my dreams, I'm still regularly abandoned, and entirely alone.

Sometimes while still asleep I can remind myself it's not real, that it's just a dream. And sometimes I can't, and I awaken upset.

So I suppose I'm still processing. But on the whole doing so much better.

This was also the year I discovered the magic of Crocs. Who knew they were so cute and comfortable?

India and I share, and we've now gotten my mom into them as well.

Both kids have been at camp all summer, and while I'm so happy for them, their prolonged absence has been hard. I mean, yes, it's been a tremendous luxury to go to yoga every evening and not worry about dinner. Or to have a last minute have a date with Nick.

But my gosh, I miss them.

When they were younger and the physical and emotional demands were relentless, I fantasized about a kid hotel kind of like how you can board your pet for an extended period of time. Just for a break. 

But we have had an extended break, and I really miss their company. They're funny and interesting and old enough to be independent but still young enough to want to spend some time with us.

Nick and I pick them up on Tuesday, and I cannot wait to hug those little humans. Or big humans, rather, as Jordan is taller than me, and from photos it looks like he's grown more this summer.

Also, since we only communicate through letters, I get tidbits of information, and then I want more, but the subsequent letter doesn't necessarily provide the next installment. Like, why did Jordan and his tent-mates get in big trouble? What kind of trouble? Who is the mean girl in India's cabin? Did they ever figure out who stole Jordan's magic cards? 

The kids get candy once a week at camp, and our last request from Jordan was to send him candy disguised as something else. 

I'd sneak a shiv into prison for that kid, but on the whole I'm a first-born rule follower, and I'm most certainly not sending contraband sweets and getting in trouble with Aunt Laura.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Like a handprint on my heart

Sometimes you luck into situations, people, places with no particular intention. 

And they change you in some way, small or even fundamentally.

Later you have to think long and hard to remember how your life was before.

Back when I was internet dating like a second job, married friends would occasionally suggest that I was trying too hard.

"It's because you're looking. You need to stop looking."

"You'll meet someone when you least expect it. That's how I met my husband." 

They'd say some version of this.

One suggested I lower my standards.

And I'd silently be all fuck you very much and discuss with my similarly-single girlfriends how really, if we weren't looking, how were we actually going to encounter a man we might like to kiss, much less marry?

Anyway, my dating life is not actually the point of this.

The point is yoga. 

Sort of.

The fall before the pandemic, after I'd left my office job and had weekday flexibility, my friend Tracy told me that I should start going to Asrat's classes. He was, in a word, incredible.

So I walked into his class, with students of a range of ages, where everyone already seemed to know each other.

Asrat is like nobody else I've ever known. He has a huge heart and an intense personality. He was a mixed martial arts champion who, after years of competing, and ultimately injury, discovered yoga.

His yoga teaching mixes in martial arts, for those who are familiar with both yoga and martial arts, which I am not. It's power yoga, I think?, with his own personal twist on everything. Every time you master a pose or part of a sequence, he notches it up and makes it harder.

His favorite thing to say is, "Nothing is impossible." Said while asking us to do seemingly impossible things.

But I digress. This yoga, it was challenging. Because Asrat pushes you to challenge yourself.

It was hard in a way that resonated with me. I'm not flexible, but I'm strong, and I'm so very stubborn. Week by week, I saw myself improve. 

Incrementally, but still. It felt good.

And then the world shut down. 

I missed everything, as we all did. I missed yoga, and I missed my new friends. I didn't know anyone well, but I liked them. I felt connected.

Then Asrat started teaching online. So I did Zoom classes multiple days a week. We did this for months and months.

And at some point friend Kathleen was Zooming in from a gorgeous living room in a beautiful house in a spectacular location. Where, we all wanted to know, was this magical land?

MONTANA.

So we started joking: When the pandemic ends, we're going to do a yoga retreat in Montana. Kathleen, can't wait to come to Montana for our yoga retreat!

We talked about it regularly, in a low-key fantasy sort of way.

Then we started doing Saturday yoga in-person outside on an office roof downtown. I looked forward to in-person Saturdays so much. We did yoga in freezing temperatures in hats and jackets and in sweltering ones with copious sunscreen and sunglasses. 

Those who couldn't be there in person still Zoomed in. This is one of my favorite photos from the roof.

Eventually we started doing masked in-person yoga inside. At that point we were all vaccinated and there were only 2-3 of us at a time. Eventually we moved to unmasked.

Which, in Covid, took a tremendous level of trust.

And as we spent more time together, cheering each other on in both yoga and personal victories, and struggling together in increasingly difficult classes, we forged an intense group friendship.

I mean, being corrected in yoga is pretty personal, and being vulnerable and working so hard takes an immense amount of trust.

So when Kathleen said she was absolutely serious about hosting us in Montana, our little group started talking schedules and working to make it real.

For months it would come up every time we saw each other. We were giddy with anticipation.

And last month, five of us flew out to join Kathleen in the magical land of Montana. (One of us is included in my heart, but omitted, by request, online.)

It was glorious.

Tracy and I flew a day before the others, and we stayed a cabin just outside Glacier. 

Kathleen gave us bear spray for our hike. Bear spray! 

Here Kathleen and Tracy demonstrate, although apparently you want to use it before the bear gets that close.

(India later asked if you use it like bug spray and I was all, uh, no.)

We awoke super early, and Tracy, who is even less of a morning person than me, and less nature-y, and more food motivated, said, "OK. We go do The Thing in Glacier and then we meet our friends for lunch."

The Thing: hiking to Avalanche Lake.

And then we joined new arrivals for lunch and all headed to Kathleen's house. On a lovely, deep, clean lake

This view was ours for a week. I took versions of this photo every single day.

Only our morning schedule was strict: up at 6:00 am, yoga 7:30--10:30 or 11:00, and then we prepared and ate a large meal. We had down time, then a hike or nap or swim in the lake or really whatever. And then yoga again in the evening, then prepared and ate dinner. 

Half an hour per day of phone use. We gave our people Asrat's number for emergencies.

I feared this would be terribly hard. In truth, it was such a relief. When do we get to divest ourselves of the obligation to respond to everything?

I thought we might split up in our down time, but in fact we all wanted to do things together. We all went on hikes. We all wanted to see the waterfall.

One person headed down to the lake, and eventually, we'd all trickle down.

The only activity we didn't all do was the insanely hard bike ride up a mountain. We left that to Kathleen and Asrat.

I also thought we'd be in bed by 9:00 pm, ten at the latest.

But the Montana skies are delightfully light so late, and we all had so much to do, so much to say. We knew each other mainly in the studio or online. But we knew very little of each other's backstories.

And you know how much I love a life story.

Even the strongest among us has vulnerabilities. Otherwise we wouldn't be human. Or truly able to connect. And I love those moments of deep connection.

I never envisioned myself getting really into yoga.

When I told Wendy that I'd gotten so invested in my yoga classes she said, "That's really funny. I remember years ago asking you if you did yoga and you said it mostly seemed like a bunch of people farting in a hot room."

I don't remember saying that, but it does sound like me, so I'm willing to own it.

Truly, I don't know what I thought yoga was, but I wasn't looking for what I got.

I wandered into Asrat's classes looking for a workout. With my early foray into yoga with other teachers, that's more or less what I got.

But looking back to those classes, my form wasn't correct. My poses had no life. I really didn't get it.

I don't know that I totally "get" it, but I'm way closer. I still struggle with breathing correctly. I have not yet managed to visualize myself.

But in the wretchedness of the pandemic I found physical and emotional challenge while building a profound connection to a small group of people.

Asrat and this yoga community pulled me through some of the darkest moments of pandemic isolation and exhaustion and depression.

In a Covid world gone scary and weird and empty and often devoid of joy, I ceased to regularly change my clothes or bathe, but I always showed up for Zoom yoga.

So with the opportunity to spend a week—an entire, uninterrupted, glorious week—together, we reveled.

We stayed up late, so late, talking and laughing. We laughed and laughed.

I mean, not every minute. One day I actually cried. Yoga pulled the anxiety out of my depths, up to the surface. Tracy said she looked over at me in class and was sure I was going to cry.

It was like a Dementor had flown by. I felt empty and joyless and utterly devastated.

I assumed it was because it was hour three and I was starving. But as it turns out, intense yoga will extract emotional pain.

After class I sobbed, while one of my friends, who is a therapist, hugged me. She said to just let it go. I cried until I was exhausted. And then I was lighter.

But overwhelmingly in this week, what I experienced was tremendous joy.

The laughter and joy stood out to those who saw us together. Several people we met remarked on it.

We just had all this great energy swirling around us like stardust.

One morning after yoga we took a field trip to a store called Booze 'N Bait. 

We entered as tourists, not even pretending not to be astounded by the volume of weaponry and taxidermy. We posed. We took photos of everything. We bought liquor and logo hats and glasses. 

We giggled.

I was checking out last, and the rest of our group had gone ahead outside. 

A man in the store said to the woman at the register, "That sure was a jolly bunch."

I will be honest; I wasn't looking for friends when I walked into yoga. I mean, I'm friendly. I wasn't looking for adversaries or anything.

I was mainly just looking for a workout.

Which sounds so trite, considering.

Now, on our retreat we did some very hard things. We each worked up to poses we hadn't thought possible. We supported--both emotionally and physically--each other into headstands, handstands, etc. Some of these are scary, at least for me.

Honestly, I felt quite proud.

But what stands out in my mind from our trip is not the physical accomplishment. It is the connection and friendship.

There have been times in my life when I've had to search deep to find something to be grateful for. And then there are times like this, where my gratitude spills over.

Sometimes we luck into what we need the most.

(And sometimes, let's be frank, we fart alone in a hot room. Or anyway, I do. But better than on a plane, I can tell you that for sure.)