One Foot in Front of the Other

Today I accomplished two milestones in the wake of my sister's passing. I went to Corepower Yoga, and I made cauliflower fried rice. I assume this is baffling to even those who know me the most, so I will explain the significance.

I have been a fitness studio junkie for the past two years. Everything from barre classes, to cycling studios. You name it, I tried it. In early September, I decided to give Corepower Yoga another try. It had been over a year since my free trial week and I felt ready to try something that connected my mind and body. In my first month of membership, I took only 3 days off. I was wholeheartedly determined to become a yogi.

I had been begging Lauren to find a studio near home since I started. Aside from the workout benefits, I felt that yoga truly had a holistic healing power over me. I felt less anxious, more in-tune with my emotions, and calmer. I wanted it to be Lauren's saving grace too. We finally found a day where she and I were both off work and she reluctantly agreed to join me for a class with our mom. The morning of, my mom told me that Lauren did not want to go, but like most things since she moved home, we begged and pleaded until she agreed.

When our 60 minute class ended and we gathered our belongings from the locker room, I was so excited to see the effects it had on her. I asked her if she felt more relaxed, she didn't. I asked her if she would continue going for a week, she wouldn't. She felt inadequate. She had to watch someone the entire time and felt awkward doing all of the poses. I told her that everyone had to start somewhere and that I was certain she looked much better doing it than she felt. I asked her to give it another chance and to go after work the next day, she changed the subject.

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Two days later, I partook in my usual Monday evening routine of meal prepping for the week. I began making cauliflower fried-rice and realized too late that one of my roommates threw out the few eggs I had remaining in the fridge. I was in the middle of sending a passive aggressive text to them when my mom interrupted with a phone call. I had spoken to her just two hours earlier, what could she possibly want? I hovered over the ignore button, but answered the call.

Through horrifying, bone-chilling shrieks, she told me she found my sister dead.

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Yoga and cauliflower fried rice. Exercising and cooking. Two equally important parts of my life before Lauren died that I now loathed. It took me weeks to muster up the will to even make myself eggs, and well over a month and a half before doing any form of exercise. Every morning I would tell myself that this is the day. I will try harder and be better. But then midway through, I would give in and decide that I deserved to order sushi or have an extra cookie. My sister just died. I needed to grieve-eat.

After telling myself every excuse in the book for why I can't, I decided that enough was enough. Lauren would never want me to carry on like this. No one is going to pull me out of bed and push me back on my feet. It was something that I needed to do myself. I can't allow myself to pull the dead sister card anymore. There are people with far worse problems that will do far more than I ever will. I need to rebuild my life not without my sister, but with her in the core of heart and as the angel on my shoulder that says I can when I feel I cannot.

Today I accomplished two things important to me. Tomorrow, I will accomplish more. In the grand scheme of mourning and loss, I realize that I will never wake up snap out of it. I will never be back to normal, the person I was before I lost my sister. I will carry on in small accomplishments, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other.