this is already bigger

I did a yoga class today with an instructor I had never met before. She read poetry throughout her class and more than once, my eyes started filling with cool little tears. And I couldn’t tell if they were happy or sad or both. But maybe I wasn’t supposed to know that at the time. Maybe I was just supposed to let it happen and not let my thoughts get in the way of the feelings my body needed to release through movement and breath.

I took care of a patient the other night who was suicidal. She had attempted suicide twice in the past four months and very blatantly told me she would be doing it again. When I asked her what she wanted out of life, other than the end of it, she told me about what had happened to her to lead her to feel the way she felt. That the life she had before she had an anoxic brain injury was perfect. Messy and perfect. But she loved her life, she said. Until almost everything she loved about it went to trash. And truly it was difficult for me to argue with that. I became grossly aware of my lack of understanding of that feeling, which made me feel very ill equipped to sit in front of a woman that couldn’t stop her thoughts racing for more than three minutes of rest. Or one that has psychotic and behavioral issues from something she had no control over. How was I, as one person that knew nothing about her feelings inside these circumstances supposed to help. But then I remembered all the times people have told me this and I have responded just be with me. The miracle is in the staying. It is not in the magic of words or touch or really anything capable of humans’ tongues or hands but of an ability to not run, to not hide. An ability to stay.