"Peace, Strength, and Happiness" or "Becoming a Dirty Hippie"

I know, I know...this is not the next part of the first blog. But you'll forgive me. Why? Because...well, you have terrible taste in friends. You should work on that.

I am slowly becoming a full-fledged hippie, and I just want you to be aware. I feel like I should say, "My name is CC and I haven't used soap on my face for 412 days." And then you say "hi" back to me while wondering, first of all, why don't I use soap, and second of all, um, gross, how do you wash your face?

You sure are nosey.

Anyway, I really don't wash my face with soap (I use a mixture of castor oil and olive oil). I don't wash my hair with shampoo anymore (I use baking soda and water, and sometimes apple cider vinegar and water). I don't take medication (it could be argued that I should). I buy organic food when possible (I will soon owe my soul to Trader Joe's). And the crowning jewel on top of my hippie crown, that would most likely be made of hemp and, like, some old wise hippie's dreadlocks, is that I have just started taking Dahn Yoga classes. What's that? Well, it's the most hippiest of all the crap I do. And that's saying something.

Being located in the valley of the sun, where it's hotter than hell (really, I checked, it's hotter here) and there are more people over the age of 65 than there are at every single Golden Corral Buffet across the country combined, my Dahn Yoga class is full of wonderful gray-haired ladies, and a few men. Now, there are a couple other people who aren't geriatric, but not many. I walked into the first class, and as I nodded hello to the lady (whose name I would later learn as Gayle) who was seated on a folding chair with both of her canes positioned at her feet, somehow I knew I was in the right place. I am an old soul, and unfortunately, I have the body to match. Achy? Yep. As flexible as a concrete wall? That's me! Bad back, lame hips, random pains that cannot be explained? Oh yeah.

Dahn Yoga is from Korea and it uses stretching and focused breathing on your chakras. (Not Chaka Kahn. But it would be awesome if she was in my class.) Despite the lack of R&B legends, the fact that meditation and focused stretching is the name of the game, the blue hairs love it. Me included. There's no downward facing dog and left-leaning hooting owl (that's a yoga position, right?), and it's very relaxed and peaceful. Since I'm new here, and I have a whole new life about to unfold in front of me, I've been struggling with figuring out who I'm going to become in the coming months. I get to start over, but that's not as exciting as it may seem. My little Blueberry is due at end of November, I have a man in my life who comes with all sorts of awesome stuff, including his two children and 16-pound pup. I have no job. I have no money. So, I've been searching for something...and the worst part is I haven't been able to figure out what that is up until this point. So I stumbled into a Dahn Yoga class on Saturday morning, and they were doing some weird stuff: Punching their lower abdomen (I refrained from that exercise, seeing as I don't need the Blueberry to be any more damaged than the Clawson DNA will already allow for). Saying phrases in Korean. Shaking their bodies around. I had the choice to either be an amused spectator, or join in and just let it all go. I did a little of the former, and then gave into the latter.

As class progressed, the stretching seemed mild, but I could feel it working. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins. I felt all tingly from the increased circulation. And then we got to the meditation part. I got lost completely in it, and man, I did not want to stop. But of course it had to end. After class, we hugged people next to us and then all sat in a circle and drank tea and talked about the session. Seriously, this happened. While at first I was expecting the camera crew to come out from behind the back curtain and announce that the mockumentary would be finished by Sundance next year, I realized that all these people just quieted their mind for more than an hour and they all looked happy and relaxed. Apparently I did too, because when I got home RC noticed that I looked...different. (Eloquent? Why yes, he is.) I felt more peaceful on Saturday for the entire day than I have in, well, as long as I can remember.

I went to class again on Monday. Directly afterward I went to the OB/GYN for my monthly checkup. The doctor asked me what I had done, because she said I was the most calm pregnant woman she's ever seen. Even the Blueberry's heartbeat was a little slower this time around. I told her I was trying out a new yoga class. She asked if I could sit in the lobby all day and help all her patients chill out, and then told me to keep going to class. I mean, I didn't even bitch at anyone while I was driving home...and that's something special. I love to yell at people who don't drive well. But, I just didn't care to let it bother me. See that? That's all that peace and love those damn hippies have been spouting off about all this time.

I'm going to keep going to class. I'll let you know when I change my name to WaterLilly Sunshine.

By the way, I wrote this while a 3-year-old insisted that I: 1. open the sliding glass door so she could play in the sandbox in 108-degree weather (which lasted all of 34 seconds), 2. peel an orange for her, 3. peel two more oranges for her, 4. get her a banana after a two-minute conversation in which she promised me she would eat dinner in an hour despite eating all this damn fruit, 5. dumping markers all over the floor and then coloring a balloon with said markers. So if there are spelling errors or just plain old mistakes, please forgive me. I'll edit it later...after I meditate.

What is my life doing to me?

That is the question that runs through my mind at just about 11:03 a.m. everyday. Before that I'm too sleepy, groggy, consumed by thirst and hunger to care. After that I get distracted by the piddly amount of work I've scrounged up to do in exchange for health insurance, the vast ridiculousness of the intertubes, eating, breathing, blinking, telling the dog to quit whining (for really no reason at all), and loving my love.

But at 11:03 a.m., I wonder where I went wrong, if this "wrong" is a cleverly disguised right, why has this past year gone this way? It is my late-morning moment of panic, followed by the zen of either not truly caring or being too overwhelmed to think of it past 11:05 a.m. If I think too much, I will need to medicate myself with substances the doctor assures me are normal and safe and didn't cause the monkeys who they tested this crap on to completely lose their shit. So I stop thinking; ignore the pills that have collected dust in the medicine cabinet. But deep down, my soul doesn't stop rolling this all around. My life has become some sort of oddity that I could not have conceived on my own.

Last year at this time, as it is with most years in my life, I was completely unrecognizable from who I am now. Sort of. But the me of two years ago would've wondered what the hell I did wrong to end up the way I was a year ago, and she sure as hell would've been confounded, as I am, to see me now. Two years ago me didn't have it all figured out, but she sure as hell felt a lot closer than she is now. But maybe that's not entirely true. Looking back makes that timeframe seem like it was better, but after a moment I realize that I wasn't so happy then, either. Is this the scourge of my life? To eternally be miffed about my state, station, and function?

One year ago I was working far too much for far too little. I traveled every week, barely saw my newly purchased loft (the one I had always dreamed of owning), my sweet three-legged rescue pup, and my boyfriend of nearly three years. My job consumed me, and not in a good way. I didn't come home from work exhausted but happy with what I did that day. I trudged through the days, tied to my phone, my email, my work, without gleaning a whole lot of joy out the experience, and came home exhausted and unhappy. I bought a car that I could barely afford, thinking that a sweet little dark gray convertible sitting in my parking spot would somehow, in someway, make me happier. It did for the half hour I traveled to and from work everyday of the week along the Pacific Coast Highway (if you're going to drive a convertible, it's the road to drive). It did not, however, during all those weekends spent in a crappy hotel room somewhere in America, alone, with a Chevy Aveo rental parked in the lot and the corresponding gigantic key chain rattling in my purse reminding me that Alabama plate ED3 K4J was all mine to loathe. Somehow during that time my boyfriend and I became roommates. My dog and I became mere acquaintances, not the best friends I had hoped and dreamed we would be. My boyfriend and my dog, who were together everyday--they were best friends. I was the outcast who occasionally whisked through the loft with either a suitcase full of dirty clothes or clean ones, depending on which way I was walking through the door. I was a loner both in hotels and at home.

But I had a job. I could pay a little more than one-third of the mortgage with HOAs tacked on. I paid my bills. I bought things, painted the bathroom, gifted myself shoes when I felt it was necessary, walked the dog when I had an afternoon off (usually once a week), and I tried to act like this is how life goes. My boyfriend, the sweet, understanding, team player that he was, always picked me up from the airport. He let me sleep in if I could. He walked the dog twice a day, everyday, and worked from home, always there whether I was or not. When I had the rare weekend off, he would take advantage and go with his friends on a motorcycle trip. He deserved time away with his friends, away from the everyday responsibilities of home. I relished the time at home, alone, with my dog. But then I realized that this isn't how our relationship should be. I did not appreciate my boyfriend in the full "romantic relationship" way. He was patient with me to the point that I felt guilty about it. I didn't have the affection for him I wanted to have. That he wanted me to have. Everything else was perfect in our relationship: we laughed at the same jokes, liked the same music, enjoyed the same things, understood each other, never fought, were best friends… But all those perfect things don't make a perfect relationship. He needed a girlfriend when I needed a friend. I needed him to be there, and he needed me to want to be there with him. Guilt. Constant guilt. Not that he ever made me feel guilty--that was all me. I realized there was a point that I was guilty of taking advantage of him for all his goodness and not fully paying him back. He absolutely, unequivocally deserved more. At what point could I pry myself away from my needs and address his? Soon we realized what had already happened: It was too much time away. Too much living without each other that made us realize that we can absolutely live without each other. When you realize that, it's already gone.

I went to Europe with one of my best friends in the fall. We had planned the trip for months, and it came at the right time: right before I got laid off and just as my relationship with my boyfriend was completely unraveling. The night before I left, he and I had a long discussion about the fact that we were too far gone to resurrect. We ate dinner with tears in our eyes, half relieved to have had the conversation and then the rest sad that what could've been would never be. It was over, but before we could make any rash decisions, I had a flight to catch in the morning. I flew to London and met my friend as she disembarked her flight an hour later. We saw London, we went to Paris, we laughed, we drank, we ate, we shopped, we drunkenly kissed French bartenders after far too many free shots, and most importatly I felt alive. I felt happy. I felt like the me I want to be. No deadlines, no overhanging guilt, no worries, no stress, just me and her traveling around and bringing our special brand of whatever it is we do across the pond. I needed it more than I could've imagined when I booked the flight months earlier. When I boarded the plane pointed west 10 days later, I felt revived, but then panicked as we neared California. The fun, the frivolity, the European carefree me was about to go through a very real, intense American breakup. Division of things. Moving of stuff. Figuring out of life. What I would've given for a big rewind button and a well-timed 'pause' about three days beforehand.

I got home, got un-jetlagged, and we had "the talk." The final talk. The one where I cry because I'm sad, because I feel bad, but I know it needs to happen. The one where he cries because he tried with everything he has to make it work. We cry because we're losing our best friends. But it needs to happen. You can't move on if you're holding on to something. He and I let go. I say I will leave, he says I can stay until I find a place, but not to overstay my welcome. My best friend had never said anything like that to me, and it stings like a bastard still. But he's hurt. If that's the worst I get from him, I consider myself lucky. I go back to work two days later and find out that my job has been terminated, effective immediately.  Forty-eight hours is not long, except for those specific 48. Funny how life can carry on for days, weeks, months with nothing of note to speak of, too boring to even write it down in a dowdy plain-faced journal, and then, like a garden hose that's been left in the sun for too long, it just suddenly breaks loose and your life is flooded with…well, life.

You this this is long? There's more...I'll post it later so that I'm not responsible for your eyeballs straining so badly that you have to call in sick to work and can't even focus enough to watch that 14th consecutive Teen Mom marathon on MTV.