The Big Hook

December 26, 2017. My family and I were driving home from a “day after Christmas” gathering. It had been a super evening: delicious Italian meal, board games, lots of laughs. The sun had set and our headlights were on. We passed a haunted house festival location. Shortly beyond this, I noticed a mannequin-like figure on the shoulder of the road. I thought, that looks like a person… I said, “did you see that?” My ex-husband says, “yes, I did”, and spun the truck around.

I get out of the truck, approach the mannequin (I still thought it was a mannequin). Within 6-feet of her, I had to lower myself to my hands and knees. I called out to her, felt her wrist for a pulse, then saw the gunshot wounds. He called 9-1-1. There was nothing we could do; she was gone. She looked my age, was wearing a cute sweater, jeans, boots, with reading glasses and dark hair. She reminded me of me in that moment. I went back to the truck and consoled our children. The police came, my ex-husband was questioned at the station, and life went on.

But, not really… I was not trained nor prepared for that. I developed driving-related anxiety and panic episodes soon thereafter. My friend therapist recommended yoga. I joined a yoga studio in Lexington, KY. Boom: this was the hook for me. I forced myself onto my mat for at least 60 minutes every day in 2018. It was the longest-standing commitment that I’ve had to my yoga practice. For those 60 minutes, I focused on every pose, breath, and transition like it was a life-saving nectar. Yoga became a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual reprieve for me during that year. It was the challenge and distraction and relief that I didn’t know I needed, to cope with saying hello and goodbye to a perfectly imperfect stranger at Christmastime. I haven’t looked back, or stopped practicing since then, and I don’t intend to!