My best yoga friend is leaving town

Maybe I didn’t present quite as much equanimity as I was aiming for. My teacher called out to me after class as I was unlocking my bike to go home, asking me if I was OK. Of course I’m not OK! My best yoga friend had just announced that she was moving back to her home country and I had been really taken by surprise by her sudden announcement.

We’d been sitting together after yoga class. We were talking a little with our teacher, I don’t remember what about exactly. But I was just feeling happy, soothed, cocooned almost with these two people who help me feel secure, who are with me in my yoga practice and have been so for years. I was kind of fooling around, just feeling happy and safe — and enjoying the novelty of that! And all of a sudden my friend said she was leaving in just 6 weeks time. So no, of course I’m not OK!

In that annoying/wise way yoga teachers have he calmly pointed out that this was really great for her and I should be happy. And of course he’s right and now I feel both sad and selfish! After all, I know how much I depend on her. We had first met, in fact, when I was having the worse ‘bad yoga trip’ I’ve ever had during class. By the end I was a frightened, sobbing, hysterical mess and she literally held me until our teacher arrived and firmly sorted me out. She didn’t really know me then but she was kind enough to stop to attend to me.

Since then we’ve looked out for one another, and increasingly shared confidences, laughing or crying together, sharing joyful moments during class when the practice is tough and we find our best way through it, or just exchanging a quiet smile when no words are needed or a firm hug when no words are possible. There are times when knowing she’ll be on the mat next to me is the only thing that gets me to the studio. And during class sensing her moving through her practice next to me stops me getting stuck and overwhelmed. And I know I offer something of the same to her, according to her own needs.

She came over to my house today and and we spent time together, lots of chatting, a little chanting, loads of giggling and a few tears.

I told her how upset I’d been when she told me she was leaving. She confessed she’d had to rush away from the studio before she starting crying. She had wanted to come back to talk to me. But when she saw me with the teacher in the car park we looked so serious that she didn’t want to interrupt us and she just crept away again. Of course it wouldn’t occur to her that we were talking about her and that he was counseling me to keep in touch, to visit her for some yoga weekends together, and to be happy for her!

Her behaviour says so much about how she is: loving yet shy, honest in her emotions yet lacking confidence in her place. She’s so like me, no wonder we hit it off!