To Regret or Not to Regret?

In my spare (ha!) time I like to peruse strangers' blogs. I find them an intriguing insight into another's thoughts; it's like a window into someone else's mind. Fascinating.

Tonight, I found a hurting blog post who's interpretation of heartbreak made me stop and reflect:

"Thoughts: Regret is Just Love Spelled Backwards

People in the end are just regrets. They are the email you shouldn't have sent. They are the phone call you shouldn't have made. They are the late night you should have walked home alone. They are the streets you should have never walked down and doors that should have stayed closed...

...People in the end are just a series of events we wish we never experienced."

See, I differ in my opinion of past loves; I find this pervasive regret sad and unfair to both parties. It may not have worked out in the end, but that doesn't discredit the happiness, the intimacy, the countless beautiful moments and laughter shared together. I have never, not for a moment, regretted the year we had together, the months I waited, or the tears we shared. And so, I'm countering with my own "thoughts":

Thoughts: Evolve is (ev)Love Spelled Backwards

People, in the end, are teachers. Windows into the secrets of humanity and the universe. They are the ones that forced you to be vulnerable and taught you how to trust. They are the text messages that made you smile at midnight and the hand to hold down countless cracked sidewalks. They are the reason your eyes have more smile wrinkles and the reason there's the understanding of heartbreak hiding in their depths. They are the ones that taught you what you value most - in life, yourself, and in others. They taught you the science of cuddling and pillowtalk, the beautiful riskiness of trust, of and how far you're willing to compromise. They are proof you tried. People, in the end, are a series of teachers that help you discover, and evolve into, who you truly are. 

Good news: My major was approved! I will officially be graduating in June as a Global Health and Social Justice major. Cool.

Good news: A book I conducted research for and helped write was sent to the publishers today at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. Should be published by Spring 2014. Cool.

Good news: Get to go backpacking through Anza Borrego next weekend for free as the professional photographer. Cool.

Bad news: Exhausted and sick. Can't get out of bed. Ever again. #drama

Yo soy

"Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breath out, look in, let go." -John Welwood

Breathe

I lay on my mat tonight, eyes closed, limbs trembling, listening to the sound of my breath.

Each inhale and exhale were deep, powerful, purposeful and soothing. I've learned to really listen to my breathing, pay attention to my breathing; it centers my mind and balances my racing heartbeat. It's therapeutic, whether in the midst of a warrior pose or in the last five minutes of that really intense exam. What I love though, is how your breath has different sentidos. Each part has a different feeling, sentiment, and imagery.

It sounds like the ocean. With each inhale your breath mirrors a breaking wave; crashing upon the shore with life-giving momentum, intensity, curling ripples of oxygen and peace. Desperate and overwhelming, it's easy to get lost in the inhale. But it's that speed and force and power that fills your body, lifts your chin, and gets you through the day. And each exhale is the retreat of the wave back into the vast sea. A release of tension, stress, worry and control. It drags at the grains of sand and fragments of shell as it smoothly pulls back into the dark depths. The shore of your lungs slowly empties until your breath finally tapers off into a quiet whisper between your lips.

It's magical really, if you think about it that way. That your breath is like the tide, ebbing and flowing. Rising and receding. Deep, profound, complex, full of life and mystery.

It's as if the sea were in you. 

White Girl

I met a man in a classy bar a while ago. With shiny leather shoes and a smart, gleaming watch, he seemed intelligent. Sophisticated. Interesting. And I had on my turtle-shell glasses, pearls, and a glass of cooled scotch. 

We began to talk.

A mutual friend had mentioned my time in Jordan to said man and Señor Shoes ventured to turn the conversation more....international. "What were you doing in the Middle East?" he asked, slightly amused. I gave him the quick shpeel, "public health work addressing health conditions inside Jordan's biggest refugee camp" and his eyes lit up. 

"Refugees? You worked with refugees? That's so cute!....Haha, did you get your refugee fix?" 

This face is how I feel about it a week later. In the moment, I could've slugged him.

"Refugee fix?" I frowned. "Not sure I understand."

"You know, white girl goes to the desert to work with refugees. Was it exciting? I mean, it seems crazy exciting! But, well, what do you want to actually do?"

White girl? What do I actually want to do?

"You make refugee camps sound like going to the circus...like something to be entertained with. Like I was just there to get a profile picture." 

"So you did get your refugee fix!"

I just excused myself.

Way to completely undermine, minimize and patronize me and what I'm passionate about. Way to stick me in a racist, sexist box of stereotypes and generalizations without actually stopping to realize that the color of my skin or hair shouldn't sabotage my credibility or goals.

Yes. Thank you Captain Obvious, I am white. And blond. And a woman. Therefore, genuinely caring about the world, it's realities and people, the pain and suffering, the triumphs and challenges is inherently inconceivable. Naturally.

And in those moments, as I walked away from Señor Shoes, I heard another voice in my head....

"Is it because you wish you had culture? Don't base your life off your white man's guilt..." 

Tonight marked the third night in a row I've stayed up past 2am working on my major proposal. Tomorrow I meet with the academic dean and will defend this major I've dreamt up and designed over the last seven months. Global Health and Social Justice: Development, Urbanization, and International Migration. It's powerful, it's holistic, it's raw, challenging and will actually prepare me for the real world; unlike the theoretical bookwork UCSD seems obsessed with. Yesterday I got both the Director of the Global Health Minor and one of Anthropology's leading indigenous rights professors to sign off on my proposal and I literally couldn't breathe from pure joy.

And now I'm terrified silly. I've rewritten my proposal into five drafts, each one different sizes...one is a single page draft, the next is two pages, then three pages, four pages and five. No matter what they ask for, I'll have. I've organized and reorganized the proposed classes, practiced defending it to the mirror, read the entire general catalogue over...twice.

I'm ecstatic and terrified, thrilled and apprehensive, incredibly proud and unbelievably nervous.

And it's not because I'm a white girl who wishes she had culture.

I have culture. So does every single person on this massive, complex planet. And I don't have white-man's guilt or burden. There is unnecessary pain and death in the world and I happen to have spent six years in college and too many SallyMae loans figuring out how to help alleviate it. Has nothing to do with the color of my stupid skin. Or my hair. Or the fact that I happened to be born with green eyes.

White girl's gonna show Señor Shoes and everyone else that passion shouldn't be dictated, or limited, by the color of your skin. I thought we were bigger than that.

Purple yoga mat

My yoga mat is purple. Purple with violet elephants running down one side.

This afternoon, the warm, golden sunlight came streaming through the windows onto the hardwood floor as we shook. Panted. Stretched. Our yoga class is for beginners, but it's incredibly challenging. Cords are used to pull your legs and arms in directions thought impossible moments before. Arturo, the instructor, has learned my name and tells me from across the room "stretch Risa, stretch further. No! Further."

In surfing, there's a desperate sensation when you've been under water a few moments too long where your lungs start to gasp for air. They convulse in upon themselves, stretch against themselves, and you become acutely aware of each cell of your lungs. You feel each one, so furiously bent on living, surge and pulse with life, propelling you to the surface where you can finally gulp the sweet, sweet oxygen.

Yoga is similar. You stretch and bend in ways that make your muscles scream in delicious agony. You hold perfectly still in bizarre poses as your sinewy muscles gasp and cramp and pull at your joints. You listen to your heartbeat as you force yourself not to shake, pull your sacrum back towards the floor, lift your chin towards the ceiling, and breathe. Let it burn, just don't forget to breathe. And when you think you'll collapse in upon yourself, the pose stops. And you can finally relax into yourself on that wonderful, safe mat.

I found myself pressing into my purple, elephant mat as if it were the only thing in the world that could offer me security, stability, and a refuge during the tortures of yoga. As soon as I could get my body flat against my mat, silently whisper cuss words at my understanding elephants, close my eyes and melt into the mat, I'd be okay.

My yoga mat is purple. Purple with violet elephants running down the side. It's tangible representation of peace and sanity.