Green Eyes

Lately every time I go to yoga there is a first timer. The instructor gives the spiel about Bikram, "your main goal is to stay in the room for the full 90 minutes, don't compare yourself to the people in the front row, they've been doing this for a long time, find a spot where you can see yourself in the mirror and look into your own eyes, etc." and then they usually regale the newbie with an anecdote about their first class. Tricia, the owner of Bikram Yoga Lower East Side says, "I learned immediately, no pants and no mascara." I have heard others say that they couldn't touch their toes the first time. Or that they spent most of the class lying on the mat or that they were in love immediately after that first class.

None of these stories resonate with me at all. I realized why yesterday when I was in yoga listening to the spiel. When I took my first class it was at the urging of my sister. She had been 'urging' me for awhile and I had a million reasons why I didn't want to do it. The heat. I faint easily. I get dizzy. I get light-headed. Yoga isn't real exercise. 90 minutes is a long time to do anything. The heat will make my muscles so loose I will injure myself and be unable to really exercize, i.e., run. But I finally went. I went because I was sick of my life and all of the stale ingredients I had been subsisting on. I needed a new splash of flavor. My sister instructed me to wear as little as possible. I wore a baggy t-shirt and running shorts. I was in the third row on the right side of the room one person away from the heater.

Yes it was hard. Yes I couldn't do all of the postures the way the people in the front row were. Yes I was overdressed. Yes it was hot. No I didn't sit out for any postures. Yes I couldn't wait for it to be over. But what struck me the most about my first time, what framed my class for me was nothing to do with the intracacies or nuances of Bikram yoga; it was staring at myself in the mirror for 90 minutes. I had never done that before. I was living in an apartment without a full length mirror. In fact, I've never had one before. And in March when I was hating life and felt stagnant and felt like I was out of breath running uphill in the rain, fog so thick, I couldn't see the top of the mountain and had stopped believing the mountain did have a top, to see myself in the mirror was scary. I kept taking peeks and would wince every time. I hated what I saw and couldn't reconcile it with pictures of myself from law school or a year or so before when I was happy and smiling and positive; seeing myself was devastating. It is impossible suppress unhappiness and stagnancy and disappointment while staring yourself down in the mirror.

So I walked out of my first Bikram yoga class not feeling love or hate for Bikram yoga. I walked out feeling like, whoa, that was too intense for me. I need to go back to the safety of denial where I eat, drink and smoke away my feelings because my life sucks and there is nothing I can do to change it because I have been trying so hard and everything I do is wrong yada yada yada yada.

I remember thinking, "[w]hen did I get to this annoying bitter ungreatful place? I am sick of myself. I can only wonder how others must feel. How much attention / recognition do I need? So I didn't get the OC. So at work they don't fawn over me and tell me how great I am all the time. So I'm not skinny. So I can't save money. So my student loan is back in forebearance and I can't seem to motivate to find a place to live. Why do I need so much to be happy? Why isn't this enough? Is it really so different than what everyone else has? But everyone else makes it look so easy and it isn't easy for me. It isn't easy to watch these skinny girls waltzing into yoga with all the time in the world while I arrive but for the grace of God because I left no time and it takes me until the last savasana to get close to where they are when they arrive. Have I ever been like this before? Have I ever been so unhappy with myself and my life? I've never given it much thought and you know why? I always believed that things would work themselves out and would be alright. I don't believe anymore. I feel like it is what it is and I have to be the catalyst for my own change in my own life except all the yoga in the world won't do that. Nor will all the writing or eating or drinking or OC stalking or talking about or altering grandma's clothes to not dropping one ball during all of the juggling I do at work which I get no credit for and I still don't have an apartment to move into. Talk about feeling doors slamming in my face and no possibility and no access to reality and the outside world; that's what I feel like. I am sick of making excuses for why things don't work out and patting myself on the back half-heartedly because someone should be. Why can't someone else do it? Why couldn't the OC like me or take a risk for me? Why can't I seem to make any impact in life. No matter what I do, nothing changes. Nothing changes. Life stays exactly the same. I do yoga instead of run. I write at night instead of binge-eat / drink and watch television. I am in the city instead of Brooklyn. But I feel exactly the same. I am running in place. I feel like a spectator instead of a player. I am writing about what others are doing. It isn't me. I used to be in the moment. I used to be a player. I used to be a contender. Now I am an invisible observer to others' lives. I don't know how to live mine. K said I take the lion's share of blame for everything that goes wrong. She asked me why I don't blame her for any of these feelings. It's not her fault. It would feel like I was copping out to blame her for this. She's doing her best and she has effected a lot of change but there are certain fundamental aspects of me that seem beyond change. It's like this experience has turned me into this closed person who will never take any kind of risk again and I will just live in my head because it's so much safer. It is. But there is no reward there. There is no recognition there. So what do I have to do? I don't even know how. I am so pissed at V and BE for not coming to the farewell party at Grandma's apartment; I needed them. I do my best not to feel and then I still have the ability to get hurt. I have lost all ability to open myself up in moving on. This new world was was cool when it was Emerald City but it's not Emerald City anymore. It's old York."

But looking in the mirror enabled me to make some changes and face who I was and what I wanted. I told the OC how I felt because I didn't want to risk miscommunication. I had never made my feelings important before. I have never even allowed myself to know my feelings before. As much as I always want the guy first, it's a predator type thing. I notice him and I want to get him to notice me and like me. But more to win at a game or to assure myself that I still have it, whatever it is. I never actually like the other person as a person, they are more like a well wrapped present. I never have any clue what is inside. With the OC I believed I did. No one supported my decision to just tell him I feel. That surprised me. People do so many crazy things for love. People kill for love, people move across the world for love, people give up inheritances for love, yet my plan seemed to shock people. They couldn't understand it. You are just going to tell him? Just like that? How are you going to do it? What are you going to say? How sure of an affirmative response are you? That's it? You should wait. Once I pled my case, I got a few takers. I have played enough games. I have eased my way in so slowly and seemingly effortlessly that I have become an indispensable friend to get a guy. I have made myself appeared desired by many other guys to peak a guy's interest. I have staged run-ins based on a careful recollection of his schedule so he sees me when he is unguarded and I am unexpected so make it feel like fate. I don't want to play anymore. Obviously I always like the guy I am angling for but there is always sport involved for me. Can I pull this off. I love a good challenge. It makes me feel like I have the upper hand once we become involved. I want none of that this time. I don't want to trick someone into liking me. I know it sounds incredibly corny, but I wanted to know that he liked me for me, not for who I pretended to be. I wanted the foundation of this one to be honesty instead of trickery. And being the daredevil I am, never shying away from a good challenge, the challenge became true honesty. His reaction wasn't my issue.

Facing that challenge was a victory that enabled me to look at myself in the mirror and see a contender; see someone who goes after what she wants and doesn't wait around whining the whole time for it to just come to her, just because she's Briana. More women should be so honest. More women should not wait for a Tuesday call for a Friday night or feign stupidity or ignorance or disinterest. Where does that get you? And why put all that work into someone you aren't allowed to be yourself around because if you were yourself, he might not like you because you are too real, too intense, too alive, too intimidating because you have passion and intelligence and might be more self possessed than he is and you know, you can't have that. But as a result of that game, you never get to really know this guy because you never get to see how he actually responds to the real you. And why are you fighting so hard for someone you don't know and may actually not even like. So there you have it. Women should not follow the rules. Women should not approach dating like they are learning to drive a car or put together a bookshelf. There are not instructions. Use your own judgment. Ask your friends' advice. But only take their advice if it feels right. Trust yourself. Trust your instinct. Don't play games. You will never win because the concept of playing a game in love means that you are not being your real self so any wins or losses have nothing to do with who you really are so by definition they do not count. Don't count them when counting your score.

That's how I am trying to live my life now. And I don't just mean in the love department. I actually check my bank balance instead of hoping for the best when writing my rent check that it won't bounce and I weigh myself too. Most importantly, I am always in the front row in yoga staring these green eyes down.