Boise, Idaho
"All right everyone. Savasana!" their instructor said. "Do not skip this! This part of the routine is crucial. This is where you allow your muscles to relax so your mind and body can absorb all the benefits of today's practice."
When she started going to Yoga classes, Paula Stevenson nearly quit after the first one. All of it seemed so...silly. The poses, their names, even the breathing. It seemed like little more than some kind of New-Age stretching, and yet she was paying good money to go there and...stretch. But thanks to a younger woman in the class who agreed with Paula's daughter that it was a great form of exercise, she kept coming. By the end of the first month, it was starting to make some sense to her. By the three-month mark, the benefits were becoming obvious as her body became firmer, more toned, and she felt overall healthier.
After a horrible, completely unexpected betrayal by her husband of 23 years, Paula's life had been so turned upside down, she'd been mentally and physically torn apart.
She worked as a school nurse at a local elementary school even though she was only an Licensed Practical Nurse of LPN and not a registered nurse. The law required an RN to administer medication, but when a school had made a 'reasonable effort' and couldn't find an RN, an LPN could be hired and legally do the same things.
She'd worked in a nursing home and a hospital for many years, but this job afforded her a much-needed break from the stress of working around people who were often terminally ill. It didn't pay much, but her husband had a great job, and he'd encouraged her to take it.
The 'big revelation' came toward the end of the school of year, and not long before their 22-year old daughter, Eileen, was graduating from college. He'd mentioned both as though he was doing her some kind of big favor, telling her Eileen's last tuition check had been sent.
After years of dieting, swimming, and doing everything in her power to stay young and healthy, she'd still been 'rewarded' with her 51-year old husband informing her he was leaving her for another woman. A woman who, at 28, was really little more than a flighty, dingy little girl.
When he first sat her down and told her, Paula laughed. He'd always been a big kidder so she was absolutely certain he was joking and about to tell her why. It wouldn't have surprised her to hear him laugh then say, "No, seriously, we're going on a weeklong cruise to Alaska!"
But when she saw the seriousness in his eyes, she said, "You're not kidding, are you?"
"No. I'm not," he told her. "I'm as sorry as I can be, Paul, but I'm not kidding."
She sat there too stunned to even move before telling him, "My name is Paula—with an 'a'. I don't like being called 'Paul' and I never have. And as far as you being 'sorry', you're damn right you are. You are a sorry sonuvabitch who needs to pack his shit and get out of my house! Tonight!"
She couldn't remember the last time she swore, but swear she did. And an hour later, he'd packed his...stuff...and left.
Still reeling from the revelation, she went to the liquor cabinet and poured herself three fingers of Glenlivet 18 Scotch, an amount she hadn't had in one sitting since she was in college herself. She slammed it in two swigs, shuddering from the strong taste after each drink, then poured another. And then another as she wept and wallowed in self-pity.
And for the next two months, she did pretty much the same thing every evening, and on days when she wasn't working, it started in the afternoon and continued until she either passed out or threw up.
If not for the support of her daughter, who was a senior in college at Idaho State University in Pocatello, Paula thought she might have added a fistful of pills to her nightly Scotch at some point and gone to sleep for good.
Eileen was just as torn apart by what her father had done as her mother, but she was so close to graduating that she couldn't come home when she found out. Instead, she'd listened to her drunken mother cry and sob night after night until one day, Eileen couldn't take it anymore.
She was just three days from being done, and refused to answer the phone until her last exam was finished. When she completed it, she got in her car and drove the four hours it took to get home then sat her mother down and read her the riot act. She didn't care about the actual graduation ceremony, and ended up not attending. She knew they'd mail her diploma to her, and all she cared about was getting home and taking care of her mom.
"Mom. I'm sorry Dad ruined your life. I'm sorry you're hurting. I'm mad as hell at him, too, but this HAS to stop. And it has to stop NOW."
Paula cried and tried begging her daughter to understand, but she was having none of it. She picked up the half-empty liquor bottle and poured it all down the drain then checked around the house for others. Finding none, Eileen told her mom to go to bed and sleep it off, and that they'd talk about it the next morning.
Looking back, Paula had never been more ashamed than when she walked into the kitchen that next morning, her head still pounding from the hangover, to face her daughter.
But she'd never felt more proud when her daughter told her, "I love you, Mom, and we're going to get through this together."
Paula started apologizing but her daughter stopped her.
"No. Forget it. That's in the past. Just like your marriage. It's behind you. All of it. What matters now is moving forward, and today we start doing that. Together. And one of the first things we're going to do is get you back on the diet and exercise path."
Her daughter stared right at her then said, "And no more booze. None. Got it?"
Paula nodded then said, "But how? How do I...move on?"
She and Eileen took their first Yoga class the following morning during early June. They also went online and developed a plan that would provide good, healthy nutrition then went shopping together.
Within a month, Paula was feeling like her old self again. At least physically. She was still hurting from the betrayal, and she wasn't exactly 'digging' this Yoga thing yet, but she felt a lot better, and with her daughter home for the summer, or until she found a full-time job, Paula thought she might just be able to do this. By Labor Day, she not only felt better physically, she was feeling much stronger mentally, as well.
Eileen routinely encouraged her mom to listen to music as another component of the healing process, and although she let her mother choose the music she listened to, Eileen quite often made suggestions her mom occasionally found enjoyable.
One of those occasions happened the first time Paula listened to a song called "Nine Million Bicycles" by a pretty young British woman named Katie Melua.
She barely got through the first stanza before she felt herself tearing up. By the middle of the song she was crying uncontrollably. The lyrics were so powerful they overwhelmed her as the words spoke to her, touching her very soul.
She listened again and heard, "There are nine million bicycles in Beijing. That's a fact, It's a thing we can't deny, Like the fact that I will love you 'til I die."
The tears kept coming until she'd listened so many times she could finally do so without crying.
"That's how I want to be loved," she said to herself when the tears finally stopped falling.
Yes, she'd been in love, and she'd even been loved by her soon-to-be ex-husband. But she'd never been loved like that. Ever. And now, suddenly, she wanted that more than she'd ever wanted anything.
And then reality set in. How was she even supposed to find love again let alone love like that? Eileen had been out at a job interview during her mini-meltdown, and when she got home, her mom explained what had happened.
"Wow. I love that song, too, but it's never done that to me," her daughter said.
"It's kind of silly. I know that, and yet I...I still want that. Even at 49," her mom said.
"Then prepare yourself for it and wait," her daughter said.
Her mom gave her a look that said, 'huh?' so Eileen tried to explain what she meant.
"Do everything in your power to be the kind of person worthy of that kind of love then wait. Not passively. I'm not talking about sitting at home waiting for Prince Charming to knock on the door. But as you continue getting healthy again and meet people, be open to finding your 'prince' in places you maybe hadn't thought of looking before."
"And how do I do that, o' Wise Guru?" Paula remembered asking her daughter who had just been hired to start a new civilian job at Mountain Home Air Force Base located about an hour's drive to the southeast of Boise.
"I don't have all the answers, Mom. But I'd say you keep taking Yoga, keep eating right, always look your best, and start looking. Everywhere."
"Oh, gee. And here I was thinking this might be difficult," her mom said a bit sarcastically in an unusual moment of self-pity.
Eileen sat down next to her mom then said, "Mom, you may be 49, but you're one of those crazy-lucky women who still looks 35."
"Ha! Yeah, right," her mom said, knowing she'd often been told she looked much younger than her age for many years. So a part of her believed that was true, just not that true.
"Yes, right," Eileen replied. "Did you know I had two women ask me if we were sisters when we started taking Yoga classes together?" her daughter asked.
