Yoga Girl

we experience shape us, and our spiritual journey begins the day we decide
to come to terms with our past. For me, my parents’ divorce, my stepdad’s
death, and my mother’s suicide attempt were the most significant things
that ever happened in my life. I didn’t know it then, of course, but a time
would come when I would be able to look back and feel grateful for my
childhood.
For my family, the pain subsided after a few years and we eventually
moved on, but it took a very long time for my mom to recover and become
whole again. She was twenty-five years old when the accident happened,
around my age right now, and I cannot even for a second imagine what
life would be like if I lost my husband. I don’t know if I’d survive, and I
pray I will never, ever have to find out. My mother overcame a loss greater
than I could possibly ever understand, and with time, she healed and
found love again. She was the one who nudged me in the right direction,
the one who never stopped fighting for us all, and even though we all
went through some extremely difficult times, I know she did the absolute
best she could with what she had. I admire my mother for making it
through that time and for blossoming into the strong, confident, happy
woman she is today. I now have four sisters in addition to my brother, and
I know the things we went through growing up helped shape us into the
people we are. When all of this happened I was still a child, and my
journey had just begun.
We had lived in more than ten different places by the time I was
twelve. I lived mostly with my mother but spent weekends and vacations
with my dad, who lived in Latvia and Spain. My parents both had new
lives; they both remarried and had two more kids each—in the same year.
When my dad married Inga, who would become my stepmother, I spoke
in front of two hundred people. e first line of my speech was “e year
2000 was the year my parents finally got married. Except not to each
other.” e crowd laughed, and so did I. My mom and dad were on good
terms, I had stability in my life, and we had made it through the dark.
Everything was okay.