I stared at her for nearly 90 minutes the other day.

I see her every so often at work, mostly at home.  The tops of her hips are soft with proof of her love for sweets.  She’s aged in the past few years; the lines under her eyes are deeper.  Her lips are more set, but it’s her eyes that bother me the most.  When I see pictures of her, she’s usually not smiling and has this weird aura of sadness around her.  But to be around her, you’d never know unless you’re usually preceptive or have a knack for reading the unspoken.

I am her.

Since I’ve started practicing Bikram yoga (that’s a series of 26 yoga postures in a 40C/104F room) I’ve gotten an eyeful of myself.  You see, one side of the yoga studio is a wall a mirrors – it’s so you can adjust yourself to be in the correct position.

Often times I have such a look of determination on my face – balancing on 1 leg is a tall order for someone like me who walks into the same garbage can everyday at work.  Sometimes I am successful, other times I am not.

The studio I go to is very friendly and they reiterate that while the yoga series does not change (it is the same thing every time), our bodies do.  Somedays we are yoga rockstars and other days we’re botching the pose that requires you to lie on your back and relax.  It is the ebb and flow, just like the ocean waves on the shore: they never touch in the same exact place.

I’m finding the same with myself.  There’s going to be several more 90 minutes sessions staring straight into her deep set hooded brown eyes.  I hope through 2016 there may be a hint of a smile on her face, her eyes lighter with laughter amid the glimmer of another adventure on the horizon.