The Pause Between Poses

I still have to complete my teaching hours before I get my certificate. And I'm many miles from being some kind of expert.  But last month I completed training to be a basic-level yoga teacher! It's something I'm pretty excited about.  I've done yoga off and on for many years, and always liked it.  But in the past few years, especially since moving here and joining a perfectly awesome studio practice, yoga has become really important to me.  Now I go to the studio every chance I have; I practice by myself at home.  I get pretty cranky if I miss too many days.
For me, yoga is a religious thing; I do a lot of praying on my mat.
It's a spiritual thing; the only time I am ever, ever able to Just Be.
It's a mental thing; remembering what comes next and how to get there, using spacial awareness and balance... a time out from helter-skelter, multi-tasking life to remind my brain how to be focused. 
And of course, it's a very physical thing.  Stretching out the stiffness of the eternally repetitive motions of bending and lifting and toting small children, pushing mops and vacuum cleaners, hauling loads of laundry. Challenging myself to be stronger, working to make myself healthier, because my family needs to me to be Able. 
Through hugs and kisses and pregnancies and nursing and work I have shared my body with my husband and children in many ways- but it is still mine. I live here.  When I do yoga I feel like I am stretching myself back into my own shape, stretching to fit into my skin.  Making little adjustments and improvements here and there like doing maintenance on a house. Yoga feels like making myself at home in my muscles and bones, making it feel like mine. 
And the act of doing something so very basic- moving, being still, remembering to breathe- often helps me to regain a sense of perspective when I start to lose it. 
In yoga we go through a vinyasa; a purposeful flow of movements, a breath for each one.
Last night my teacher told us about a friend going through a hard time, a big change, who said of the experience, "It's like a vinyasa, and this is the pause between poses". 
I love that.  A reminder that life is a flow of events, too.  That we can't stay in one position forever; we would get bored, our strength would give out.  And there is something Next.
Sometimes, the transition between one position and the next can be tricky or uncomfortable.  It may take a lot of strength, balance, and stretching ourselves to get there.  But we do. 
Lately I've been needing yoga more than ever.  For one thing, our time here in Florida is drawing very quickly to a close.  Just days ago we found out that we will be moving back to the East Coast, this time to Virginia.  *In six weeks.*  That is, the kids and dogs and stuff and I will be moving to Virginia.  J...  well.  J will be moving to the ocean.  He is being deployed onto an aircraft carrier, and will be gone by then.
There are big changes coming.  A new town, a new house, a new school.  A new life.  It is our first deployment.  The reality of what all that means has just begun sinking in for me, and in the litany of emotions bouncing around my heart at the moment, overwhelmed might be the most summative.
I've been hitting that yoga mat with a fury. 
But I know that we can ride out these last few weeks.  I know that once we get there we will all be fine.  We will make it work; we will make it wonderful! This period between what we have and what we're heading for is a little scary, I have to admit it.  But, you know.  It's just like a vinyasa.  And this is the pause between poses.