My physiotherapist wants me to learn how to breathe. This is difficult. A lifelong asthmatic, breathing is, hilariously, the one thing that doesn’t come easy to me.
My physiotherapist is built like a brick shithouse (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). He stands, back against the wall, and bends his knees, dropping into a half-squat and barely breaking a sweat. He pushes his hands against his stomach and says, “Breathe,” - his hands rise, rise, rise and then collapse.
Breathe.
I think of all the times I’ve aspirated in my life (wheezing along, despite the horrors). Like when I had my first real kiss by the dirty river in the sleepy town where I grew up, the stench of the tide ruining the moment. I think of when I had my second, in a gazebo that the council ripped down, destroying a piece of cultural heritage (and my own personal history) in the process. And I think about my third, in a cinema on a Tuesday afternoon, all blue light flickering.
I think about a night in college, when a house party in the middle of the countryside got wildly out of hand and my friend, drunk, laughing, her clothes wet from jumping in the shower fully clothed, rugby tackled me to the ground, her weight a blanket, a joy, a tangle of soggy love.
I think about the night my heart got fucking obliterated in the city and I cried as I walked barefoot across the chilly streets at 3am, high heels in hand and eyeliner running, and my friend, sweet girl, her arm wrapped around my waist, silent because she knew there was nothing she could say to make it better.
And I think about the rainy, summer afternoon, years ago, when I met the man I’d eventually marry and it felt like someone had knocked the air out of me. Because we both knew, and didn’t know, just how important that meeting was. How it was the start of something neither of us could place, but something, y’know?
“Breathe,” says my physiotherapist.
I feel like I have spent my entire life learning how to breathe. When I was younger, I chased the moments that left me gasping for air because that’s what it meant to feel something, to be alive. But the older I get (and after one particularly terrifying asthma attack) I now see the value of the rhythm in my lungs. I feel less desire to chase breathlessness and more to inhale deeper, exhale slower. Keep the beat. Keep time.
Breathe.
I recreate the physiotherapist’s stance at home and my legs ache from the half-squat. I ask my husband to place his hand on my stomach.
Breathe.
“There,” he says, as we both watch his hand rise and fall on my stomach, “it’s easy. It’s just, like, breathing, right? Natural.”
And I don’t say it aloud, but I have the recognition in my chest:
It feels just like learning how to love.
Reminding myself to breathe with intention is a daily journey ♥️
Breathe.
Yes
Deep