Exhale!

I remember holding my breath as a young kid, either from anticipating Christmas-to-come or choosing September birthday party favors.  Not for storing up the air with which to blow out candles---more just in waiting for the event to occur.  Certainly not as a prelude to a temper tantrum.  Neither Mother nor Daddy played that!  During my teen years, holding my breath would come as I awaited the announcement of the winner in a speech contest or in waiting to see which varsity team would shoot the tie-breaker basketball shot.  And win the State championship! (My high school, by the way, won the title three of the four years before I graduated.)

College changed the focus of my breathing when  I discovered graduates of the male persuasion.  Lawdy! They spent considerable time and energy learning suave and debonair postures.  And growing sparse wisps of fuzz to transform the upper lip or not-so-strong chin.  They practiced their "lines' on impressionable never-had-a-serious-date (!) coeds.  Like me.  Heart-wrenching and breath-holding minutes inched by (seemed like hours), waiting for him to call.  

Endless hours fantasizing telephone conversations in the bathroom mirror. (He'll say blah, blah, blah..." and I'll smile and, giggle, giggle).  Of course, he couldn't see my smile over the phone, but maybe he could sense it. Lawdy! Lawdy! The older I got and the more the sequential dearth of available males,  the more heart-at-stake moments multiplied. The longer the inhale.  Hmm. I remember when Waiting to Inhale, by Terry McMillan, a young Black woman from the Midwest, hit bookshelves to unexpected acclaim

A  best-seller I believe, because McMillan depicted the dynamics in the lives of four African American coming-of-age women and their difficulties as they searched for a good man.  (Mother probably knew the old song, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Evidently, they hadn't heard it.) The novel segued into a blockbuster movie in 1995, three years after publication. Each of the women had held her breath much too long as she waited to be "made whole" by finding the perfect man.  Or realized, nevertheless, she was alright without one. 

So, what is the nexus between my breath-holding and theirs?  Basically, novels and movies alike resolve the conflict between head and heart.  Neat endings, no loose strings disrupt.  In too-numerous-to-count instances, I held my breath longer than good health or good sense required.  For years, in fact, I've held my breath longer and more sustainedly than the national average of  12-20 breaths-per-minute (bpm).  I understand the rate may be as low as 6 or as high as 20.  Given my sustainability, I must be a breath-holding phenomenon! I wonder if there exists a female chorus with similar afflictions? 

Forever it seems, I never realized that I was holding my breath for extended periods.  Like days. While it may sound hyperbolic, it's really pretty accurate. I wouldn't know I'd been holding my breath until sporadic explosive exhalations forced themselves forth.  Maybe that explained the lightheadedness and occasional disorientation?  Seriously. 

The upshot? I had to unlearn a debilitating habit and relearn an autonomic activity.  Still, I relapse seemingly in cycles. Hidden or unresolved stress and emotional numbness seem causative.  Might it subconsciously signify fear or denial? Holding my breath, like smoke in a breeze, against whatever threatens my peace? I wonder if men hold their breath like I did and do.

"Who made the mountains
Who made the trees
Who made the rives flowing in the sea
And who hung the moon in the starry sky
Somebody bigger than you.

Who made the babies who gave them life
And who gives them dreams
Guides them through the night
And who drives our footsteps along this way
Somebody bigger than you and I."

Now, EXHALE.