If you’d asked me three years ago if I was in tune with my body, I probably would have said something along the lines of, “Yeah, sure.” I mean, my body had seen me through a childhood spent running barefoot through fallen pine needles and hunting the woods for imaginary treasure chests. It had seen me through puberty, pool parties and uncomfortable middle school dances. It had walked me across the stage at my high school graduation and moved me into my college dorm room, hauling my entire world up three sweltering flights of stairs.

My body was my home. And yet somehow, after living there for 18 years, I didn’t actually know the floor plan as well as I thought I did.

It was yoga that taught me about all of the nooks and crannies — the creaky floorboards and the dusty corners under the couch. My first semester of college brought with it my very first yoga class. I’d never practiced before, but I’d always wanted to try. I couldn’t have known that the weekly Wednesday afternoon class would soon multiply — that it would become not only Wednesdays, but Fridays as well. My curiosity became a passion, and before I knew it I was planning my course schedules around my yoga practice.

I fell in love with yoga, plain and simple. I relished in the patient progress of it all — in the excitement of finally making it into the full expression of that one pose you’ve been working on for ages, and in the laughter that follows when you lose your balance and tumble face-first into the mat. (I bore that fat lip proudly.)

My practice is my time for me. For one hour of the day, I do whatever I can to just let go. Focusing on what is right in front of me isn’t always easy, and perhaps that’s why I’ve always preferred poses that challenge me, forcing me to pay attention to that moment and that moment only. Arm balances were a fast favorite.

And then I moved to Dublin, Ireland. (I know, it hardly sounds like a bad thing, right?) I spent just over four months there studying, and while I arrived in the city with every intention of keeping up with my practice while abroad, yoga was something that quickly fell to the wayside.

I was exploring a new city, forging new friendships. I had a full load of classes and I started volunteering at a local creative writing clinic for young children. On the weekends, I was either out and about in Dublin with my roommates, or jetting off to spend a few days exploring places like Belgium and Denmark. It was an incredible experience, but all the while I could feel yoga slipping away from me.

I’d suddenly gone from three to four yoga classes a week to nothing at all. At the time I was ashamed. I’d pass a woman carrying a yoga mat down the street and be struck with guilt. I knew I was neglecting my practice; in the past, I’d always made time for yoga. But with the world at my fingertips, I couldn’t help but be distracted.

During my time abroad, I began to really feel my body. I noticed the minute changes in my muscles and the shift in my balance. I felt wobbly, tired, achy. At first, I chalked it up to all the traveling I was doing, thinking those long cross-city walks and constant sight-seeing were taking their toll.

Eventually, I began to feel a heaviness settle into my shoulders and I seemed to have a constant crook in my back. When I bent to pick something off the ground, I could feel every one of my leg muscles screaming out, reveling in the stretch and begging for more. My body was talking to me, and it was angry. It was sad, and it was disappointed. It missed yoga.

I slowly became acutely aware of almost every single muscle in my body. With every missed practice, the sensations intensified. I could feel my joints and tendons all moving together beneath my skin. I have never been so in tune with my body.

Granted, the whole reason I was so mindful of my body was because it wasn’t feeling all that great. That heaviness in my shoulders? I swear it was the weight of the semester bearing down on me. Yoga had been what helped me to shake things off — to come to peace with all of my stressors, academic or otherwise. Without it, everything just piled up. The weight in my shoulders was just my body telling me that something was very, very wrong.

Yet oddly enough, I’m actually glad my practice fell to the wayside for a little while. I always thought I’d known what it was like inside my own skin. It isn’t until now, three years later, that I look back and realize that maybe I wasn’t quite so aware after all.

Four months without yoga made me realize just how much it had given me. When I walked into that first class three years ago, I thought I knew my body. And then yoga came around and changed everything. Of course, in a classic relationship blunder, I didn’t realize what I had until it was gone.

My time away from yoga helped to show me how far I’ve really come. It made me realize how well I’ve come to know my body. It isn’t just a house; it lives and it breathes with me. Those aches and pains? They were my body speaking to me. Reminding me of what it needed. Reminding me how to listen.