There are endings in life that come with parties, leaving-dos and good-bye toasts and roasts. Then there are those endings that slip through the cracks of life unnoticed, unmentioned, uncelebrated.

There was a last time you pushed one of your kids or nieces or godchildren in a swing. When was that? Or took your pre-teen nephews down to the park to play frisbee? What was the very last book you read to your kids before bed? The last lullaby your mom sung to you? The last time you put a cartoon-charactered band-aid on a booboo? What ended your teenage friendships? Is it in the nature of dis-solutions that our memories fail us? Dissolving in a miasma of mixed emotions and mental pre-occupations, it's easy to lose the contours of a moment. What about your adult relationships? Some people fade in forcing others to just...fade. Fade: to gradually grow faint and disappear; the process of becoming less bright. The process of disappearing down the pinprick of a drain or through those old-fashioned analogue TVs that you shut off with a thud.

What was the last meal your grandmother prepared for you? What was the last thing a parent told you? What was the last thing you bought from that Greek grocer at the Continental provisions store before you moved neighborhoods? I remember the last movie I saw with my father (that fab pic on Edith Piaf starring Marion Cotillard). I cried and cried, because Edith's music is swollen with love and loss, just like her life. I wasn't in tears knowing this would be the last movie of a lifetime of movie-watching with my dad. There was no special announcement or champagne flutes raised like "Hey, this is our last movie together - Forever!"

I mentioned parks because they were the fabric of my life when I lived in London with my babies. London was an idyllic place to have babies. I say 'was' because things have changed there so much, and not for the better. But in the 2000s, it felt like the last vestiges of Edwardian Mary-Poppinsesque child-rearing: nannies and Regent Park, red double-deckers that you could hop on and off, the zoo, neighborhood walled gardens only a few could access through secret paths, loads of children's activities, and the beauty of socialist-city governments: a plethora of collectivized mom-and-baby groups to join for tea and sympathy. Embedded in London was a deep recognition of the need for mother and baby to bond with others. But when was the last time I saw those women who were so integral during those early childhood years? I went to Antrim Gardens nearly every afternoon, me and dozens of other Belsize Park moms, filling the dead-zone between post-nap and supper. Again, they were an essential part of my life, and yet? The last time I was there did I blow a tasseled trumpet and yell: "Hear ye, hear ye! Stephania, mother of Michael and Nicholas, is moving across the heath to West Hampstead. She shall not be seeing you lovelies ever again." No. Just one day I stopped going. Unmentioned. Uncelebrated. Gone.

This is where melancholia envelops us, knowing the sweetest moments of our life will end and perhaps we won't even notice. There won't be good-byes or bells-and-whistles to some endings that we know will just gone like the wind. Summer can feel like this. Summer is like being on Bittersweet Lane. On our annual Great Family Trek up to Michigan my sister wasn't just melancholic, but in a full-blown depression almost the entire time, the bitter overcoming the sweet. It would be over. We would be gone. This was so perfect, but it wouldn't last. The boys would be bigger next summer, there would be fewer games with them. This meal, this sunset, this time together laughing, this game of Pictionary, well, that would be the last in the sunshine near the lake this summer of 2019.

Many people go to the other extreme of my sister, barely noticing the above-mentioned examples and refusing to feel the melancholia of the bittersweet. Instead of sleep-walkers we are Think-Walkers. Our plotting, planning and calculating over-rides and is almost dismissive of these very delicate encounters and interactions. Instead of Bittersweet Lane, it is Revolutionary Road with our mind's non-stop comparisons, measurements, and survival tactics running roughshod, stirring discontent, unsatisfied, questing for more, distracting ourselves. The movies in our heads dominate instead of just looking out at precisely these encounters that offer so much in terms of energy and challenges, and point the way ever-so-beautifully to what we are meant to see and hear, and to our purpose on the path.

Partner poses are popular in kids' yoga. Kids of all ages love the choice of picking the pose and then picking a partner. Lizard-on-a-Rock, Rainbow Bridge and Dancing Goddesses are just a few of the almost endless combinations of poses to do in pairs.

As the kids get older, certainly in early teenage-hood, these poses come with lessons on what it means to be in a partnership: Equality, support, encouragement, and interacting with the other; becoming more attuned to the other, "reading" them so to speak and witnessing the interaction on many levels -- physically, emotionally, mentally and the Grand-Daddy of them all, energetically. Witnessing energetic interactions with the other, without judgment, as we follow the geometry of our incarnation on Earth is the cornerstone of my life and work.

The kids also learn about the beauty of resistance stretching techniques this way, too. If one pulls your arms, you must pull back to strengthen your body and maintain the integrity of the shape. Imagine a real-life metal bridge with only one side anchored down. The whole thing would collapse.

Adults like partnership poses, too. Remember our weight-lifting duo a few blogs back? But sometimes we're just too inhibited, ego-bound, convenience-bound, task-oriented and thinking we know everything to admit it, let alone do much about this most of the time in our fitness regimes. When I started teaching, I taught friends (Future Face, remember The Rooms Above?) and they were more like partners in those early days than students. We exchanged support and help in equal measure.

Much of my own work is done solo now, but the value of getting another perspective and set of perceptions as you embark on challenging situations cannot be overstated. Recently, I was forced into admitting this to myself. I had decided to participate in a Guinness Book of World Records' attempt at the most people doing a handstand in NYC's Summer Streets festival. I set the alarm for 4:00 AM and when I woke up in pitch-darkness, the threat of rain nowhere in sight (damn! as that would've been the greatest excuse to not get out of bed), I said out loud: "I wish I had a friend  going with me." Because I knew if I had a friend or group to meet, I would've had no choice but to get up out of that bed - the decision would've been made. Instead I equivocated and debated in the dark, wrestling with the doubts in my head: this is stupid and cheesy, there probably won't be enough people, this is a waste of time. Blah blah.

I ended up going because I could not not go, and met a partner, a stranger, who also could not not participate in such a stunt. Monica "Buff Mango" and I met on our way to the Foley Square, and became official handstand buddies for the next few hours. It was like the universe answered my wish, not with a friend, but a partner. I definitely felt better, worked harder and had so much more fun and laughs than I had had I been alone.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote recently about the importance of partners in achieving our fitness goals and keeping us on the path to better health. Love him or hate him, there is no question the Terminator has devoted his life to the body.

"A healthier future is every tiny step we take, or every little rep that ultimately leads us to our goal," Schwarzenegger said. "We all think we can do it alone, but no one does anything alone. As I always say, no one is self-made. We all need support - even the Terminator.

"I'm simply asking you to...inspire someone you care about to join you. It's a simple resolution and it's not as sexy as having a six-pack, but it's the key to fulfilling the unfulfilled promise of our fitness crusade and repairing this broken industry. Don't chase the next big thing. Be better. Today. If you and your training partner walked 5,000 steps yesterday, walk 5,001 today. If you did a pushup for the first time today, do two tomorrow."