Life is Defined by Decisions

August 2, 2026 //
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Walking with my thoughts at daybreak. I have a Benjamin Tod song stuck in my head. The refrain is direct and deeply meaningful for me.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

Life is defined by decisions
You may burn bridges you ain’t got time to mend
You’re too old to be in this condition
You’re too young for the lord to take in

Real. Life is defined by our decisions, or at least shaped by them significantly. We are shaped by circumstances. Shaped by trauma. Shaped by our decisions. When I give it too much thought I begin to feel the mighty fist of fate squeezing and molding me with as little regard for me individually as a toddler with Play-Doh. Here I am.

Yesterday was “defined by” decisions, for sure. A lot of words come to mind, but I still have a lot to consider and process and put into future decisions. Verbs.

My beloved reads my writing (almost every day). One of the most delightful things about my Traveling Partner reading my writing is that I feel very “seen” – visible. Understood. When I make some point very well, he takes a moment to let me know and sometimes shares my writing. It’s something I appreciate.

One of the most uncomfortable things about my Traveling Partner reading my writing is that I am very visible; he sees where I am falling short on good self-care, and when I let some critical practice fall by the wayside. He points out hypocrisy. He calls me on my bullshit. When I’m struggling with something I’ve dealt with before, he observes the pattern and redirects my attention to some previous bit of writing with which I can support myself and get back on track. This too I appreciate – but it is uncomfortable as hell. I’m grateful. We don’t grow from comfortable experiences.

…If I were a better person, perhaps I would find a more gracious approach to accepting his support. I sigh to myself. I can be a resentful defensive asshole about feedback sometimes. I can do better. I’ll practice…

Our conversations yesterday were powerful, raw, deeply meaningful, heartfelt, frank, and vulnerable. I’m not going to call it a good time – but it was needed and I feel more deeply connected with my partner as a result. That’s good stuff. The discomfort doesn’t last. The feeling of connection can, if I feed it some verbs.

The sun lights the treetops, looking a bit like autumn.

The morning is cloudy. It feels like it may actually rain. After I finish my walk, it’s another day of laundry, and chores and housekeeping. My pain feels pretty well managed. I’ll work on keeping it that way.

… Life is defined by decisions…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m still more questions than answers. Still a student of life, practicing practices, doing my best, and taking this journey without a map one step at a time. Incremental change over time really does add up, but it is a slow process, and we definitely can’t expect the promise of future progress to satisfy every circumstance. It is what it is (which is to say slow and uncomfortable, but worth the effort).

I smile thinking about enjoying a cup of coffee with my beloved before I set off for my walk this morning. Vulnerable is hard. Connected is supremely beautiful. These experiences are related; connection requires vulnerability. I am good at neither of these. I sigh to myself at the admission. Okay, now that I’ve said it, where does that leave me? Standing on the edge a beginning, I guess.

Summer meadow flowers

I sit watching a new day begin. It’s time isn’t it? We create a lot of our experience. Our lives are defined by our decisions. Choose wisely. Do the verbs. The clock is ticking. Fuck it all up? Well, shit, learn something and begin again. Learn what matters most. Decide who you most want to be. Do those verbs. Didn’t work out? Do something different. Incremental change over time will continue to shape and define you. It’s a process.

I sit awhile longer reflecting on the progress I’ve seen my partner make in the lifetime we’ve spent together. He’s certainly playing the game on advanced settings. We’ve traveled a long and difficult journey together. It is an adventure I hope to continue all of my mortal days (and whatever may be beyond them).

It’s time to begin. Again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Shapes of Things

August 1, 2026 //
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I woke early, in spite of wanting to sleep in. I got up, dressed, and left the house. Filled my gas tank. Got coffee on my way up the highway to the nature park to walk the marsh trail, more meadow than marsh at this point in the summer.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

Scene from a summer walk, we choose what we pay attention to. Mostly.

I sigh to myself as I walk. My left ankle has decided for me that this spot, right here, is “halfway”. It isn’t. Not at all, but it is definitely where I am stopping!

There is a convenient viewpoint with a bench only a little further. I take the next few steps slowly and carefully, grateful for my sturdy trekking pole that is my outdoor cane. I sit down, grateful, relieved, and content to be here in this place. I have the trail to myself – or did when I got started (first to arrive, pulling in just as the gate opened with a screech). It is quiet and cloudy. Looks and feels like maybe rain later… the forecast disagrees. Another heatwave soon. I am reminded to add a “hose” to my shopping list to replace a section that split and began to leak just a couple days ago.

The meadow grasses are dry and brown, with the white flowers of wild carrot or maybe Queen Anne’s Lace seeming to float above the waves of brown. The yellow clusters of wild St John’s Wort here and there add a bit of color. The wild roses are mostly done blooming, but don’t yet have hips. The lupines are long gone, even the seed pods have split and spilled their seeds, and withered. I breathe the scent of the summer meadow, exhale, and relax.

… It’s a good thing I’m not in any hurry today, the walk back will be a slow one…

I think about the day ahead. There’s housework to be done. I can probably fill the day with it. I feel myself shrug, an involuntary gesture of acceptance. I guess I’m okay with it. I’ll put on a playlist and dance through the chores until my body just can’t do more, and maybe get caught up a bit.

My mind wanders to RC cars, N scale railroad, Barbie dolls, and painting cast figurines… “hobbies”, past, present, and considered once or often. The clock is ticking. How do I pass my time, find joy, and indulge in play as an adult? A healthy life isn’t built on chores, wage earning, and sleep – there’s more to it. Isn’t there? I have choices and options.

…We shape our experience with our choices…

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and think about the way I have shaped my life, and what shape it might take if I choose differently. Small changes add up. It’s a lot to stay on top of, seeking to make willful changes… Verbs. Choices. Repetition. Reminders. Self-reflection. Incremental change over time, moment by moment, experience by experience, action by action. We become what we practice. (This is serious and powerful, because it is true both of what we want to become, and also of what we loathe, but persist in practicing.)

I’ll finish my walk. Do some grocery shopping, and head home to shape the life I want to live through the use of some well chosen verbs (meaning to say, doing some housework). Where the path may lead me from there, I don’t know. It is the path I choose, but I’ve still got to walk it. I have to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, women, Words

Hazy Sky

July 31, 2026 //
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I walk with my thoughts. The sky is hazy from distant wildfires. The western United States burns (somewhere) every year now. I don’t recall that being a thing at all when I was a kid. I think about the likelihood that we’ve broken our planet, and whether there is any hope. Gloomy thoughts.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

The weekend stretches ahead of me shrouded by a fog of uncertainty. I have no specific plans. I’d like to paint, but there’s quite a lot of housekeeping that wants doing. I feel tired, vexed, and generally annoyed with… Something. I don’t know. Probably biochemical bullshit,  nothing more. Feelings. Sand in my metaphorical oyster. Another work day and then… something else. I don’t know. I don’t even know what is bothering me or what might resolve it – but, hey, at least I’m aware that there’s something here I don’t know and which isn’t a certainty. That’s something, I guess.

… Embracing uncertainty is helpful, there is always uncertainty…

My back aches. I grief myself over “whining about it”, though I haven’t actually said words aloud. Well… Okay, there’s this, here, a handful of words. I remind myself that I chose this. I chose to live, not die. I chose the uncertain outcome of potential injury over the certain outcome of being stabbed and beaten to death in my apartment. My injuries were serious. Life changing. I am, however, quite alive. So far, I have even survived myself, and the ebb and flow of circumstances. So… there’s that.

I watch the haze on the western horizon become pearly pink, and developing a gradient fading into pale orange and then blue overhead. I sit at my halfway point – on this trail, and possibly in life (depending on genetics, lifestyle, and quality of medical care over time). I sift through my thoughts looking for fragments of optimism to stitch together into a properly good mood. I’m not finding much, but I keep looking.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details

One cannot rationally argue with emotions. They have their own purpose, and their own way. Arguing about how another person feels is completely pointless; people feel how they feel. What I do find, at least for me personally, is that it is possible to gently interrogate my emotions to determine what may be causing the feeling. This morning it seems rather likely that my mood is heavily influenced by the physical aftermath of a really heavy conversation with my Traveling Partner last night, and not really about this moment here at all. (Messed up chemistry from the strong emotions themselves, mostly, and dehydration from crying, feelings of uncertainty and sorrow that linger; human stuff.) So… self-care and self-reflection are on the menu today. (Shouldn’t they be part of every day?) I sigh to myself. Doing the work to build a healthy relationship is challenging, and more so perhaps between partners who both endure chronic pain, and both have PTSD. Worth the effort and the tears, it’s just hard sometimes.

…I think about what works, what doesn’t, and how annoying it is that it can be so difficult to be certain which is which…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I reflect on this mortal life and the clock that never stops ticking. I think about what matters most. The sun rises on a new day, and new opportunities to be the woman I most want to be… and I think about beginnings.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Watching, Thinking

July 30, 2026 //
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I’m already at the halfway point on my walk. It is some time between daybreak and sunrise. I’m watching the full moon sinking through the tangle of oak branches along the trail.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

Streaky clouds begin to take shape as the sky lightens. I sit with my thoughts. I meditate. It is a gentle start to the day – until I start sneezing. Some meadow flower or tree pollen, dust, or spore, more than likely. I’m grateful to have shoved a travel pack of tissues in my pocket. I feel very human, and just a little grossed out by the time I’m over that. I sit contentedly watching the clouds evolve as the light changes. The sunrise is bland and not particularly interesting this morning, and I’m grateful for the new day, anyway.

Breathe, exhale, relax. Meditate. Write. Think. Repeat. It is a particularly pleasant morning.

Pleasant or not, the amount of pain I’m in this morning is ridiculous. It is very specifically osteoarthritis pain, and very specifically located at my spinal fusion and below it. This is new. Over the years more and more of the joints above my fusion (T12-L2) have become arthritic. The first year or two of pain in a given new area is the worst. After awhile it begins to blur with all the rest. I keep catching myself trying to flex or somehow move this area of my spine that does not move. It is futile and uncomfortable. I glare at the clouds thickening overhead. Rain? The pain says yes, or at least a strong maybe.

I sigh to myself and do my best to let it go. I accepted the pain a long time ago as a consequence of my actions. No regrets, I paid a high price for my survival and escape from domestic violence, and it has been worth that price and more.

I get to my feet, and rub my aching knee as I do. What the hell did I even do to that knee? I no longer recall. I sigh and stretch and look down the trail. Somewhere down the trail, around that bend, beyond this new beginning, is a whole new day. I wonder where this path will lead?

Ask the questions. Do the verbs.
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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Full Moon Setting

July 29, 2026 //
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Odd morning. Quiet. It’s fine. There’s a beautiful fat luminous full moon to greet me when I leave the house. It is slowly setting. By the time I reach the trail, it appears tangled in the tall oaks.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I try to get a picture of the moon as it sets. The composition is ruined by the placement of a streetlight relative to my angle of view.

There really is a full moon there.

I sigh to myself and just enjoy the sight of the full moon setting, before I set off down the trail.

I try again, zooming in closer.

The moon quickly disappears in the clouds as it sets. I start walking down the trail. Nice morning for it, clear skies overhead, mild, streaks of clouds here and there and a dense bank of clouds low on the western horizon.

I yawn as I walk, still shaking off the sleepiness of the night. I wonder if my beloved Traveling Partner managed to sleep through my departure this morning?  I hope so.

“Nothing to see here”, I think to myself as I walk.  I reach my halfway point and stop to write and meditate. Uneventful isn’t a bad thing, at all. I smile to myself. Breathe, exhale, relax; I make time for meditation. Finishing that, I take up my device and write a few words about nothing much on a pleasant, easy morning. I could skip it, but I don’t. It is a discipline, a practice, and also a means of reinforcing the frequency and utterly commonplace nature of lovely mornings such as this. It is far too easy to become mired in misery simply by not making a point to really be present for, and savor, beautiful quiet utterly ordinary moments.

…So here I am, doing the verbs…

…So many verbs.

The sunrise already comes later. I sit with that thought awhile. It’s not an uncomfortable thought. Change is. There is seasonality to life. It is a relatively comfortable morning, generally, aside from chronic pain that is, so far, mild enough to just ignore. I take notice of that, too, and make room in my awareness for it. It’s nice to be in less pain.

I sigh contentedly as I get to my feet and look down the trail. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, thoughts on AI
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