Archives for the month of: January, 2018

Love and Lovers

January 16, 2018 //

There’s more to say on such a big topic. A paragraph or two about love and lovers isn’t going to cover the subject thoroughly at all. I won’t try. It’s early in the morning, and I’m headed to work soon. The morning is rainy. The coffee is hot. My mood is merry. Easy stuff on a Tuesday.

The view from my weekend away.

I scroll through my Facebook feed, catching up after a weekend away. I flip through the posts – what’s with all the angst-y relationship drama? (More than enough over the weekend, as well – seasonal?) I don’t laugh – it really isn’t a cause for amusement or celebration when lovers suffer in each others arms, most particularly consider the great care some lovers take in crafting their shared misery. The choices! The effort! The lovingly hand-crafted artisanal misery! It’s amazing to me that even if pointed out such that awareness is unavoidable, a great many people will still “well, she…”, “well, he…”, with real ferocity to return to an acceptable understanding that allows them to rationalize not making any changes at all. It’s weird. It’s as if – wait for it – they are actually choosing to be unhappy together instead of choosing to be actually happy, or at least content and blissful. So strange. It’s hard to watch. It’s always been hard to watch. It makes my acid reflux flare up to have to watch it. It makes me heartsick to have to turn away. (I can’t fix it!) 😦

Love isn’t misery. If you are miserable, I assure you, it isn’t the love causing that. It’s the bullshit. 😉 Drop the bullshit. lol (Sounds so easy in those terms, but yeah – there are still a lot of verbs involved, and you can’t avoid those, or pay for someone else to do them.)

I’ve had cause to be soaked in drama recently. Not so much a choice as a test of endurance, loving kindness, compassion, and the experience and (limited) wisdom that come of age – and that come of fucking up several potentially wonderfully promising relationships myself over the years. Doesn’t make it easier to bear witness to the misery of lovers who refuse to see that they are choosing their misery for themselves, with great care, and putting every ounce of their being into tending and maintaining it. Yikes. I can’t even imagine the power and joy of a relationship into which similar effort and energy are put directly into actually loving each other!

Sharing the love, and sharing the building. Destruction is far less joyful.

…Oh. Wait. Yes, yes I can actually imagine the power and joy of a relationship into which lovers are putting the full weight of their effort and energy directly into actually loving each other! I have that! How wonderful! 😀 I worked – and work – with great care to build (instead of destroying) to support and nurture (instead of criticizing and tearing my partner down) to attend to my own chaos and damage (because we really only have the power to change our own ways, to deal with our own issues, to put down our own baggage), and to learn to love well.

A gray, black, and tan moth is colorful up close. Perspective matters. 🙂

I’m still learning. I practice every day. I make mistakes. I make amends. I screw up. I make it right. Again and again. I learn something new that works. I practice it often. I find out something I do is problematic. I look at ways I could change my approach for a better result. I face the awareness that something my lover does is uncomfortable for me. I learn to bring those issues to the table with kindness, patience, and understanding that I am having my own experience, and “demanding change” is not always the most effective (or efficient) way to achieve the result I want. I learned to assume positive intent, and learned to share my words gently, and to listen deeply. I learned to let go of assumptions and expectations, and to distinguish between acceptance and being a doormat. lol So many life lessons to love well! We have to learn each of them on our own. The verbs pile up.

I may be writing about love for the rest of my life – there is that much to say about it, and I’m no expert. 🙂 Love matters most. Love inspires. Love pulls us. Pushes us. Changes us. Love is powerful stuff. I spent the weekend wrapped in love. Home now to begin a new work week, I’m still thinking about love – and lovers.

There is always time for love. (Make time for it.) What could be a more worthy use of your precious limited mortal life than to love?

Speaking of time… it’s time to begin the work day. 🙂 One new beginning among so many. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

Tags be love, be the change, begin again, building the OPD free zone, chill with me in the OPD free zone, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, love, love and lovers, mindful loving, no drama, no means no, OPD, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, setting and managing boundaries, taking care of me, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, what matters most?, words of love

Categories Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, winter

All Things Considered

January 12, 2018 //

I am taking a few minutes to relax and consider things. Consider the week that has just ended. Consider the weekend just about to begin. Consider this moment right here, and moments past that were entirely different. I am taking time to consider writing in the morning, versus writing in the evening, and which really works best for me – and I am considering whether there is any need for so much structure around what is (for me) such a natural thing? I am considering the contents of my pantry, which are depleted, and my fridge, which is almost empty; I’ve been sick, and there’s been no shopping done in more than a week. More than two.

I am distracted from my considerations by the smile on my face; I adult well enough to manage life without having to grocery shop for nearly two weeks. Nice. 🙂 (To be fair, though, that’s mostly true because I’ve spent the last week sick, and disinclined toward much besides broth or soup or coffee or tea, and certainly I’m almost always well-stocked on all of those. lol)

Today at work I had two relatively special personal moments of… some kind. I’m not sure what to call either. I reached a point of feeling the crushing workload as, indeed, crushing – overwhelming, distracting, complex, unsatisfying, and even frightening; this was driving a lot of anxiety and I started to have a panic attack – in the office. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuck. Shit. Damn it. Okay okay – I managed a deep breath. I managed another. I managed to admit to myself that I hadn’t been practicing good self-care, and if nothing else, I really needed a break. No. Not a walking meeting. A break. No, no, not a moment to help someone else with another task. Stop that. A break. No. Damn it. Not an opportunity to vent about these frustrations (that are so transitory). A proper break, away from the work, just – a break.

So I took one.

I got up from my desk, moved to a more comfortable seat in a spot without any connectivity or active devices within reach. No one to talk to, with, or at. No issues. No questions. I took the 10 minutes I really needed. With me. No judgment. No criticism. Just a few moments of meditation, smack in the middle of the work day. It felt sooooooo good. When those few delicious quiet moments concluded, I wasn’t feeling panicked or anxious or unprepared or inadequate or even over-taxed. I was ready to work.

So I worked.

One of the things I went back to work with was a calm settled appreciation for the great team I work with. We support each other. There’s a lot of authenticity and caring. It was a crazy busy week – and it was good. I stopped working a couple times later, throughout the day, simply to briefly thank the colleagues who have helped so much. We count on each other. We can. It’s that kind of place, and I couldn’t help contrasting that with, of all things, the current federal administration. I felt a moment of poignant sorrow and understanding; can you imagine what working in that fog of hate, confusion, and chaos must be like for rational beings who mean well and want to serve America in a positive way? That would definitely be a job to leave. I find myself stalled for just a moment considering all those folks feeling trapped in jobs they very much want to leave.

I went home feeling profoundly grateful for the life I am living right now. That felt pretty good, even if I did arrive home in pain. Just arthritis, right? We age. We deal with pain – as it turns out feeling our bodies age isn’t especially comfortable. lol

Tonight it’s a gentle night of self-care. I need that. It’s also a night of packing, tidying up, and readying myself for another trip down to see my Traveling Partner (who’s the traveler now!? lol) – I miss him greatly and find myself eager, in spite of also feeling soooo fucking tired. I look forward to getting over that. In the mean time, I’ll make a list tonight, and tomorrow I’ll begin again. 🙂

Tags be here now, be the change, begin again, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, love and lovers, meditation, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter

Take a Moment

January 10, 2018 //

One moment of many.

Time shrank, stretched, and snapped back, today. I got home feeling I had simultaneously done much more and much less than I had planned to do – more than I expected to get done, less than I urgently needed to get done, and certainly enough actually got done. Time can be peculiarly malleable, and sometimes I think I’ve almost got the hang of doing it at will. (That would be quite amazing.) 🙂

At some point, I realized I needed a couple things from myself. I was feeling fairly pressed for time, pretty frazzled, and I was overwhelming myself with details, and small frustrations. When I started getting close to that very special moment – you know the one? That moment just at which not having some sort of horrific tantrum or untoward meltdown would just no longer be possible? That fairly strained moment of longing and regret-in-advance? (Is that just me?) I could see it there, just ahead of me… the snarled remark, perhaps, got my attention – and a moment of appreciation that although I’d spoken aloud, I was seated alone. I paused, and listened for just a precious second of limited time – really listened – to me – and I recognized unmet needs. Simply that. I heard me. I needed recognition that I’ve been sick. I needed better self-care. I needed to slow down a bit, really focus, and be patient with myself. I needed a healthy meal – a real, actual, cooked-with-care, meal, prepared from fresh ingredients that meet all of my dietary needs. (I’ve been sick, right? Cooking takes some effort, more than I could manage for a couple days, so it’s been… broth. lol Mostly just broth. And coffee. Tea. Fizzy water. Cold medicine.) I looked at the clock and acknowledged to myself how very human I am. I reset my expectations, and moved my workload around a bit. I reset the expectations of others, with consideration, with care, and as firmly as I know how to do graciously. I finished the day with a plan.

The commute was okay. Rainy. I was pre-occupied with my own thoughts, so less frustrated with the shenanigans of other, less skilled, drivers (I know they are less skilled, because… did you see that shit?? You did not. I did, though. lol). I picked up some healthy ingredients on the way home and made myself a small London broil (although I rarely eat beef, if I am at all a risk of anemia, or have recently been ill, it definitely perks me up to have it), some steamed broccoli, and homemade yam steak fries. I cooked. I enjoyed a solitary evening meal, listening to music, thinking my thoughts. First day back to work is tough on me after being sick, so I take things pretty easy this evening. I want to do more, and look at my “to do list” with a certain purposeful yearning, although I definitely do not have the energy for all that (or even most of it, or… yeah… none of it at all, actually, not tonight). An early night will be the thing, then. Maybe some quiet time reading? Meditation. I’ll write (hello!). I’ll meditate. I’ll call it a night.

Of course, the internet grabbed my attention pretty quickly – it was hard to tear myself away. A couple rounds of being annoyed with myself, followed by a reminder, again, of how human I am… the evening continues.

Self-care does not come naturally to me, in any way I can tell. I really work at it. I sometimes seriously suck at it, but it needs to be handled, and generally, it needs to be handled skillfully – or I am doing little more than hastening my own demise through neglect. :-\ So, tonight I practice self-care practices. Gentle verbs. Verbs that nurture. Verbs that heal. Verbs that soothe and tend and care for.

Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again on all the other verbs. 🙂

Tags basic self-care, be here now, be the change, choose wisely, get well soon, good self-care, good self-care matters, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, meditation, mindfulness matters, practicing the practices, ptsd, self-care is the new wealth, sufficiency, taking care of me, taking care of the woman in the mirror, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women

Don’t Follow Me

January 9, 2018 //

I’m sitting here in the chilly wee hours of morning, coughing my head off, chest aching with the useless force of it, head aching from the pressure of sinus congestion and coughing, wearing fuzzy slippers, sipping coffee. Just doing my best, right? It’s a work day, and some short time from now, I’ll shift gears, and do the working things between coughing fits. I’m working from home because, frankly, it would make me ill to have to work alongside someone coughing like this. I can’t see inflicting it on coworkers. :-\

I sigh out loud in the chill of the room, sipping my almost-cold coffee. I’ve been writing here awhile, almost every day. A fair few actual real human beings who are not me have chosen to follow my writing (you may be one of them). Flattering – also a bit of a nail-biter for me, as it tends to suggest somewhere out there may be one or more humans who may “think I’m on to something”. I don’t know that I am. Maybe I am – but really I’m stumbling through adulthood like most everyone else is, making it up as I go, trying new practices, and practicing those that “work” – for me. Your results may vary.

Ask me for an opinion, and I’ll often have one ready. On rare occasions, some tattered shred of wisdom will remain in place long enough to suggest perhaps I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the topic to exert the effort to have an opinion at all, but as with so many human primates that circumstance is far rarer than ideal. My opinions, like most opinions, rest heavily on whatever limited knowledge and experience I may have myself, filled in with… made up nonsense. (Don’t even defend yourself on this, it is what it is.) We could all do better for ourselves and our world to be less attached to our damned opinions. lol

Don’t follow me. I’m just wandering around blazing my own trail through life’s wilderness, same as anyone. I’m not an expert, just a person. One person. One person with some life experience, and some opinions. What works for me may not work for you – we’re each walking our own hard mile, following our own (uncharted) path. Sure, sure, there are some shared basics, and if you find my opinions helpful as you contemplate your own decisions, I sure won’t take that from you… I’m just saying, don’t you know more about your experience than I do? Aren’t you the “expert” there? (And if you don’t feel that you are indeed the expert in your life, about your own experience, won’t it be easier for you to get there, than it would be for me?)

I think all I’m saying is that even on a shared journey between lovers, connected, intimate, even 24/7 – we are each having our own experience. My journey, built on my choices, may not be very similar to yours, even if we walk the same literal ground between our starting points and our finishes, and do so holding hands. Life has this quirky subjective thing going on for each of us, in which our perspective and understanding of the world we live in is informed by all manner of things, which taken in combination, become fairly unique to us as individuals – without regard to how very similar these things can also seem to be, from one person to another. I see it. I live it. I don’t necessarily “understand” it. I’m not your expert. 🙂

Oh, I’m not going anywhere, it just occurs to me that some people really do need an “expert”, if only for a little while. Go get one! No shame in needing help, a support system, a consultation, a reality check – and omg, don’t go trying to get that reliably from people who may actually wholly love you. lol They aren’t your experts either. There is an implied agenda there, when human beings are emotionally invested in one another, just saying. Some things you’ll have to sort of work out on your own – and you may find “a way” that just isn’t shared by anyone else, or “doesn’t work” – except for you – and that’s entirely okay, too.

There’s a reason there are a ton of self-help books, and paid “experts” out there; we’re very fancy primates with so much variety that what works for one, may not work for any other. Wow. So fancy. Lots of folks sell blockbuster self-help books based on their way – the way they found that works for them, specifically, and may not actually work for anyone else at all. I write, almost daily, about what I am doing to heal and grow, and become more the woman I most want to be over time… and if any of that is useful for you, I am delighted, but… it’s what works for me, and your results may vary. You may have to find a new way, or a different way, or some other way – and you may have to practice quite a lot, even if it is the way that works for you.

I think about adaptive behaviors, and remember how urgently important it was to stay in the tire tracks of the vehicles ahead, when driving through a minefield. This behavior, a potentially life-saving behavior, is basically worthless back home, stateside, on a rainy day. I still find myself doing it, and then feeling real stress when I have to deviate from doing so to get to my destination; it’s not behavior that works in these circumstances. I point it out to underscore that what works for me (or for a particular circumstance) may not work for you (or a for a particular other circumstance). That’s just real; sooner or later we each have to look up from the tire tracks ahead, and instead of following, we have to make our own way. No kidding.

I look at the clock, as I finish my coffee. It’s already time to begin again. 😀

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, finding my way, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, meditation, mindfulness, my home my rules my way, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, TBI, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Small Things Matter

January 7, 2018 //

All weekend it’s been a matter of choices – choices to care for myself, or choices that were less about that and more about getting some specific task handled. No surprise – these concepts come into conflict regularly. I have managed to choose self-care more often than other things, mostly, and I feel as if, mostly, I am sort of mostly getting over this once-a-sore-throat-now-something-more-about-a-nasty-hacking-cough-and-shortness-of-breath. I face choices again. Do I commit to getting my ass up early tomorrow and dragging myself into the office choking on my own snot, or do I properly care for myself as an adult, aware that I could be contagious, and ew gross – pretty sure no one wants to listen to me coughing all day – and make the choice to call out? I’ve been thinking it over for a while.

I finally have to come to terms with one of adulthood’s mighty challenges; I have responsibilities I am not able to delegate, so… either I say “fuck it, you’ll all get by, see you Tuesday, folks”, or… work from home. Okay. I’m right in that sickness median between too sick to care (and therefore easily able to just call out) and getting well enough to go in (in which case, capable of some work)… I’m fortunate that I have the option to work from home, and I go ahead and make that choice. It feels good to take care of myself. I pause for a moment of compassion, regret, and even anger that there are hard-working people out there, everywhere, who literally can not afford to call out from work, however sick they may be. That’s just not right.

Working in the environment I do, I am very aware of the business consequences over time of productive hours lost to contagion in a confined area. I see it every year. I see well-meaning folks attempting to make the “right” choice coming in to work when they are likely to be contagious, because they don’t want to, or can’t financially afford to, miss work, and getting everyone they talk to exposed, everyone who touches a surface they touched exposed, everyone who passes through air space into which they sneezed or coughed exposed – and a goodly percentage, in a short time, will themselves either call out, or work at reduced productivity while infecting colleagues. I try to be very mindful myself that contagion lasts longer than we realize, often beginning before we know we’re ill, and lasting some time after we feel “mostly over it”. Working from home tomorrow is a good choice… it still took me hours to make that choice and feel confident I am doing the right thing – which is hilarious. I still have to work so hard at taking care of me. It’s worth practicing, though. 🙂

This weekend has been all naps and chicken broth, rest and self-care, good nutrition, and attending to my health. Being sick leaves me exhausted and anhedonic, lacking in appetite, soaked in ennui. I know it will pass. I have done little and still feel wrung out and overworked. I’ll get over it. I keep drinking water, tea, broth… trying to drown the virus or steam it out. lol I simultaneously feel grateful to live alone (no cranky interactions), but also deeply lonely (to be cared for like a child home sick from school). I am exhausted, and also bored. I am restless, but so tired I’d rather nap than do anything at all. It sucks and I will be glad to be done with it. lol Maybe I’ll be over it tomorrow? Well… if nothing else, tomorrow I can begin again. 🙂

Tags a hacking cough, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, get over it, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, p.s. I love you, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, the common cold, viral pharyngitis, what's that wheezing sound?

Categories anhedonia, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Love and Lovers

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All Things Considered

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Take a Moment

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Don’t Follow Me

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Small Things Matter

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