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It’s Not Personal

October 2, 2024 //
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My head is pounding. My ears are ringing. My back aches furiously and I didn’t get enough sleep. I stayed up later than I planned pushing myself harder than I should, getting shit done I had planned to do today, while working from home. I’m sitting at the trailhead now, waiting for the sun, and on the other side of a walk, it’ll be one more work day in the office. I made these changes to give my Traveling Partner a day of chill time without dealing with anyone’s stress but his own, assuming the Anxious Adventurer takes his father’s firm, clear, directive to find something to do elsewhere today as seriously as it was intended.

I’m a bit annoyed about the whole thing, honestly. I manage my planning (and how I get shit done), with a careful eye on my physical and emotional limitations, and my limited energy. All of that went out the fucking window yesterday because the Anxious Adventurer sat around being loud for hours (apparently), preventing my Traveling Partner from being able to relax. It’s not as if my partner can jump in his truck and go for a drive himself right now! Fucking hell the lack of basic awareness and consideration irritate the shit out of me. (Caregiving is hard. Being human is hard.) Yet again, I’m dealing with a hearty helping of unnecessary bullshit and OPD (Other People’s Drama), and it limits my ability to effectively juggle caring for my partner and caring for myself.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be easy. I’m disappointed by how often I find myself doing more work, not less, in spite of an additional adult human being in the household. I reexamine my expectations yet again. I’m so fucking tired and I’m in a stupid amount of unmanaged pain this morning… but the laundry is done. The shopping got handled. I even got to (eventually) spend some chill time with my beloved before I take off for a few days to rest, care for myself, and hopefully recover more than a single day’s worth of emotional resilience.

…Life doesn’t always follow my fucking plan…

The Anxious Adventurer has a good heart, he just also has limited life experience, no experience managing a household or caring for another human being (as far as I know, and based on observation), and hasn’t figured out the basics of who he wants most to be or… basic manners and interpersonal communication. Fuck. You know what I didn’t sign up for? Parenting. Somehow, here we all are. :-/  I’m not any more skilled at basic parenting than I am at caregiving. This shit? Also hard.

… It isn’t personal, it’s just reality…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I work on letting this shit go, at least enough for my own mental my health. My partner’s limited ability to manage his stress and his reaction to other people’s emotions is frustrating and difficult, however relatable, and is a predictable outcome of the combination of meds he’s been taking for months. I get it; becoming disabled is a difficult experience, and working to taper off some of the medications he’s on is also difficult, and dealing with other people’s bullshit is difficult, and he’s pretty much trapped at home dealing with all of it, all at once, all the time, at least for now. That seriously sucks and I want to help – and I will do a better job of that if I refrain from becoming fused with his experience. I’m having my own as it is. Fuck this shit is complicated and difficult.

Another breath. Another exhalation. I bring myself back to this moment. Daybreak peaks over the horizon, just barely. The morning traffic rushes by on the highway. I sit quietly with my pain, boots on, ready to take a short walk in the dim light of dawn before heading to work. The Anxious Adventurer confirms he is working today; my partner will get some quiet time. It makes the upheaval and aggravation worth enduring. I take my morning medication, grab my cane and my headlamp, and stare into the morning darkness. It’s time to begin again. Already.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, health, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Uncategorized

Nightmares, Still

September 26, 2024 //
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Noisy restless night. I’m awake, for the moment. I listen. I hear the reassuring sound of my Traveling Partner, sleeping. I had been struggling to find deep sleep in a restless household. Now? I’m awake with a ferocious headache, a pinpoint of pain on the side of my head above my left ear. In between… sleep… and nightmares.

… I woke in a panic, responding to the soft frightened sounding voice of my partner calling out to me, “Honey…?”. I sat upright suddenly, shaking. The house was quiet and dark. Just an “exploding head” dream. Fuck, I hate those. The fear persists awhile. Before that, I was dreaming that I was in a large granite sarcophagus, polished smooth, very dark. The lid was askew enough for air to easily reach me, and I could get a comfortable strong grip on the smooth cold stone, but I couldn’t move it. No light, just a sense of the narrowness of the stone box. Huge. I was standing upright easily. I tried to gauge other dimensions and walked the length of it,  which somehow extended onward…onward… onward… into the darkness…or was I walking in place? I felt trapped and breathless. Heart pounding. I hear footsteps, not my own, and freeze. “Don’t move,” I think. “Control your breathing and for god’s sake don’t move.” I hold myself so, so still in the darkness. That was when I heard my partner call to me, “Honey..?”, and woke, shaking, frightened, heart pounding. Is he okay?!

He’s okay. Sleeping. The house is quiet around me. Just fucking nightmares, and a headache, and pain. I sigh quietly and breathe. My pounding heart begins to slow to something normal and comfortable. I get up to pee. Take an antacid. Lay back down. But I’m not sleeping. Not now. It’ll be awhile before sleep “feels safe” again. The night is half gone. Split by nightmares. I try meditation. Reading. Finally just write a few words; I know the recollection will dim as dawn approaches.

… This will pass with the night…

Tomorrow, I can begin again.

Foggy morning, waiting for the sun.

I eventually slept, some. I woke abruptly, frightened and triggered, by furious yelling in the hallway. My Traveling Partner had a bad night himself, going off one problematic prescription and beginning another, the experiences overlap. He is angry, tired, and unhappy about the hall bathroom light being on, keeping him from sleeping. 04:18. I get up, dress, make coffee for my beloved partner, and leave quickly, before I can (too easily) also be provoked to becoming angry. My heart is still pounding as I leave the house. I’m shaking. I remind myself to slow down, to breathe, to do my best. Getting killed on the highway in the fog driving stressfully wouldn’t be a helpful turn of events at all. 

Now, I wait for the sun. I sit quietly with my thoughts and my tinnitus, heart heavy with questions. Breathing. Letting shit go that’s not really anything personal to do with me. Reminding myself that my own fragile state is as much to do with my difficult night as it is to do with my unpleasant “wake up call”. Reminding myself to stay on the path, and to be my best self even under these circumstances (maybe especially under such circumstances). I’m not a perfect person. It’s not a perfect effort. My results vary.

… But doing my best to be the woman (person) I most want to be isn’t about anyone else, at all; I do this for me. My failures, however humbling, are part of the journey. I know to reflect on the experience, learn from it, and begin again. Life is brief – too brief.

I sit quietly, thinking about my Traveling Partner, this complicated man who I love so deeply and enduringly. He’s very human, too. Tough time for him. I remember having to come to terms with having become disabled, myself. G’damn that was…hard. I think about recent pleasant moments together and loving words shared; it makes it tough to get mired in stress, hurt feelings, or anger. It’s a practice I value greatly. It’s pretty hard to be angry when I am practicing gratitude.

Gratitude, even in this moment, after a difficult night, is pretty easy. My Traveling Partner is “a bit of a handful” lately, and caregiving is fucking hard (and relentless) – but I love this man for reasons (and through shared experiences) that go so much deeper than shitty bad tempered moments under trying (and temporary) circumstances. Hard is hard. Okay. Love still matters. So I turn to thoughts of our enduring love to comfort me right now. Heavy questions can wait for lighter moments when I am more likely to face them clear-headed. That just seems wise – although, wisdom isn’t really my area of expertise. I’m am simply a human primate doing my best to learn from my mistakes, practice useful (helpful) practices, and begin again when I struggle.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I focus on self-care for now, and sit here in the fog (actual, not metaphorical), waiting for the sun. This too will pass. There’s a new day ahead. I watch the morning commuter traffic rolling by on the highway and silently wish my partner well. I hope he gets some rest and I’m glad he’s not having to drag himself to work feeling wrung out from sleeplessness and changes to his meds. That’d be rough. I sit wondering for a moment if he felt the love that went into making his coffee with such care before I left the house?

…Fuck, I love this man so deeply, and very much in spite of the shit we’re going through right now, (which likely won’t seem significant a few years from now)…

Daybreak is slow to arrive on this foggy morning, but it will, and I’m grateful to see another sunrise. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, Uncategorized, Words

Do Not Disturb

September 24, 2024 //
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Well shit, yesterday went sideways abruptly after what had been a very pleasant day. Tempers and hurt feelings flared. Perspectives on individual experiences clashed. Unmet and unstated needs collided with the force only human emotions can create in such a short time. “Unpleasant” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I said things that were incredibly hurtful and will be difficult to apologize for adequately, if that’s even possible (and I am ashamed of having lost my temper so severely). He said some terrible things I can’t unhear. We hurt each other’s hearts – and the appalling thing about it is that we are each the person the other turns to for love, support, understanding, care, consideration… all the things. The person we hurt so deeply is our fucking partner.

… I didn’t sleep much last night…

Even after things calmed down and some sort of apologies were offered, the pain lingered. I went to bed unhappy. I don’t doubt he did as well. The house was quiet when I woke. My heart was heavy. Still is. Can we come back from this? Tears well up with the question every time it crosses my mind. I behaved appallingly.

I make my Traveling Partner’s morning coffee, put out a fresh glass of water, and a glass of iced tea, with a couple of fig bars to start his morning when he wakes. I hope he sees these things as the gesture of love I mean for them to be. I can’t imagine my life without him…

I’m not sure how we got to “this place”, and I sure don’t want to stay here. I remember a very different “us”, even quite recently (although it’s hard to stay mindful of how recent it was and that these changes are the result of injury, infirmity, and legitimate struggle, that truly will pass). I can do better. I’m confident he can too, and even that he means to. The medications he’s on make him more volatile and less clearheaded (no less so while he tapers off). The pain and fatigue I’m struggling with shorten my fuse and I rather stupidly try to avoid burdening him with information about my condition (that he actually needs to know to do his best to support me as much as he is able).

… I failed us both last night…

Fuck. The refrains of annoying 70’s break-up songs play on a loop in my thoughts. I snarl back at the unwelcome “programming”. I push them aside, because the feeling of hopeless and wistful futility that wells up is really terrible. I put on actual music (grateful for the technology that puts it within reach). The most positive thing I can think of for the circumstances… The Monkees, “A Little Bit You A Little Me”. Nailed it. I listen to Davy Jones singing words that remind me of my partner’s own pleas for me to “talk it out”. There’s wisdom there and hope. Don’t we deserve that for – and from – each other?

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The path isn’t always smooth. I’m still glad we’re walking it together – I’d be pretty spectacularly lost without my Traveling Partner. I hope he still feels the same about me.

We’re in this together.

There are apologies and amends to make. Work to do, and to do better. My results clearly vary… And I need more practice to become the person I most want to be. I’ve got to begin again. I hope he’ll continue this journey with me.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, grief, health, loneliness, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5

The Loupe and The Lens

September 17, 2024 //
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This morning an enormous full moon hung overhead as I left the house. I tried to get a good picture of it, which is to say a picture that looked like what I was seeing. This proved quite difficult. The camera “wasn’t seeing it right” – or at least it wasn’t capturing my perspective well, at all. Funny thing is, the camera only sees what’s there. It’s my perspective that’s giving me the beautiful view I’ve got. My brain changes what I see, providing undetected foreshortening, changing the scale based on what seems important to a human primate, things like that. I see a fantastically luminous full moon, very large overhead. The camera shows me what was actually there. I think this is worth thinking about. We create a lot of our experience and what we see and understand about the world. Our perspective may not reliably reflect what reality actually presents.

… Perspective is very personal. We’re each having our own experience…

So, I find myself thinking about the lens through which I view the world. It’s probably worth thinking about.

In the darkness, a man approaches my parked car unexpectedly. This is a first at this trailhead. He appears to be wearing jeans and a T-shirt, which seems strange for the chill of the morning. He begins asking, breathlessly, if I would give him a ride home, and says he’s run six miles, which also seems very strange – running at this hour? Along the highway? I firmly reject the request without opening my window and direct his attention to a nearby bus stop. I double check that my car door is locked, though I know it is. The lens through which I view the world tells me this individual is more likely to be dangerous than not.

Daybreak comes soon, but I’ve become reluctant to walk the trail in the early morning twilight. I examine the feeling more closely, as one might examine a watch under a jeweler’s loupe. Am I overreacting? Being ridiculous? Responding to a non-existent threat? Relying too heavily on past experiences with dangerous strangers? Perhaps, perhaps not. Sometimes we only get one chance to be wrong about something like that.

I sit with my thoughts awhile. I think, too, of my Traveling Partner, and the way our experiences with other lovers, in other relationships, informs our responses to each other in some moment of stress or conflict. We’re each having our own experience. Always have been, whether the experience is shared or not. We see the world through a different lens. Our perspective is our own. Even taking a much closer look may not reveal additional commonality so much as blow up our fears or doubts way beyond what they deserve… but it’s quite difficult to remain aware of it in the moment.

Between daylight and darkness.

I see the silhouette of the stranger in the darkness, lingering between the nearby bus stop and the trailhead parking lot. Why? I feel grateful for the techniques I learned for seeing things in the darkness that I learned as a soldier. So many things I have learned in a lifetime have had lasting utility. Unable to ascertain the stranger’s intentions and uncomfortable with his proximity, I move the car into the more distant parking lot as soon as the gate opens. I wait for daylight. I wait for the sunrise. I wait for a different perspective and more information. It’s nothing personal or even directly to do with that stranger; I’m choosing to silence the alarm bells clanging away along my nerves by reducing the potential threat. Feels like the safer choice.

Strange morning. Nothing really wrong, exactly. Good morning to think about perspective and the lenses through which we view the world. How accurate are those, really? I suppose only as accurate as our experiences hone and polish them to be. Probably not very accurate at all – how could they be, if we’re each having our own experience?

I think about conversations with my Traveling Partner yesterday. Some of those went incredibly poorly. Some were contentious, others loving. There were numerous miscommunications and misunderstandings. We don’t reliably see the world (or our shared experience) through the same lens. We’re different people, having our own experience, lived through our own perspective. It’s complicated by my brain damage. It’s complicated by the medication he’s presently on. It’s complicated simply because being human can be so complicated all by itself.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Today is a new day.  I am fortunate to love so deeply and to be loved deeply in return. I have an opportunity to do better, to be kinder, to listen more deeply and to practice non-attachment. Perspective does matter, and so does giving people the freedom to have their own (and to have that respected). Another breath. Daylight comes. There’s no sign of the stranger who approached me in the darkness earlier. I feel a sense of relief.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Prose and Comms

September 14, 2024 //
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I woke gently after a restful night. I made coffee for my still-sleeping Traveling Partner, and slipped away quietly into the pre-dawn darkness, headed to the trailhead and another walk at sunrise.

Not quite daybreak, still a new day.

My Traveling Partner wakes before dawn, and pings me a question. This is two mornings in a row that abrupt communication without any sort of greeting or preamble have interrupted my only reliable opportunity to take a little quiet time for myself that doesn’t require me to take that time away from some other purpose or person. I’m momentarily irritated that I’m not important enough in the moment to at least rate a greeting or a “good morning” before questions and complaints. I’m feeling moody over the lack of consideration for this precious self-care time and puzzled by the lack of awareness that I need this for me. None of my partner’s questions or concerns seem so urgent that they couldn’t have waited until after my walk. I sit quietly after the conversation ends, wondering whether to bring it up, and how I could do so without making drama. Is it worth the potential discord? I could have chosen to ignore the pings until later… seems rude to do that when I know he’s home recovering from surgery and could need help. I feel a bit trapped between circumstances and manners.

…He sets boundaries so easily. Why is it so hard for me…?

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and work on getting back to me, after our conversation ends. This quiet time, meditating, reflecting, writing, and walking, is very much part of how I care for myself and maintain my emotional wellness, and build resilience. It has become comfortably routine, and almost “non-negotiable”. Yesterday’s lack of a walk ended up being something I felt all day.

Daybreak comes, and an opportunity to begin again.

I sigh to myself as I lace up my boots. No colorful sunrise this morning, I guess. The sky is cloudy, and hues of blue and gray. The air is mild and scented with meadow grasses and wildflowers, a very particular fragrance both spicy and sweetly floral. I enjoy it. It reminds me of Oregon, which doesn’t surprise me; that’s where I am.

… I head down the trail, intending to finish this at the halfway point…

I get to a nice spot to sit for a little while. It’s a quiet morning and I have the trail all to myself – a pleasant luxury, and rare on a Saturday, even so early. My neck aches ferociously, and my headache is an 11 on a 1-10 scale this morning. I am grateful to have an appointment with a skilled practitioner later this morning. I’d like to enjoy the day without being in this much pain. It’s very distracting. It pulls my focus away from these words and this world again and again. Most unpleasant.

I thought I had something of more substance to write about this morning. It had begun to take shape as I drove to this place, but distractions and conversation with my Traveling Partner caused my thoughts to unravel too quickly to capture even a loose idea of what was on my mind at the time. No matter; I began again. I tend to “write where I am”. Whether that perspective is geographical, metaphysical, or emotional isn’t all that important. In any case, it is the moment I find myself in.

I sit awhile with my thoughts, not writing, and without any particular direction or theme. Pain sucks. I have difficulty recalling a time when I was living pain free more days than not… How long ago…?  I think I would have to measure in decades. The arthritis in my spine set in sometime in my mid-twenties. It’s been with me awhile – much longer than my headache. I distractedly rub my irritated neck. 9 or 10 years for the neck, I think… Fuck pain. G’damn there’s too much of that in the world. I snarl quietly to myself and yield to the demands of my pain, and take an Rx pain reliever earlier than I usually do. I glare at the cloudy sky thinking it’s likely the weather making the pain worse somehow. I laugh at the thought; it sounds stupidly primitive and superstitious, and not very rational. What do I know about it? I’m just a fucking human primate trying to cope with my pain any way I safely can.

I hear voices up the trail. By the time I get back to the car, it’ll be time to head to the city for my appointment. I think about my Traveling Partner, and remind myself to stop by the pharmacy for his prescriptions on my way home. I feel like I am forgetting something, but I don’t know what. I’d love to spend the day painting, but I don’t see that happening today… I hurt, and I’d just as soon go back to bed.  “Fuck pain.” I say out loud to myself. I don’t want to give in to it. There’s so much I’d like to do.

I get to my feet, and stretch, and rest my weight on my cane for a moment, making certain I’ve “got my feet under me” before I head back up the trail. It’s already time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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