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Now

June 11, 2013 //
4
The time is...now.

The time is…now.

I figured I’d share this bit with you. This particular moment feels wrapped in quiet. The house is dim. Only the light overhead remains, dimmed low for a notion of ambience at some other point in time. It is the last hour completing 50 years of life. I don’t have any particular reason to give for why this particular birthday feels so significant to me. Is it ‘where I am’ in my life? Is it the progress I am making…in life, in love, in work, in…damn, is there any facet of me that I’m not taking a hard look at these days? My experience is that I’m enjoying ‘my experience’ more, generally, and sleeping a lot better  – I feel pretty balanced most of the time, and even the hormonal ups and downs are no longer calling the shots.  It all seems so mundane in text.

How is it that it feels so significant to face this moment, this place, this…now? 50…in minutes. Oh, I know, I know – just as with ‘end time’ prophesies, or the Y2K scare, tomorrow will be tomorrow. A day. Each moment a new now. I will be who I am. My lovers will be who they are. Love and life will continue in whatever way they will, based on circumstances and choices.  I will be 50. So will a lot of other people. Hell, Johnny Depp is 50, or so I read a day or two ago. He seems timeless to me, but I guess someone, somewhere, is probably keeping track of that detail. lol. 50, though, how important is it really? It isn’t. Time is pretty arbitrary, I think. Doesn’t it matter more what we do with it, than that it is?

I had considered something long, and detailed, and nostalgic for this post. Today has been my last day before I am 50. I’ve had a certain sense that I am ‘closing out the first half’…but it’s entirely internal.  Based on events and conversations, it’s clear that this is not an experience everyone shares…or perhaps it is difficult to identify with [or care about! lol] from some other vantage point in time? I don’t think I’d have been able to connect with such a thing at 21. Maybe not even at 30. Will I care about 50 when I am 70? It seems unlikely. So…I took some time to be alone with this last hour…just me and…me. Well, and you. Thanks for sharing the moment with me. 🙂

‘Now’ has gotten to be a pretty big deal for me, lately. I’ve learned some things about my values, too, and who I am…and who I am becoming. 50 years is a lot of ‘past’. Some of it will likely live on, isolated within my memory, for as long as the wreckage in my head and in my heart lasts, but what then? Is success forgetting? Is healing really something within reach for me? Who am I when I am whole? What does the world look like through those glasses? Do nightmares really go away? Then what?

This is getting long, and without any particular point. I’ll be 50 tomorrow. That’s when the second half starts, and instead of spending a long while writing, perhaps weeping, and wading through a lifetime of emotions I have already felt, about events I have already experienced, I want to come back to now. This right here. Not quite 50, almost done with 49…timeless in a dark room, the quiet tap of my fingers on the keyboard, the hush of the air purifier, and the house sounds creating this quiet made of sounds that seems more dense and solitary than quiet is intended to be. Now. I will set this aside, finished (do we need more words between us now, in this stillness together?) and end the first half in thought, cradled in a very nice ‘now’ indeed, and eager to wake and celebrate how far I’ve come, and how worth it the journey is proving to be.

Tomorrow…well, it’ll be ‘now’, then, won’t it? lol

Blackberries - summer comes.

Blackberries – summer comes.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Turning 50, women, Words

One Moment, One Day, One Week

June 5, 2013 //
3

I am feeling tired today, on a different level, as if my heart or perhaps my ‘soul’ is fatigued and needing rest. Hormones, probably. Or some other simple fundamental of being human, perhaps.  I slept well enough, although I woke once or twice briefly, and of course ahead of the alarm clock when my night ended.  I’m eating well and taking care of my nutritional needs.  I’m getting good regular exercise, and I’m not taking medications I don’t need, and those at the lowest effective dose of the most reliable Rx available at this time.  I’m staying with new mindfulness and meditation practices, and yoga, and attending to the needs of my spirit and my heart by ensuring I take time for people and things I love. 

Memories and daydreams mingle as I approach 50. "Sunset on the River" 1994 and 2011. Oil on Canvas

Memories and daydreams mingle as I approach 50.
“Sunset on the River” 1994 and 2011. Oil on Canvas

…and I’m tired.  I feel a bit like I am momentarily ‘paused’ to re-buffer… or something… When my mind is still and quiet I feel the unease of dissatisfaction more clearly.  I’m uncomfortable facing it.  What am I afraid of? Change? There’s so much of that of late I don’t see that it would be all that remarkable. lol.  Hormones. I will be so glad when the over-rationalized, highly resented, chemical driver of my experience ebbs like the tide.  I daydream that I will be suddenly ‘more sane’ and calmer… I hope not to be disappointed. LOL Maybe I am just a madwoman after all? I do wonder, sometimes…

The ‘first half’ is nearly at an end… a dear friend who heard about my new aquarium adventure remarked “one must adjust the temporal currents in ones own body and mind in order to commune with the fish.  it will be very beneficial to your journey, i believe.”  I’m sure she’s right on both points.  So, ever onward…50 staring me in the face, and when I stare back I see it pretty clearly some days.  Still…overall I’m pretty happy. Overall I’m pretty satisfied with most things. Overall I’m in good health, and reasonably rational.  It’s hard to bitch about feeling tired, or share some existential angst, knowing how many friends, family, and acquaintances are really struggling.  Harder still to deal with feeling dissatisfied about things that suddenly look awfully small when I consider the pain and turmoil in our global community. Am I finally becoming a grown up? lol.

7 days to 50…

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Turning 50, women

Ouch.

June 4, 2013 //
1

8 days to 50…and today is actually pretty damned unpleasant so far. I woke from nightmares, groggy and drenched in sweat, before the alarm went off. The day seemed to begin well enough; a good latte and a sense of relief that nightmares are something I can wake up from isn’t a bad beginning. The morning shared with a partner seemed lovely…

Maybe it looks easy..but...

Maybe it looks easy..but…

…the day is not idyllic. I’m frustrated. Struggling to communicate well. I feel discontented. I feel disappointed that I seem to suck so badly now at something I thought I was really good at, and wondering how it is that I ever managed to think I was good at it in the first place? I am ‘having a bad day’. Somehow the satisfaction of good work, skilled problem solving, and task completion is escaping me. I feel dissatisfied in spite of my efforts, in spite of my successes. Right now, only my failures seem to count for anything with me. I’m aggravated that I feel this way. Fucking hell – struggling to communicate, to connect, to feel joy in what is joyful to me, to feel valued and appreciated…I want very much to yield to ‘today sucks’, but I know it doesn’t have to be the day, even if it is the moment.

I am crying. I’m not sure how much that matters, really, aside from completely removing any chance of being able to communicate effectively. I can see sunshine outside through the patio door. Flowers nodding in the breezes as if to confirm that it is a lovely day… out there. (In here –  meaning within my being –  it is sucking rather a lot, today.) Some of this ‘growth’ stuff is pretty damned painful, and today it is hard to see the value. I sometimes feel very alone on this journey. Alone, and silenced.

I feel like ‘my inbox’ is piled high with things I need to master, work on, improve, succeed at, appreciate more, do better, understand more… and I feel like I’m not making any progress. At least, I feel that way today.

8 days…good thing it isn’t a deadline.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50

Now is the Time

June 2, 2013 //
3

I have a strange relationship with Time. It begins in the morning of every new day, when I wake before my alarm goes off. I set it for 5am, but it rarely has a chance to go off, I usually wake minutes or seconds in advance, and shut it off. 4:58 am, 4:52 am, 4:46 am; never even a moment after 5am, even when my alarm is turned off for the weekend. Strangely, I don’t rely on that, and failing to be certain my alarm is set and turned on generally results in a night of restless sleep, waking again and again to check the time. I don’t set my alarm for an increment of time that isn’t on the hour, the half hour, or more rarely the quarter-hour. It seems pretty arbitrary and more a matter of habit or tradition than any rational choice about an ideal moment to wake.

Isn’t Time rather arbitrary, anyway? I mean, the math bits and science bits are certain to be important to someone, somewhere…but, my subjective experience with Time often finds me winding my way back to ‘why do I put myself through this when it seems so…imaginary?’ I don’t have a comfortable experience with Time. I rush myself, too often. I pile expectations of punctuality on my demands of myself that result in bitter emotional battles with myself, or others, over some occasion of minor lateness – in the face of a lifetime of time-based brutality directed at myself. I’m rarely late by my own actions; it freaks me out. When circumstances or people ‘make me late’ I’ve been known to unleash an amount of emotion and temper that is most easily described as ‘desperate and enraged’ – an unpleasant combination. I’m sure the origins of my troubled relationship with Time is lost in the darkness of ancient pain, and a lovely Sunday doesn’t yield to further exploration. Not right now, when I’m having such a good time. 🙂

This morning I was thinking about alarm clocks, agendas, and time and those thoughts resurfaced later while I was meditating. I suddenly felt so aware of something I’ve fought for so long… the only time I really benefit from concerning myself with is…now.  Well, hell… I have time for that. 😉

...some metaphor about time...

…some metaphor about time…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Turning 50

Another Attack by The Brain

May 24, 2013 //
1

I woke ‘too early’, though I suppose it’s never too early to spend pleasant moments with a lover…only, I am alone now, with my coffee, impatiently watching the clock to head to my Friday appointment.

The morning started wonderfully well, then took a detour through ancient pain through the wonders of human communication and all it’s grand potential to have pitfalls and consequences. Now I am withstanding the nearly inevitable attack on myself from within that so often follows dialogue that even brushes past damage…and this morning was more like ripping off a scab by mistake, because it looked like a bit of nothing-or-other to be brushed away.

I am feeling frustrated, on a couple levels, and incredibly angry ‘with the world’… which I think may be more accurately described as ‘angry with people who hurt me long ago’.  It is the heart of my struggle with anger. This anger is largely unresolved, unaddressed, and ever-present, the sort of thing no one in my here/now experience deserves directed at them, and without any hope of being addressed with the appropriate individuals. I have the perception it must surely be the most vile and horrific expression of terrible rage ever in humanity’s history with anger, too, because as soon as it ever begins to come up, everyone around me immediately moves to do or say whatever it takes to shut it down. I have a lifetime of experience that says to me that my anger is unacceptable. I try and try to deal with it alone, and I suck at it in a most extraordinary way, I admit.

We each have our challenges and issues. I doubt mine are truly unique, and there are women who have and will suffer worse, more, and longer. I have survived some nasty shit. Broken, but perhaps not beyond repair, frustrated, but loved…things are better than they were, but god damn, I am so tired –  fatigued – from continuously working to address first one bit of damage, then another, with a frequent experience that feels a bit like scrubbing a huge expanse of floor, and just when I take a moment to appreciate the work well done, someone walks up and says (in a totally well-meaning way) “you missed a spot”. It’s frustrating…almost seems like the floor just keeps getting bigger.

Am I just bitching? Maybe…I am still headache-y, and feeling disappointed that I have challenges getting the emotional support I need…but a great deal of that is likely tied to my lack of skill at asking for what I need. Harder still to communicate that some particular thing is very important to me, especially when I have my own doubts that it makes sense, or what I need from the moment as a result.

I don’t feel well understood this morning, and something I was trying to communicate got swept aside for something else also important… I feel lonely and not well cared-for, right now, which has me doubting… so many things. That is the nature of this morning’s brain attack: doubt. My rational mind ‘knows’ this doubt and depressed bit of morning is illusory (thank you mindfulness!)… the feelings are what they are, just feelings.

How do I tell a lover that all I really want is a few minutes with strong comforting arms around me, and reassuring words while I cry really hard for just a few minutes, when I have so much trouble acknowledging it for myself?

Friday’s experience is brought to you by trauma, damage, and a will to survive… There’s hope for the day, yet; I got an early start.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Turning 50
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