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Undefined and Uncertain

September 19, 2015 //
0

I woke this morning, but I’m not actually sure when. I checked the clock at 2:38 am, but didn’t get up. I may have slept more, I don’t recall being wakeful, but I recall many moments of being awake. I don’t know whether they are consecutive (and I was awake until I got up) or separated by sleep (resulting in sleep, however restless it may have been). I got up at 6:38, 4 hour later, when I next checked the clock. If it had been, say, 3:11 am, I’d have gotten up to pee and gone back to bed afterward – and perhaps that would have been a good choice at 2:38 am. 🙂

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately.

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately; time to get back out on the trails.

I’m not sure what sort of morning this one is, so far. I’m still sore from more than usual miles of walking yesterday (a reminder to get back on the trail). I woke in pain, stiff from my arthritis, and since that’s primarily in my spine, it affects most movement, even breathing feels subtly impaired, as I fight the pain to find posture that allows deeper breaths. (Many of my headaches source with a damaged cervical vertebra (C7) and its adjacent arthritic siblings, rather than with my TBI.) I put on music first thing this morning, even before I turned on the aquarium lights, which is unusual. More unusual still, I didn’t do so with deliberate purpose and awareness, it was the action of someone just being and doing, action following impulse without intent. I’m not unhappy with the choice, but the ebb and flow of my emotions seems more connected this morning to the music than to my experience. Highs and lows come and go with the changing tracks on my playlist. I made my coffee, and forgot about it on the counter in the kitchen. My memory seems very clear on details that are often sort of vague and challenging – but I am peculiarly inattentive to other sorts of things I generally track well. And… Yesterday there was this moment when it was entirely and rather publicly clear that I had entirely lost any ability to manage simple math – I couldn’t calculate 44 days from the current date for a simple forecasting scenario, even using a calendar, and the calculator on my computer was beyond me (cognitively), at that moment. It could have been an embarassing moment – it wasn’t; I was frightened, and felt very vulnerable and insecure. The feelings passed, the concern did not. I’m sort of … following myself around observing myself in the background today, with concern and curiosity.

I write awhile. I retrieve my forgotten coffee. I change the playlist when I find myself feeling some borrowed emotion that doesn’t fit the circumstances of the day. And I wonder. I try to avoid worrying, but find myself thinking of things like “Flowers for Algernon”, and the neuroscience of cognition, and the progress on A.I., and how fragile this meat vessel really is, and how many people in my family have died of strokes… and my injury. Suddenly my fears become liquid and the tears are quietly slipping down my face, and I weep to face my mortality so starkly. 52 isn’t old. Neither am I a child. I carry enough damage to this fragile vessel from years of punishing circumstances, trauma, casual thoughtlessness, and mischance that I probably ought not expect it to be without consequence where longevity is concerned. It’s a good call to take care of myself if I earnestly want to stay around – but, realistically, so much of whether I stay around isn’t actually up to me in the moment, at all. Strokes do happen. Will I know, when the time comes? Will it be like some of the TIAs I’ve had, looking out through my eyes as windows, aware but unable to say – but for longer than a moment? What’s next? Will everything just… end?

I didn’t understand yesterday how profoundly affected I was in that moment, with a colleague, utterly unable to do the simplest math, looking up from my desk so helplessly – and asking for help. That was hard. I didn’t lose face, and the moment passed. I’m open about my issues, and learning to ask for help when I need it has had a lot of value. I’m frightened, though, and that’s harder to be open about. I let myself cry, and face the fear. I am okay right now. My coffee is hot, well-made, and tastes just right. The morning is a pleasant one. The music is all music I like very much. I live well, comfortably, and meet most of my day-to-day needs easily. I am human; emotions like fear and uncertainty are part of the experience. I guess I’m just not ready to go now, and the fear hits that yearning for more time – now that I seem to be sorting some things out. It’s a complicated feeling.  Tears and more tears, no sobbing or hysterics, just this momentarily ceaseless flow of tears, blurring my vision. And this fear. I have so much more love to give…

The tears slow, and eventually stop. My head aches from the crying… or…was the headache already there? I’m not sure this morning. This morning I lack certainty about a great many things. Will I see my traveling partner, or is he still sick? Will my housewarming later today be fun and relaxed, or will I mess with my head foolishly getting overly worked up over small things and stress myself out? Will I continue to find, over the course of the day, that other things ‘aren’t working’ as I expect them to, in my ability to think, to do math, to spell, to write,  to reason, to recall, to plan, to communicate, to feel…? Will I rise above the small challenges to engage this lovely moment, or find myself faltering and failing to find any secure emotional foothold? Will I take care of me, quite tenderly, and recognize that at any age being reminded of one’s mortality can be ‘a tough  moment’, or will I treat myself callously, with disregard, self-deprecation, and mockery? Will I “be okay”, or can I find sufficiency in being okay right now? I momentarily feel as though I might trade actual death from whatever nasty virus my traveling partner picked up for 15 minutes in his arms, feeling comforted, cared for, and alive. Fear sucks.

My playlist comes through for me in the most amazing way some times. My heavy heart starts lifting listening to Atmosphere remind me how human life is. I remember, again, that I am okay right now, and that – truly – there is nothing in this moment right here that warrants these tears. I start letting it go, and gently finding my way; mortality isn’t really something we can fight skillfully (yet) as human beings. I may not live to see us achieve near-immortality through the advances of science. I have ‘now’, and it can’t be taken from me. Today isn’t a bad one. The morning isn’t difficult. I didn’t sleep badly. My coffee didn’t disappoint me. I am not out in the cold, or without nutritious groceries in my pantry. I am not lacking in love. I don’t have to go into the office today. I am, in fact, okay right now. “All is well” is approximately accurate – at least as far as any details I can be clearly aware of in my own experience, myself, in this moment.

As suddenly as they came, the tears – and my fear and uncertainty – dissipate. I am okay, right now. It’s enough, isn’t it? 🙂

I clean my salt-spattered glasses, sip my remaining now cold coffee, and notice again the lovely morning ahead of me, requiring only that I take care of me, practice good practices, and live well and mindfully in this moment, on this day. Now.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Nightmares

September 18, 2015 //
1

I woke during the night, in a panic. Drenched in sweat, shaking, heart pounding, sobbing – a nightmare. I still have them, although they are far less frequent. I am immobilized while I get my bearings; my bedroom is hung with paintings that remind me I am safe, and are characterized by the use of glow-in-the-dark paints, too, so that in the literal ‘darkest moment’, I am still illuminated softly by love, by hope, by inspiration, and all manner of gentle reminders that life is quite a separate experience happening outside The Nightmare City. I remember to take deep breaths, and fold myself into a comfortable cross-legged position (I can’t quite manage Lotus posture unless I have been doing yoga for some minutes). I meditate for a few minutes until my heart slows, and the trembling stops. I check the clock – I managed only about 90 minutes of sleep before the nightmares hit. It happens. It used to herald hours, or days of nightmares to come.

How will I

How will I “find my way home”?
“Daytime in The Nightmare City” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter and micaceous oxide. Indoor light, charged. 2014

I got up long enough to get a drink of water – a childhood ritual of wakefulness that still soothes me – and walk calmly through my small home; there are no places for monsters hide, here. I am quite safe, even within this fragile vessel if I allow myself to be aware of how much of content of my conscious mind is chosen, and created. I am not empowering my nightmares by considering them in detail after I wake, and they slowly dissipate. (Seriously, they do. It does require literally letting go of thinking ‘about’ them; thinking about them in the moments after waking only gives them significance and power.) I think of my traveling partner, sick at home, hopefully sleeping. This, too, helps calm me. I don’t focus on the distance, or that I can’t just crawl into his arms for comfort – I breathe, and consider him sleeping comfortably, himself, safe and undisturbed, and allow my own feeling of security and safety to continue to build on the awareness that much is right in the world, in the quiet of night, here, now. I am okay in this moment.

I stand in the twilight of my kitchen, lit by the walkway light just outside my window, filtered by the closed blinds, and finish a second glass of water and smiling, thinking it would be likely to wake me later needing to pee. I don’t give that another thought, instead feeling the cool water in my mouth, and enjoying the awareness of indoor plumbing and running water, and being in the moment. That’s another thing I find very calming after bad nightmares; savoring the awareness of the comforts of life, whatever they may be. Don’t they have more real substance than a nightmare? 🙂

I returned to bed, filling my thoughts with things that feel good, but perhaps not intensely so…things that would be gentle on my consciousness: clouds drifting across a blue sky, soft autumn breezes, the sound of peeping frogs, memories of fireflies… I woke at the sound of my alarm, feeling rested and undisturbed.

It has been rare for me to have just one nightmare, and follow that with restful sleep. Incremental change over time is a thing – and  yes, there are practices to practice and verbs involved. I expect my results will vary. Hey, my results do vary and there are verbs involved; living in the midst of stress, drama, and turmoil resulted in nightmares almost nightly, and weeks of disturbed sleep at a time, and terrifying isolation because there was no safe outlet for discussion, with no particular emotional support available, interrupted by just days of restful sleep. Yes, the choices matter – and they are not always easy ones. I now live alone, because at least for now even living with other people presents enough additional stress for me that I find managing my symptoms more challenging, and they are far more likely to flare up (much of my PTSD is related to trauma in the context of relationships, and domestic violence). (And no, I’m not saying everyone with PTSD should live alone – that’s ludicrous; I’m just one person, making my own choices, and following my own path. This is what I need for me. I don’t even know that this is what I will ‘always’ need – since ‘always’ is incredibly unlikely, ever.)

Even though I am having my own experience, I'm not really alone in this; music reminds me how much of this experience is really shared.

Even though I am having my own experience, I am not alone.

Turns out to be a lovely morning. I’ve got my favorite playlist on, because sometimes the demons need to be reminded that I’m going to bounce back, and I need to remind them they don’t tell me. lol Yep – the songs on my playlist aren’t just catchy tracks that I enjoy dancing to – they tell me stories, remind me of truths, and help me drive my demons back. Mornings after nightmares are best with music. 🙂 [Your results may vary.]

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Waiting for Coffee

September 17, 2015 //
0

I am awake. Showered. I’ve meditated. I’ve done some yoga. It is morning, and the start of a new day. I am waiting for coffee, listening to the ticks, pings, and pops of the electric burner heating the goose-neck kettle, and the water within. There is nothing much else going on in this moment right here. I hear a freight train, some distance away, and the woosh of traffic on the main road, nearer by, and the percussive chiming of raindrops on the chimney cover – sounds of morning. I am here, listening, and waiting for coffee.

Sometimes it's a metaphor - sometimes it is just a cup of coffee. :-)

Sometimes it’s a metaphor – sometimes it is just a cup of coffee. 🙂

My coffee this morning is hot, still to hot to drink. The cup warms my hands – I type a few words, stop and hold the cup awhile, and return to this page, fingers poised over the keyboard…still this feeling of waiting… I am also waiting to see my traveling partner, a thread of loving woven into the fabric of my experience, even when we are separated by distance and a head cold. I am also gently waiting for new ideas and changed thinking to settled into all the corners of my consciousness; the meditation, study, and reading over the weekend, and the conversation with my therapist yesterday, are now all mixed together. I know that waiting will end, in each one of these cases, with time – it is the only thing that ends waiting, besides choosing not to wait.

I am pleased that the rain has returned. I enjoy rain. My walk to work is temporarily detoured along the main thoroughfare while a bridge across the creek that runs through the park is replaced. It is no great inconvenience to make the change, but the result is a far less naturally lovely walk. The current commute takes me through a parking lot, then down a long length of sidewalk between commuter traffic, and signs of humankind’s careless (I am puzzled that people litter, honestly), then I turn back to the remainder of the usual walk through the business park, with landscaped beauty that changes with the seasons thanks to the labors of a vast crew of landscapers who rip out all the flowers in the flower beds 2 times a  year to replace them with other ones. It strikes me as both cruel and wasteful – but the flower beds are always lovely and well-kept. I’m sure there’s a metaphor there, among the flowers or the between the raindrops. I realize it would serve me well to get my raincoat out today, for the walk to work, and wonder if the traffic will be close enough to risk being splashed as I walk along.

On chilly mornings I see bumblebees sleeping among the flowers.

On chilly mornings I see bumblebees sleeping among the flowers.

This morning is a quiet pleasant morning. I am entirely okay with that; it is enough.

Today is a good day to enjoy each moment as is it is. Today is a good day to savor the beauty in the ordinary, and savor even those moments that seem wholly unremarkable. Today is a good day to share a smile and be uplifted by those simple things I love the most – even if only a good cup of coffee, on a rainy morning.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Always With the Perspective

September 16, 2015 //
2

It’s a chilly morning. I woke a bit ahead of the alarm clock, and somehow the shower didn’t warm me up much. My head is stuffy, as if in sympathy to my traveling partner, home sick at his place. I miss him greatly, but it matters more that he take care of himself and be well – besides, I don’t really want to be sick, myself, and I am content to wait to see him for some better time.

I find myself thinking about perspective, again. I know that because I’d like to be in my traveling partner’s arms so very much, it would be super easy to dive into misery, frustration, and annoyance that we are not together, and then for that to become a springboard to all sorts of doubt, insecurity, hurt, and anger spreading out in all directions from that one small thing; I miss him. Emotions are intense, and can easily overwhelm reason, and then… then what? Then I am unhappy, riled up, agitated, miserable, lonely, angry, frustrated, and filled with negative self-talk and thinking so distorted that all those feelings start fueling some sort of ‘blame machine’ that generates more distorted thinking, and rationalizes treating others poorly on the basis of that distorted thinking. This morning I am appreciative that I am not in that place. (Perspective is a lovely way to defuse those emotional bombs.)

Anyway, how would I really measure life's 'spilled milk'?

Someone else said it first; there’s no use crying over spilled milk.

Life isn’t ‘about’ my losses. Sure the losses exist, but they don’t exist isolated from the joys, the gifts, the delights, the wonders, and the cherished moments. Life is also not about keeping score; when I am focused on this moment, my moment, engaged, present, and mindful, the bullshit fades away, and I’m not filled with self-made poison. I was thinking about this while I soaked in the bath last night, too; if I measure my life by my losses, how could I not find myself wounded, tearful, and overwhelmed with doubt and sorrow? It’s 52 years worth of ups and downs – there are some losses in all that experience.

I could measure my life by my gains, if I choose. Things look different stacked up as an assortment of wins, gains, achievements, successes…and that too is misleading; I don’t learn much from the easy wins, and the emotional highs are far less intense, lacking depth and value, without the perspective offered by what has been lost, and what hurt, and what didn’t work so easily. Then, too, if I measure my life by all the things I have done or achieved that are awesome, I don’t leave much room to be vulnerable, to connect, to appreciate what is soft and tender within myself, and to value myself when I am not winning, gaining, achieving, or succeeding, and I may also need to spend a great deal of mental bandwidth defining those successes, to avoid becoming frustrated by shortcomings that might negatively affect measuring the wins. Hell, I’m only thinking about it, and I feel myself becoming a little anxious!

...and how exactly is 'success' truly defined, and measured...and who decides that?

…and how exactly is ‘success’ truly defined, and measured…and who decides that?

It’s the measuring, itself, that I find myself thinking about critically. I don’t personally prefer life to be a competition, and the measuring of successes, the score keeping, the comparing of this person to that person, the perception that there are ‘necessary’ achievements one is expected to make in life (marriage, children, car, house, career…) – I have come to view all of those as bullshit distractions, choices, simply details we can add to who we are – or not. I’m choosing ‘not’, generally, and re-evaluating where all of those things really fit in with who I am, myself. It’s been a process. Part of asking that ‘who am I?’ question, I guess…. (I’m sure not telling you what you should or must find important, yourself.) I’m just observing that holding an attachment to goals that aren’t really my own, imposed on me by expectations of one sort or another, is one very elaborate way to be miserable.

Why am I on about score keeping and measuring and comparing one to another? Because I miss my traveling partner, of course! See what I mean by how quickly powerful emotions can overwhelm reason? How are those even connected? They are connected in only the loosest way, by time itself, and by the measuring of time, and the score keeping of moments. I don’t spend as much time with him as I’d like, which has the potential to nudge me toward contemplating the time he spends with others, and to become resentful and hurt over it. It’s silliness – because love isn’t about score keeping (or time keeping), or measuring, or counting. I’ve come a long way from allowing my powerful emotions to sneak attack me on something so small, most of the time. 🙂 That feels pretty good over my morning coffee, and instead of fussing irritably about why my traveling partner isn’t in my arms (he’s sick, seriously?) I am simply enjoying a lovely morning, in this moment here, content that there are other moments to enjoy in other times, and that love exists, regardless – it’s certainly not worth stress, or agitation, or grinding my mental gears over if/when/why. That kind of mental busy work poisons my experience now, in part because my brain injury impedes my ability to regulate emotions stirred up by thoughts (they feel every bit as real, and intense, as emotions that occur in response to circumstances), and in part because I am human.

It's a journey - there are some detours.

It’s a journey – there are some detours.

That’s been another lovely bit of awakening, recently. I’ve struggled so long with sorrows over what is ‘wrong’ with me, due to my TBI, and what my injury has (may have?) taken from me… Sometime between last Friday and yesterday morning walking to work, something clicked… Whether my injury is anything to do with whatever may be ‘wrong’ with me – it is most assuredly the source of a great many things that are very right with me, that I enjoy and count on daily. Perspective.

...Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. :-)

…Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. Progress. 🙂

So…this morning…a lovely morning that could have been experienced very differently not so very long ago. Perspective matters. Practicing good practices for building emotional self-sufficiency, and resilience, matters. Remembering to include the woman in the mirror in the set of ‘all the people I love’ matters. Contentment, gratitude, and enjoying what is more than I mourn what is not, matter too. It’s a chilly autumn morning, and I am enjoying it wrapped in a warm sweater – and wrapped in love. (I’m not all certain which provides the greater comfort – I suspect it is the love, and I am awed that it comes from within.)

Today is a good day to be love.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

This Thing Called Human

September 15, 2015 //
0

I woke during the night, or rather more accurately I simply realized at about 1:00 am that I was awake. My state of wakefulness continued for some time, and I finally recognized that I wasn’t returning to sleep; something was keeping me awake. I wasn’t sure what was disturbing my sleep, but I got up for a little while, keeping the apartment dim, and figured some meditation and yoga might send me easily back to the land of dreams. I was incorrect. Once I got up, it was clearer that there was a physical source to my discomfort, and although I felt no hint of nausea, I knew I was going to be sick, at some point in the imminent future. I sat meditating comfortably, and waiting for that more acute moment of discomfort that would signal immediate illness to come. I didn’t have to wait long, and it was all over very quickly. I was easily able to return to sleep.

I woke with a headache, and arthritis pain on the ‘winter’ setting. I am physically uncomfortable, although the morning begins well enough in all other regards. I could make a big deal out of the pain and the headache and stomp around snarling, but there’s no point in doing so, and I would prefer to enjoy the morning, content, and quiet. The quiet morning was interrupted by my own laughter at one point; morning yoga with this headache and arthritis pain resulted in some ‘turtle on its back’ “fun” when I toppled over during a moment of vertigo, and couldn’t quite get up, because of pain and stiffness. I was still chuckling when I tried the same sequence again, successfully – which is a far better outcome than if I were helplessly weeping in frustration and anger, and storming around the apartment annoyed with myself. This ‘being human’ thing is rich with comedy – and with frustration, and I enjoy it when the former mitigates the latter.

Coffee time…oh, and goodness it is good this morning. Yes! I pause everything, move to the wee love seat, and make room in my morning for stillness, just chilling quietly, hands wrapped around the warm coffee mug, basking in the contentment of this moment right here.

Enough.

Enough.

My traveling partner arrived safely home last night, and I am eager to see him – I don’t actually know when that will be. Last week our attempts to plan time together were undermined by the needs of another relationship; I saw him only once, unplanned, for a short period of time when he urgently needed an emotional safe haven from stress and mistreatment. I don’t regret not living in that environment with him; however convenient it might have seemed, it was actually damaging the relationship I share with my traveling partner (far too valuable to sacrifice carelessly) to live around his other partner. It took some time to come to terms with that, and to recognize how much more easily we love each other, and how deeply, and to see our profound connection restored – through distance (about 12 mildly inconvenient miles). It is fulfilling to live in accordance with my own values, by my own rules, with my injury accounted for in my day-to-day environment, able to paint when I am inspired, unconcerned about inconveniencing anyone, and absent the stresses of OPD. It’s never been about winning, or losing, only about living, loving, and finding my way to being the woman I most want to be. I will see him when I see him; when we are together our time is well-spent on love. 🙂

What matters most?

What matters most?

Soon there will be sharing of tales of adventure, and cuddling, and romance, and plans for the future. There will be laughter, and an intimate connection that still strikes me as singularly deep, and profoundly insightful. There will be encouragement, and enthusiasm. There will be affection, a sense of fun, and shared humor. For now, there is a work day ahead of me, and plenty to do. I smile when I think of my traveling partner, wondering what his day will look like. I’ve traveled a long way, myself, on this journey that is loving, and in the brief time we’ve been together (only about 5 years) my traveling partner has been with me to see much of that growth. There is so much of the everyday routine of life that brings him to mind, I sometimes forget we don’t live together. lol Even simple things like cleaning the kitchen seem like acts of love; he taught me the food safety practices I still use in my kitchen, and encouraged me to get my food handlers card, not because I needed one, but because it was a great way to ensure I really did understand food safety basics – and do so without badgering me, frustrating me, or hurting my feelings. Love isn’t exclusively about smiles and kisses; love encourages us to grow, nurtures us while we do, and celebrates with us when we have.

Unfinished work?

Unfinished work? “Uplifted Hearts” I think a lot about love.

Another day thinking about love? Sure – I think about love and loving a lot. What better use of my time, and studies, than reflecting on love and loving, becoming a more skilled partner and lover, treating others well in every relationship (because that, too, is love) and savoring the successes, learning from the moments that go sideways unexpectedly, and continuing to invest moment-to-moment in what love offers? Seriously? It’s a major disappointment to me as an adult that we don’t teach love and loving more honestly (or at all), with more depth, and with more acknowledgement of the power love has in our lives to heal, and to enrich our experience. How many of us stumble through decades of our adulthood before we sort out the difference between lust and love? Sex and love? Being loved and loving? Before we understand that there are verbs involved? Before we even understand all the many sorts of love that exist (each having value all its own)? Instead, we argue over the value of sex education and don’t bring love into the conversation at all, which is pretty telling of what primitive creatures we really are, still trying to restrict and regulate a need (and a drive) that is fundamental to every breath we take, instead of coaching and educating and promoting the well-being of our entire society of humans from a loving place, regarding matters of love.

Be love.

Be love.

Today is a good day to love, to explore love, to reflect on what love asks of us, to consider what we have to offer. Today is a good day for loving, and for being loved – there are verbs involved. Today is a good day to invest our vast lifetime of emotional moments in the treasures that love has to offer. Today I will start with loving the woman in the mirror, and smile; loving her well changes my experience of the world – and the world’s experience of me.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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