I woke in an excellent mood this morning, after a surprisingly good night’s sleep. I didn’t expect to sleep well, since I had crashed feeling rather anxious over one of life’s small challenges. I was pleased and surprised to wake in such a good, balanced, place. The loveliness of a calm leisurely morning is hard to describe; too often lately it feels like a luxury. I resent the fragility of exceptional mornings.

Joy meets anxiety; I have a sick fish in the new aquarium.

My mood is volatile this morning, and once the peace and serenity that I woke with faced its first challenge of the day, it dissipated like a mist as the morning sun rises on a summer morning. Mindfulness keeps things mostly in perspective, even now, but also has me attentive to the nature of my challenges today, observing them without judgement when I can, and digging myself out – metaphorically speaking – when I fail and discover I am judging myself quite harshly. I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I feel the pressure of unmet needs – and my resentment and outrage when I turn it all inward on myself. I don’t care to indulge in pointless wallowing in the details, or allowing reflection to become self-loathing, or rage. I can’t tell anymore, with any certainty, whether or not hormones are ‘an issue’… I’m so far beyond having a ‘regular cycle’ at this point it isn’t even worth guessing. (That, interestingly, is one more thing that keeps me focused on ‘now’ – when I let it – because I just can’t predict, or plan, for the hormones anymore. They just are, when they are.) My shitty mood is slowly becoming a migraine headache, as I fight the tears lurking just under the surface of my professional demeanor. Today is the sort of day when I feel as if my most fundamental needs as a being are entirely at odds with each other – mutually exclusive, and entirely unreasonable, and not at all likely to be met. Ever. Worse still, I’m pretty sure that if that is true – that it’s entirely my own choices that put me in that position…only…I don’t know…and I don’t know why…and I don’t know how to do what I suspect needs to be done about it…or something.

Simple pleasures offer some relief.

I’m able to understand that I have choices that can put me in a better place… working on that. Again and again, I nudge my Observer self back into the driver’s seat, and kick my Thinker self into the background. It helps, but I find myself having to make a firm consistent effort with it. There’s a feeling of internal resistance to it, which I don’t understand, but continue to experience. Still…practice…practice…practice… eventually something practiced enough begins to feel natural…right?

Some lovely things in my experience this morning, too. I so want to focus on those…

Seedlings in the greenhouse quickly becoming plants…

…the ‘Irresistible’ beauty of a miniature rose on a rainy morning…

…the wonder of ‘Ebb Tide’ thriving in the most amazing way her very first year…

…the mystery of exotic flowers I didn’t expect in my garden, and don’t know the name of…

…quite dramatic up close, and a ready reminder of the variety of unexpected pleasures in life.

So…maybe not completely awful, as days go. I vacillate between feeling I urgently need to address specific needs – take care of me more skillfully – and feeling as if I am ‘just being a big baby’ and ‘very high maintenance’. It’s just a Wednesday, maybe, and perhaps this is all a hormonal illusion… what is ‘real‘, anyway, beyond the loveliness of flowers, and the smell of a drizzly summer morning, and the certainty that love is, even when it is imperfect.