I’m awake. My excessive awareness of background noise has prevented me going back to sleep since I woke, although I had obviously been sleeping through it just fine before. Annoying. It’s been an hour, spent quietly, eyes closed, mind coasting, waiting gently for sleep to catch up with me.
…So far? I’m awake.
I’m not stressed out or anxious. That’s something. I could read a while, if I cared to. I do feel sleepy, and I am enjoying spending quiet moments with my thoughts. I’m not unhappy, resting contentedly in the darkness… I’d just prefer to be sleeping.
I don’t even think the background noise is actually keeping me awake; I’m simply aware of it, and the background noise seems a bit background noisier than usual. Maybe something left on in my Traveling Partner’s shop or our noisy refrigerator? The aquarium? The hot tub or the neighbor’s A/C unit? Maybe all of those things? Hard to be sure over my tinnitus. lol
I yawn and then yawn again. Looks like sleep is going to catch up with me after all. Good enough.
I am awake. I don’t mean to be. I woke suddenly, feeling very thirsty, and got up to get a drink of water. Easy enough. Feeling much refreshed and still sleepy, I went back to bed.
…I’ve been awake since then. That was about an hour ago. I meditated for a while. That was pleasant and quite relaxing. I am still awake.
I found myself sleepy again and started, finally, to drift off. I sat up abruptly, halting any potential for sleep for the moment, when my brain inconveniently solved a small challenging bit of a work problem (meaning actual math, in this case), unexpectedly. I sat with my thoughts for a few minutes, long enough to minimize the risk of forgetting all about it by morning. No reason to be wasteful with good cognitive work, however poorly timed!
I’m sleepy again. Ready to begin (sleep) again… I start unwinding (again).I let my thoughts drift, here and there… no pressure. Years of struggling with insomnia and nightmares don’t feel like the distant past, right now, but a yawn overcomes me soon, and then another… good enough. 🙂
It’s a rainy Monday. A new day – and an opportunity to begin again. What a strange experience this mortal existence is. My Traveling Partner and I spent the morning over coffee listening together to a lecture by Alan Watts (why not?). I made a simple breakfast that we enjoyed together afterward. Just eggs scrambled with mushrooms and onions, and a toasted English muffin.
My cooking has gotten so much better during the pandemic… weirdly, I don’t have the recollection that it was “bad“, before… although my partner will occasionally, and ever so gently, suggest that perhaps it was less good than I thought. lol I figure he’s likely quite correct, and certainly based on his own experience that he has shared with me, I know I count on the truth of it. I’m okay with getting better at things; we become what we practice. I’ve been spending rather a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking things, as an alternative to fast food (which is an impractical cost and nutritional disappointment). I definitely enjoy the food I make at home so much more than I used to. It’s not even a question anymore; I like to eat at home more than I want to go out. 😀
My vegetable garden.
I am distracted by the garden, in a pleasant way. My time outside yesterday was well spent, tidying up the large-ish fabric pots that sit along the back strip of the property, just beyond the deck. I’ve got 5 of them. I used them to plant tomatoes last year, and it was waaaaay too many tomatoes, and rather a lot of work, as they became progressively more ridiculously overgrown. We don’t eat a lot of tomatoes, generally. lol I just find them easy and tasty to grow, so… easy win? Silly to take that approach, it’s haphazard and wasteful.
This year, I thought about what I cook, what we eat, what grows where we are, and what kinds of produce would be potentially more cost effective to grow, myself. It’s a relatively short list, that seems heavy on alliums of various sorts, which didn’t really surprise me; I’ve been using a fucking ton of shallots, scallions, leeks, and garlic this winter, as I learn to cook in a wok. LOL They’ve crept into a lot of my other cooking, too. Handy and flavorful. I also planted some carrots, and an assortment of lettuces and greens (and I do mean assortment; it’s a blend of several blends!). I have sucked at growing greens, so that’ll be where most of the work and personal growth will be. lol I don’t think I can fuck up onions. Carrots have been a success for me before, and the difference in flavor between grown in the garden and purchased at the store is remarkable.
5 pots with somewhat depleted soil became 4 well-filled pots, planted each with their own thing: leeks in one, scallions in other, then the carrots, and the greens. I’d like to add garlic and scallions. Maybe some bush beans? Peas? I sat down with my garden plan and updated it with those details to save my sanity later (otherwise, and I promise you this is true, I won’t remember what I planted, or where it got planted).
I sip my second coffee, listening to the rain fall. Thinking about herbs and roses – those will be finding their home in the front garden, among the flowers and the shrubbery. I savor this feeling; the feeling of being home.
What next with the day? Dunno. Maybe more time in the garden when the rain lets up. There’s some weeding to do in the flower beds, and things to make ready for more planting as the soil warms up enough for less hardy flowers and things. I’ve got nasturtium seeds… I could plant those today… doesn’t seem likely we’ll get another hard freeze at this point… probably…
I sip my coffee thinking about Spring and seeds and beginnings. I think about love. We become what we practice.
Well, it’s not COVID but I’m sick. I guess I’m glad it isn’t COVID. I’ve got the weekend ahead of me to get over whatever it is. My coffee is hot. I slept in…sort of. I didn’t sleep well, and I was restless and woke several times drenched in sweat, and feeling woozy (either from the cold remedies or from being ill – doesn’t much matter which, really). I sit for a moment, fussing quietly with the other monitor, looking for background content… I settle for the sound of rain.
The day ahead is about taking care of this peculiar flesh container a human being occupies during a mortal lifetime… I’ll probably spend much of the day in bed, or bundled up on the couch, dozing off, reading, watching undemanding video content, and making a point to drink plenty of fluids. I’ve no particular appetite, but managing healthy calories seems wise, too. My Traveling Partner made some excellent iced tea… that sounds pretty good… maybe after coffee…?
It’s the end of winter. Spring is just ahead. I’ve got wee garden primroses and grape hyacinth’s blooming, and the neighbor’s daffodils and hyacinths are blooming in her front garden. The roses have all begin putting out new leaves, and swelling with new branches and new shoots ready to burst forth. I’d share pictures – but I’ve no energy for going out and taking them. (I’m probably too old for whining like a kid about being sick and miserable, but here I am. Thanks for putting up with it.)
I feel the ache in my spine – I confirm it’s a rainy day by looking outside. I barely give it another thought, just pull my posture upright in response to the sight of the rainy day beyond the window; slumping over my keyboard would only make the arthritis pain worse, and also make it harder to breath. Self-care has so damned many details… sometimes I really struggle with it. I sit for a moment and contemplate this. I’m pretty sure a great many people struggle with maintaining good self-care. I sip my coffee and wonder why that is. I don’t really get anywhere with it, it’s just thoughts over coffee.
…Another sip of coffee… I think about a bite to eat, and reject the idea. I just don’t have the energy. I stare into my half-full cup of coffee; I’m not doing a great job of drinking it, actually. No loss of my sense of taste, so far, I just… don’t care. The ennui of illness. “No spoons“. That’s explained really well in this video by the woman who created the spoon analogy, herself.
…I sit here (sat here) listening to the rain fall in the video. (“Silly woman,” I think to myself, “you could just open the fucking curtains and see it raining outside for real.”) I sigh. Coffee’s gone cold. Still half a cup sitting here. I glance at the clock… 40 minutes gone, and only this handful of words, mindless rambling, and complaining about a head cold. I shrug it off; it may not be great content, but it’s real, and it’s my experience, and I fucking showed up for it… more or less. lol
No idea what I’m going to manage out of the day, but I suppose, like it or not, it’s time to begin again. Maybe with a fresh cup of coffee… maybe with a shower… maybe I’ll just go back to bed. 🙂
It’s a dumb question, isn’t it? It’s probably clear that this is not “how happiness works”. There’s no minimum investment in time required, there’s no proper single process with a reliable outcome. There is this “now”, these fleeting minutes of time, and an assortment of practices to choose from.
…It’s been more than a month, I think, since I last wrote anything here. Aside from a couple of note cards sent to family or friends recently, I haven’t written at all. I’ve overlooked personal correspondence to friends pretty much completely. Every minute of chat or idle conversation with anyone who isn’t my partner feels sort of stolen from the limited time we share with each other (even though we’re together very nearly 24/7)… or from time I’m paid to spend on work. 40 hours of life gone, right off the top. Those are not my minutes.
…Some days it feels like literally everyone wants a fucking piece of me, and nothing much is left over. I already know this is, in part, self-imposed and perhaps also a bit of an illusion caused by the additional emotional pressure and background stress caused (for me) by simmering threat of global conflict. The cold war no longer feels like the distant past, for sure. Subjectively, I feel like I “can’t get a break”. The only activity that seems to sooth that stress is meditation, or… just sitting still, alone, quiet. There are so few minutes to spare for that… because there is all this other shit to do: housekeeping, grocery shopping, budget keeping, errand running, meetings at work, don’t forget to make that call, appointments to make, to keep, to get to, fuck – aquarium maintenance! There doesn’t really seem to be an end; it’s life. The minutes – and the tasks – just keep coming. (Sit still for a minute and sooner or later someone will come along with something that needs to be done “since you’re not doing anything”.) Even hitting that “pause button” for a few minutes of meditation barely takes the edge off, at this point. It’s not a good place to be.
Today, in the middle of an ordinary work day, tears started falling. Just… yeah. The HRT? Maybe the anxiety? Did I take my allergy meds? Did I overlook my vitamin D? Have I had enough water to drink? Am I being sufficiently kind to myself? Is “all this” really worth all the stress and feeling of pressure? Am I doing it to myself 100%? Is there a way to get off this fucking treadmill???
I set a timer. 15 minutes. I am sitting with my thoughts and a few minutes to write, and reflect. I figure I deserve that from me. Me first, for just a fucking minute or two.
Chat…text…email…phone…Zoom… ping! ping! ping! ping! …Don’t let it distract me from that one thing I’m trying my damnedest to focus on…
“Fuck, I’m tired.” Sure, maybe. I think so… but it’s not really that, is it? If not that, then what? I’ve got that weird jones to “just walk away from everything, completely”. That, my friends, is not a “mood” or a legitimate sense of initiative unfulfilled. Nope. It’s a symptom of mental illness. I’m on the edge of too much and feeling the imminent threat over being entirely overwhelmed. Yes, better self-care is absolutely required, potentially urgently. I feel grateful that I’ve got an appointment with my therapist tomorrow, and a loving partner to go home to at the end of my day. I miss hanging out with friends. I miss being easily able to “keep track” of all the details of what is right in front of me day-to-day. I miss “easy”. When was that…? Ever?
Sometimes adulting is hard.
“Ding!” goes the timer. Back on the treadmill… I check my calendar, check my hair, click the Zoom link and smile for the camera.
