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53

June 12, 2016 //
2

Numbers are funny things. I’m no math whiz, but I spend a lot of time with numbers. Numbers fascinate me. I’ve been thinking about 53 for days. Today is my 53rd birthday. It’s not a spectacular benchmark, as birthdays go, but I didn’t really expect to see this one as a younger woman. So. There’s that. 🙂

A new day. A new year. New choices. New opportunities.

A new day. A new year. New choices. New opportunities.

Fun facts about 53? It’s a prime number. I’m not sure I’m actually ‘in my prime’ though, some days. There are more facts about 53 readily at hand on Wikipedia, and elsewhere. In the meantime, aging is a thing. Real, and if one is fortunate, inevitable.

I have no elaborate birthday plans, no lengthy wish list for birthday gifts, no unmet need so specific that only cash exchanged for goods, wrapped in paper, and provided to me precisely between dinner and dessert will address it. I struggled to come up with something to want, beyond my traveling partner’s good company, and the well-wishes of friends.

53. 53? 53. Definitely 53. Tired more often than I’d like to be. In more pain some days than I can easily manage. I weigh a few pounds more than I’d like. Certain the career I had doesn’t suit me. Uncertain where my journey will take me next. Standing between what was and what will be, awake, aware, and content to continue the journey, mostly without a map. Wiser than at 23…but I thought so at 33 and 43 too, and I look back on those moments with a smile; I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, and wisdom was more of an idea, a hope, and a goal. I suspect that is still the case, at 53, and that I will be smiling at my idealistic foolishness, mistakes, and wrong-headedness, at 63, 73, 83… if I am around to test the theory, I’ll be grateful. I’m grateful to be here, now. Grateful that most of what isn’t ideal can be chosen differently.

What do I want for my birthday? Something intangible. Something I already have. Love. Contentment. The pleasure of my traveling partner’s companionship (although he is not in this room, now, we’ll spend much of the day together, later). I want to feel good. Enjoy the day. Sure, I want to be adored, it’s my birthday…enjoying the day is enough. Sometimes the unexpected, the unplanned, the unsought moment is what makes a day memorable; why chain myself down with plans and expectations today? It’s my birthday.  🙂

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Categories Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Welcome the Day

June 8, 2016 //
0

I woke with my calendar on my mind today. It’s not quite so hot, and the thing most prominent in my thoughts is an interview scheduled a little later in the morning. The cool pre-dawn chill easily cooled off the apartment before the sun made its appearance.

A new day, a new beginning; each dawn potentially the cusp of an entirely different future.

A new day, a new beginning; each dawn potentially the cusp of an entirely different future.

My ‘to do list’ this morning looks very different than it has for some weeks. I already have butterflies in my stomach, and feel vaguely as if I am ‘waiting’ for the time to arrive, and then to be behind me. Good self-care practices serve me well this morning, and I go through the routine details of an ordinary work day with reliable comfort; it’s only an interview, but it is my work day as well. I feel prepared. There are last-minute things to fill my head with, like re-reading the details of the job posting itself, and reviewing interview notes from the prior interview call. My clothes are ready, my jewelry selected with care, my nails are done. I am entirely this person, and in this particular instance I am a person hoping to be a good fit – and not out of desperate need to be employed in this moment, but delightfully enough because the position itself looks like it may suit my nature, my skills, and be work I could be proud of, on a team providing a valued service to the community. That sounds pretty amazing… to potentially come home at the end of a long work day, feeling accomplished and proud of what I do, rather than exhausted and resentful of the drain on my physical resources, would be a remarkable (and welcome) thing.

Well…I could write all day to avoid the inevitable reality of getting my “work self” together for this interview I am actually eager to do. (What’s with the foot-dragging, Woman?) Delaying the tasks and activities supporting the morning and the day doesn’t really serve me well, and today I definitely need my best from me. 🙂 Wish me luck? I wonder where the day will take me? What does the future hold? Hang on… I’ll go find out. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Like Dominoes

June 6, 2016 //
0

Sometimes building a life feels a little bit like a fancy arrangement of dominoes or jenga; at some point my choices may reveal themselves to have been poor choices, much later, in some unexpected way, sending the pieces to follow crashing down, one after the other. Choices matter. Each day that I do my best, practice the practices that support my physical and emotional wellness, comfortably handle the details of adult life that require my attention, I build a better future for myself – one resting on a firm foundation. I’m still human. Sometimes I can see a ‘misplaced domino’, and the action needed to adjust or correct for circumstances is obvious – it’s just more verbs. (I wish that implied some assurance of ease, but it does not.) Yes, there are pretty nearly always verbs involved – and the choice to use them. To be. To do. Neither are passive processes.

I need to put the AC in a window. The summer heat nailed me to the floor two days in a row with the afternoon heat. Both days I knew it would be that hot. Both days I made choices to hang out with my traveling partner, and planned around the heat of the day to make traveling easiest – and postponing installing the AC for the year. Priorities in the moment were definitely about love, rather than physical comfort. lol 🙂 Still a mammal. Still a primate. Still a human being in love. The AC can wait… it doesn’t give me hugs, kisses, tenderness – or laugh at my terrible jokes. 😀 Still…comfort would be nice, too.

It’ll be another hot day today, not quite as hot, but hot – and the AC would be helpful. Today is a good day for some different, practical verbs. Love will likely appreciate being comfortable here at my place, too. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

One Moment of Many

June 4, 2016 //
0

It’s a quiet dawn ahead of a hot day to come. The sun shines in my eyes and the light fills my studio; the day will get no cooler than this hour, now, and the windows are open to the cool morning air, the blinds raised to ensure ample freedom for uncertain breezes. The night didn’t cool off so much as it has been. Summer is here. I take my coffee iced this morning, and toast the rising summer sun with a smile – it’s well before 6:00 am, and full daylight.

I have “install the AC” on my calendar today… I still haven’t worked out which window I’ll put it in. The heat expected today is motivation to at least determine which window the AC will go in. lol

Iced coffee, birdsong, and a quiet summer day to enjoy without firm plans. It sounds nice. I’ll water the gardens before the heat of the day becomes unpleasant, and get my walk in before noon. There’s nothing exciting about any of this… except for the bit about how calm it is, how comfortable, how sustainably ordinary. I’m not meaning to brag, so I’ll make the point of saying it hasn’t ‘always’ been this way – there was a time when it was almost ‘never’ this way, and life seemed fairly pointless… or worse. I’m no longer merely enduring an unavoidable cycle of sleeping and waking, separated sometimes by nightmares, sometimes by despair. It’s a nice change.

Being here isn’t a given. Being content isn’t a passive thing. There are so many every day choices involved, and every day I take actions, and practice practices, to bring myself closer to being the woman I most want to be, living a beautiful life of sustainable contentment, comfortable with myself, and moving forward. Every day enjoyed is ended with a moment of delight and a bit of surprise that so much of it is in my hands, and of my own choosing – and much of it was, long before I understood that it could be.

Ready? Verbs!!

Ready? Verbs!!

Iced coffee goes down quickly…and summer days begin to warm up early. It’s already time to get to work watering the garden, and adjusting windows to continue the flow of cool air, and now to also limit the sun’s light reaching into the east-facing rooms. Time to put some verbs into action, and time to make some choices and begin the day. Today is a good day for verbs, for choices, and for a delightful summer day. I can’t change the weather, but I can change what I do about it. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Time Passes

June 3, 2016 //
0

I woke a bit later than usual this morning. My traveling partner was already well into his first cup of coffee, and the ceramic drip cone sitting beside the sink had completely cooled off by the time I touched it, very soon after waking. It was a gentle pleasant morning hanging out together, no video, no music, just two human beings who delight in each other’s good company sharing coffee and conversation. There’s nothing to enhance, embellish, or interpret; the time we spend together is enough just as it is.

I sat for some time, smiling, after my partner left to get on with his day, and his weekend. We will, perhaps, see each other Sunday. I don’t get emotionally invested in that planned eventuality; life is unpredictable about following my plans. I take my second coffee into the studio and write, sketch, paint…it’s too hot outside [for me] [these days] [today] already, and spending the day creatively suits my [currently] care-free nature. Impermanence. Change is. Am I finally learning to exist on the currents of change instead of fighting to swim against them until I am exhausted and swept away?

Today is a good day for contemplation. My birthday is coming. I don’t exactly ‘make a big deal about it’, but I do enjoy celebrating in some small way. I don’t have anything particular on my mind celebration-wise. 53? It’s not a noteworthy benchmark to me. I struggle to answer the question “what do I want to do on/for my birthday?” I’ve no idea. Enjoy it. That’s the best answer I have, for now… It’s a serviceable enough answer, I suppose. 🙂

The rest of this lovely sunny summer day I’ll spend in the studio, with the hum of the floor fan keeping me company, and reminding me of other summer days. I think about my birthday… I suppose if I “don’t know what I want” I must have enough. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness
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