Archives for category: Frustration
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Road’s End

April 18, 2026 //
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Roads end. I mean, I guess they do, at some point, even this one, although it doesn’t appear to end here. That’s just the name of this place, “Road’s End”. It’s a small state park at the edge of the shore, with a trail down to the beach. I am here, listening to the sound of wind and waves (and some asshole with their car radio on loud enough to be heard, which I could do without).

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

The view from Road’s End

I definitely need this time alone. I don’t get much solitude as things are, and my Traveling Partner was encouraging to the point of being willing to find me a suitable hotel and book a room for me. (I was going to make it a day trip and call it good enough.) I felt very loved, and excited to enjoy the day on the coast, and a night of solitary fun, reading, writing, and meditating.

A small bird. A moment.

This morning is different. At least for now I am neither merry nor at peace with myself. Instead I’m wrestling demons. It’s fine. Part of life with cPTSD and brain damage, I guess, and in spite of some 30 years in and out of therapy of one sort or another, I still deal with the chaos and damage. I’m not surprised by that, though I am dismayed, disappointed, and even sometimes despairing over it when shit blows up over some little thing, or I disgrace myself by losing my temper or hurting someone I care about with thoughtless words or actions. I do my best, I still fail. This is human.

… It’s also human when it’s someone else having a moment. It is important to forgive, and to make room for people to grow through experience. We’re each having our own experience…

So I’m sitting here at Road’s End, thinking my thoughts. Thinking about endings and beginnings, and change, and trying to be grateful for the solitude I am fortunate to enjoy. I need this time to myself, it meets needs I struggle to meet without the quiet of solitude. I do wish I were enjoying it on other terms than these but feeling mired in my bullshit, I’m glad to be alone with that.

… But is the sky still blue?

What matters most? I sit with the question for a little while, on a fence rail looking out at the sea. The sound of ocean waves reaching the shore and the sea breezes used to be enough to drown out my tinnitus. Now there is a high pitched whine that I still hear, but only on the left side. I frown, momentarily distracted from my thoughts. I hope it’s nothing serious.

I’m thinking about my “baggage”. Not the carefully packed weekend bag I slid onto the seat of the car. I mean “my baggage”. It’s a figure of speech that is so apt it’s easy to forget it is metaphorical. No matter where I go, no matter what relationship I’m in, I drag my bullshit along with me. Baggage. I’ve made so many changes, and I have grown and improved my thinking and behavior so much over the years, but at any moment I may yet again be standing in the middle of my pile of carefully crafted custom matched set of baggage I still lug around with me, somehow only partially unpacked even after all these years. It’s super annoying. Frustrating. Discouraging.

Beginnings. Endings. Practice.

We become what we practice. We choose what we practice. It is important to choose wisely and stay focused on who we most want to be, because if we choose poorly, we may become someone else entirely.

I sit feeling the breeze and watching the horizon. My head is filled with ghosts and regrets. Weird morning to have them turn up and demand attention. My skill with choosing relationships has been poor: a violent psychopath, a manipulative slacker looking for a meal ticket, a cruel woman who delighted in gaslighting me, an assortment of lovers who may have lacked any explicit bad intentions but found value in my limited capacity to understand that I was being taken advantage of… Then there’s my Traveling Partner. One good relationship in a lifetime of trauma and chaos, but the opportunity came late in life, and I still find myself picking metaphorical shards of past damage out of new emotional wounds. I find myself apologizing a lot. That’s got to wear thin after awhile. It still matters, and I keep practicing.

I sit by the sea feeling the breeze, and the weight of all the many mistakes I have made over 16 years with this singular human being. I wonder if he does the same thing, when he finds that he’s hurt me without intending to. Neither of us are perfect beings of pure love and empathy. I feel confident neither of us would hurt the other intentionally. That’s not who we are. We are, however, quite human. I sigh to myself and let it go, at least for the moment. I remind myself that self-care matters, and in solitude there is no excuse to treat myself as second best, ever. I left rather abruptly this morning, instead of enjoying a leisurely coffee with my beloved. Coffee and some healthy calories would be good…

… The descent into madness often begins with poor self-care and low blood sugar…

I guess I should begin again. I don’t know where this path leads…

Sometimes the path isn’t an easy one.
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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Chilly, Early

April 17, 2026 //
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It is a Friday morning. I’m sitting at the halfway point of my morning walk. I sat here for some little while before I pulled my hands from my pockets to write. This morning I made a point to grab my heavy fleece, scarf, and gloves from my gear bin in the car. Practical. I’d feel smart to have done so, but it’s more to do with being reminded they are there for me, last night, when I went looking for a spare filter cone for an evening coffee for my Traveling Partner who had put the ceramic one in the dishwasher.

… Reminders are helpful…

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I feel the cold. Another near-freezing morning, but already daylight (jeez, how long was I sitting?) and things will warm up pretty quickly. Probably. Change is, and warmer days are coming.

I take my medication on time, double-checking that I took all of it. I missed a small pill yesterday morning that resulted in an unfortunate (and deeply unpleasant) emotional meltdown over nothing of consequence. It was inexplicable, and I was grateful to discover my mistake a little later, and felt more myself shortly after taking it. I think there is too little discussion about the very real psychiatric and mind or mood altering effects of common prescription (and nonprescription) drugs. We could do better.

A small herd of deer quietly and slowly walks past me, one by one. The group of does steps from the trees on the creek side of the trail, each looking at me cautiously as she steps into the more open space, and they cross the trail, and continue into the vineyard, nibbling on choice grasses and tender green shoots. Spring. They’re hungry and lean from winter, and a couple are also clearly pregnant. They are more concerned with finding food than they are with my quiet presence. They walk on, and disappear from view.

My Traveling Partner offered to disappear for the weekend. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. I feel very loved that he offered. I could fuck off to the coast, myself, and get some solitary time, but the expense is difficult to justify. I sit thinking about things he said yesterday evening about self-care and taking the time I need, and setting better (clearer) boundaries when I’m reaching the limits of my resources. He reminded me that he no longer needs the near-continuous care I was providing after his surgery. This is definitely true. I’m relieved and happy every time I think about it. I’m also struggling to adjust, to step back, to give myself a break.

…We become what we practice…

I sit reflecting on what I need, myself, to be well and healthy, and to thrive in my life. I remind myself how adaptable I am. I remind myself that we become what we practice. I sigh quietly and watch the vapor of my breath dissipate in the chilly morning air.

… Maybe a drive to the coast and coffee on the beach this weekend, if my beloved stays home? Or a very different sort of self-care in the form of some retail therapy? (I could do with some new bras, and prefer to shop for such things in person.) Maybe a different hike somewhere new? Another sigh. No idea. I could stay home and paint, or finish tidying up my studio… I could work in my garden. I feel the “want to’s” begin to collide with the “have to’s”, and feel annoyed with myself when they blend and blur and begin to morph into more of the same scrambling and striving and working that I’ve trapped myself in for awhile now. I should work on that.

I laugh out loud. Adulting is hard. I’m tired. I’m also making choices. I can make different ones. I get to my feet, looking down the trail into the future. It’s time to begin, again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Drizzle

April 11, 2026 //
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Yesterday… Interesting day, and simultaneously uneventful, and also notable in several ways, which is why it was interesting. My studio is coming along and I plan to be painting this weekend. I got so excited about that idea that I left work early to get the weekend started. My Traveling Partner knows how important that is to me and dropped everything to figure out weekend plans that would give me the house to myself. (I feel very loved.)

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

By evening, two things were clear; there was bad weather brewing, and my partner’s attempts to throw something together for Friday night hadn’t worked out. We’d definitely be spending the evening together. Hell, how could I be disappointed by that? Sure, I’m yearning for some solitude and creative time that isn’t interrupted by all sorts of routine requirements of adult life, but I’m also okay with planning ahead. I’ve long found it quite necessary. And also? I really enjoy the company of my beloved.

… What to do?

My Traveling Partner asked me if I wanted to go get frozen yogurt together? I surprised him with an immediate yes, and went to put on something suitable for to leaving the house.

The sky was stormy looking. I don’t mind such things. We talked about the weather on the way to enjoying a frozen treat together. At least for now, so soon after his prolonged incapacitation due to injury and surgery, every outing feels like romance. Date night. We could have gone to the grocery store and I’d have been every bit as excited. We had fun. It was a good time. He was still talking about fucking off for the weekend to do his own thing, and I was still looking forward to it.

Sometime during the night, I woke for no obvious reason. He was up (still or also was never clear). I mumbled some sleepy greeting, heading back to bed (not really awake, honestly), he called to me quietly and reminded me he actually has a full weekend of project work (business), and really should stay home and focus on that to stay on schedule with his customers. I nodded sleepily, unsurprised (the surprise had been that he was so ready to step away and give me the solitude at home to paint). He assures me he’ll be busy and “won’t be in the way”. I say something, words, affirming I’m fine with that. I’m genuinely unbothered. I’ve got my studio back, and I don’t need much more, really. The solitude is – always has been – a luxury more precious than gems. I’m happy to be mostly left alone more or less to paint. It’s enough. I went back to bed, back to sleep.

I woke this morning in the usual way, no alarm set and still waking up quite early. The darkness before dawn was drizzly. It rained through the night, continuing long after the rare thunderstorm had passed. I don’t mind a drizzle. I hit the trail happily contemplating a day spent at my easel.

A beginning of its own. Beginnings take many shapes.

When I began painting in pastels, in July 2024, I had already collapsed my studio to make room for the Anxious Adventurer. I’ve never had my studio available for working in pastels. This feels exciting and new. After the first flurry of eager creative work in a new medium, the fatigue of caregiving began to overwhelm me, and certainly I had nothing left over for art once life was done with me each day. The Anxious Adventurer proved to be damned little help with caregiving, at all, that was all on me. What help he did provide generally came at the cost of my cognitive capacity, resulting in still more fatigue. He didn’t know our ways, and definitely seemed more an adolescent than the grown adult I was prepared for (based on his age). His chronic negativity was draining. The contentious relationship with his father was… annoying.

…I wouldn’t have an environment I could paint in for almost two years, but I wouldn’t recognize that for some months, and the care my beloved needed and could not get from his son would keep me at home, too… for nearly two years…

Two years. For almost two years I’ve felt my inspiration wax and wane, again and again, yearning for the freedom to paint. The time. The energy. The emotional environment. It’s been rough having to stifle all that for lack of space, resources, or control over my environment. I have resented it more than I wanted to, and mostly because I often felt I’d been taken in by some cosmic bait and switch scheme; the help offered by the Anxious Adventurer’s presence rarely materialized and time and again I felt tricked into having to parent a grown ass man who should have had basic life skills mastered at 32.

… We’re each having our own experience. Sometimes adulting is fucking hard…

I sigh to myself by the side of this rain soaked trail. Things are different today. The rain leaves everything fresh and green. The air smells of petrichor and Spring flowers. The day feels full of promise. I have choices and today I will paint.

There’s a ping in the Anxious Adventurer’s travel chat. He’s almost home to Ohio, just a day’s drive away. He complains about the rain. His mother suggests he complain to the rental firm about the leaky truck and the flat tire. He complains that doing so makes him feel bad. I’m surprised when she and his grandmother rush to offer to do it for him. Huh. That explains a lot. I shrug it off. “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.

… Today I’ll be painting.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

What Moves You?

April 6, 2026 //
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This morning I am struggling to focus. I feel merry. Purposeful. Suffused with contentment and joy, even. Yesterday was a good one. Satisfying and for the most part quite pleasant. The latter part of the day found me taking a break, muscles sore from joyful labor. My Traveling Partner joined me. I made salads for dinner. We spent the evening dividing the time between watching videos and love.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

This morning I woke slowly, some little while before my alarm went off. My muscles protest against every demand I make, however ordinary. Ouch. Healthy effort, healthy work – ordinary sore muscles. I’m not even complaining, just reminding myself to take care of this fragile vessel; more manual labor today. Today the Anxious Adventurer loads the moving truck he’ll drive back to Ohio, back to a life he left with purpose and intention. It’s familiar, and familiar is easier. I do understand.

We’re each having our own experience. Each walking our own path. Each finding our own way – or not. Many people find settling into someone else’s way enough for most of a lifetime before ever questioning that choice. I wish the Anxious Adventurer well, whatever path he chooses to walk; he’s as close to a son as I’ll ever get, and I hold no grudges about his time with us. I do find myself wondering what moves him? I let it go. It’s not like he’d know how to answer if I asked.

What moves you? What shakes off your ennui or distractions and fills you with purposeful energy? What gets you up each day to face a few more steps on your path? What gives your life meaning? I sit with those questions and watch the halfmoon setting between the trees.

It’s not a very good picture, but it is a very good metaphor. What will you do with your moment?

I keep my walk short today; there’s real work yet to do later. I walk the mile it takes to wake up and warm up these sore muscles, pausing along the way for a slow gentle attempt at this or that yoga pose. I get back to the car and check on my work team (I’ve taken the day off, but want them to feel supported). I give myself time with my thoughts, time to write, to meditate, to reflect on love. I sit thinking about purpose, and the way we seek meaning, and where I find that – or create it – myself.

The clock is ticking. The path ahead is sufficiently clear. I suppose the only thing left is to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Variations on a Theme

April 5, 2026 //
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I woke early, but not ridiculously so. I got up and dressed, hoping not to wake my Traveling Partner. We worked through the day, yesterday, moving things around and restoring order from chaos. Joyful work, but still work, and by the end of the evening we were both fatigued, in pain, and easily aggravated. I called it a night early, expecting to read awhile, but I quickly sank into an exhausted sleep.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

We had a great day together yesterday, mostly. Fatigue and pain got in the way a couple times – very human. Today is a new day, and I am not clinging to yesterday’s grief; that’s generally a poor practice. (We become what we practice.)

The morning is quiet and very dark. I reach the local trail ahead of the sun. I decide to wait for the first hint of daybreak before I begin my walk. I’ve got my headlamp, but I’m not in any hurry. Even though it is Easter Sunday for many, there are no early morning events planned here (I checked before I chose this trail).

Yesterday, in the evening, I managed to hurt my knee somehow and managed little better than a slow painstaking limp, gripping my cane to steady myself through each painful step for the rest of the evening. The muscle running up the back of my thigh from the pit of my knee to my ass still hurts, but I’m not limping and for most values of “okay”, I’m okay. I’m just sore from the work of moving things around (and there is more yet to do).

I don’t personally enjoy the chaos of moving, and I’m grateful this is a very limited version of that experience. I’m delighted to have my space back, less so about the bangs and bruises of having my mental map suddenly destroyed. I laugh at myself for a moment, recognizing that as lasting consequences of brain damage go, it could be much worse that needing some time to rebuild routines and to restore a sense of object placement. This may also say something about my fondness for familiar walks and trails. I sit with that thought for a moment.

… Novelty is uncomfortable, but may be better for my cognitive health, long-term…

I sigh to myself as I recognize and acknowledge sore muscles. The walk will be good for me. I think about the day ahead. More to do, and today includes a bunch of basic housekeeping. I’ve been working from home more, which takes the pressure off the weekend, and let’s me spread things out more, and my Traveling Partner no longer requires full-time caregiving (barely any at all now), and has been resuming many household tasks he handled entirely before his injury. Fuck it’s good to have him back! … It’s still Sunday and there are still household chores to do. 😆

It’s funny, I had had it in mind to “put things back the way they were” when the Anxious Adventurer moved out… But things have changed, life has moved on, and that isn’t a useful solution in many cases. (I don’t think I have an accurate recollection to work from, either.) Change is. There are different paintings hanging in the library now, and my studio just “feels different”. I’m not even complaining or fighting it; it’s mostly better in obvious ways. There is room for further improvement and this is a choice opportunity for such things. I’ll relearn where everything is, all over again.

… And maybe even change it again, in favor of something better still…

I reflect (with some amazement and a whole lot of respect and admiration) on the way my Traveling Partner embraces the opportunity for change to completely change various elements of his work and creative spaces. I’m astonished by how little such things disrupt him. There’s a lot to learn from that.

I sit awhile longer reflecting on moves and moving and change. It’s a useful metaphor. My mind quickly wanders to art and painting and I am eager to make use of my studio, although it will see use as my office before then. Monday is almost here. I put that thought aside firmly. Neither Monday nor work need my attention today.

I look over the list of things yet to do. The sky has taken on a hint of deep dark blue. I can see the trail. Steps on a path are calling me. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being
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