I’m sipping my morning coffee on a sunny summer Sunday, thinking about Love. I feel relaxed and mellow. Sundays mean housekeeping – and that’s just fine with me. 🙂 I like a tidy living space, and investing the time and effort (as much as I am able), is worth the pay off in improved emotional wellness day-to-day.
The home automation project – which started with the lighting, and grew to a bigger project – is coming along nicely, with some frustrating moments here and there. I’m fortunate that my Traveling Partner has the interest and skills to take on the project. I don’t have to do much besides enjoy the outcome – and help out with testing things now and then. It’s pretty exciting – it’s a lot of work, though. I find myself hoping it’s actually a project he’s enjoying, after one of those previously mentioned “frustrating moments” this morning; I’d never force it on him. It’s likely to be an ongoing thing, as we learn what we like most about it, and change or improve on things over time. That’s already been a thing. lol
I’ll travel for work this week. That feels strange. I’m excited about it, mostly. I like traveling by rail, and that was what I chose this time. (I think my thinking was that it would be more… convenient…?)
…So far a pleasant day, and a joyful weekend…
I spent a few minutes this morning happily working on a project for the distant Yule holiday. I feel settled, here, safe, and contented. I pause on the awareness and sit with that awhile. It feels good, and I don’t want to miss the moment. Moments are what we have. 🙂
I’m sipping coffee and listening to videos in the background. Pleasant Sunday morning. Housekeeping on the agenda, not much else. I expect it’ll be a hot summer day. I’m okay with a couple hours of chores and a few moments for myself, and some pleasant hours with my Traveling Partner.
Our path may not always be level, the day may not always be sunny.
…Love isn’t “perfect”. Life either. Nothing really is. (Maybe this cup of coffee…) I make a lot of choices, and some of those are compromises, and some are just poor choices…on the other hand, I’ve got a lot of very cool opportunities to choose from, and fascinating people with whom I can choose to associate. Kinda neat, actually. Even our most intimate relationships are filled with choices.
We choose our path, and we choose what we consider our choices to be.
I chose my Traveling Partner a long time ago (11 years)… on a commute, I think. There was a hug involved. Hours of conversation, over time. A friendship developed. I adore this human being. He is “flawed” (inasmuch as he is quite human), as I am myself. There are days when one or the other of us seriously aggravates the other. (Just being real, and let’s be frank, one thing I know I can count on in life is that life will be, generally, quite “real”. lol) I enjoy him, as a friend, as a human being, as a partner… I smile when I think of him, and he is the person most easily able to unintentionally hurt me emotionally with a harsh word in a difficult moment. I still choose him, and yeah, even when I’m crying over a moment of hurt feelings, I still choose him.
He’s very dear to me. 😀 (bad pun intentional)
Why bring it up? It’s been a lovely weekend. This is all pretty obvious practical shit, right here, and hardly bears pointing out. Don’t we all go through it? Some moment that contrasts the wonderful qualities with the very human, sometimes much less wonderful qualities? Again – pretty real. Pretty ordinary. I dunno. I was thinking about it as I walked yesterday… “What matters most?”… “What builds a firm enduring foundation for love?”… “What does a healthy relationship look like, over time?”… “How does healthy boundary and expectation-setting look and feel in the context of a healthy adult relationship?”… “What part do I, myself, play in ensuring I am treated well based on my own understanding of “good treatment” – and how I do ensure I am skillfully, authentically, ensuring I treat my partner well based on their understanding of “good treatment” – and my own?” Big questions. (Long walk.)
Growth isn’t about what’s easy or comfortable. It’s often about hard questions, and answers that require rather a lot of real work. “Is the effort worth it?” is one question that is easy to answer, for me, in the context of this relationship: yes.
Sometimes choices seem so limited… or complicated… those perceptions are also choices.
I’ve had 3 other “long term relationships” of any notable duration. Two ran far longer than the quality of the relationship warranted. (Okay, well, all three of those, actually, were far longer than what was healthy, but I did manage to cut that last one short before my life or mental health were in complete chaos.) I’ve often been that person working at it longer/harder and loyally clinging to the carcass of a relationship that did not at all rate such a ferocious commitment in the first place. “I didn’t know better” doesn’t describe the goings on so much as “brain damage”, honestly. Yikes. That feels “too real”, right there. I sigh, finish my coffee, and let it go. 🙂 I’m rather happily in a very different place these days, different relationship altogether. “Learned my lesson”? Possibly not – more than I’ve been fortunate, and this particular relationship grew and developed largely in the context of ongoing therapy and other positive life choices (and changes) that took me down a healthier path.
Choices.
Don’t sit around miserable, is what I’m saying. You have choices. You don’t have to wait for decades of your life to slip by – you can choose change. Any time. You can begin again. Oh, I know, it’s a difficult sort of choice to make, but truly, it is yours.
Maybe what looks like a dead-end just isn’t your path at all?
Hot coffee. Sunny summer morning and one day remaining in a long weekend. I don’t have much to say about the 4th of July holiday, really… I used to make jokes that the entire nation came together as one to celebrate the end of my first marriage with me. lol It was on the 4th of July that I finally walked away. It was an important moment, but… at this point? Just one of many in a long life rich in ups, downs, good fortune, poor choices, and a lot of opportunities to pause, rethink, and begin again.
My Traveling Partner and I enjoyed the day, and each other’s company. I went out into the world, into an actual retail space, and actually did a bit of shopping. I don’t mean that I went into a store masked and distanced, quickly identified what I came for, and quickly made my exit, not that at all; I shopped. I even – are you ready for this one? I tried on clothes! Wow. The freedom. 🙂 (The lingering “end” of the pandemic found me with a lot more “comfy clothes” and a bit short on suitable work casuals, and suddenly I’ve got a business trip on my calendar, and colleagues eager to meet me in person for the first time… so… seemed wise to do a bit of shopping rather than showing up in yoga pants or jammies. LOL)
Today? Just a day. Most of them are, aren’t they? Today it’ll be housekeeping; it is functionally “the sunday” of this particular long weekend, and that’s how I do; housekeeping on Sundays, get the place ready for the new week. It’s a practice that is all about beginning again, and meditation, and mindful service. Sometimes it’s also tedious and annoying. Sometimes it feels like a huge effort, and even a burden. I will straight up admit that I loathe most housekeeping chores, completely. I like to take things easy…but… I also enjoy, prefer, and thrive in conditions of “orderliness”. So, Sunday is my day to fight off the chaos with restored order, and a bit of tidying up. Has to be done, if I’m committed to the life I most want to be living. 🙂
I put on music that makes me want to dance. There are clean clothes to put on after my shower, and sunshine streaming through the blinds, filtered and soft, tempting me to step outside. Pleasant day. That’ll do nicely for all manner of new beginnings, I think. 🙂
I sip this coffee, smiling, and listening to tunes. Mostly rap, this morning, mostly women: Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Saweetie, Snow Tha Product, Nicki Minaj… there are quite a few really good ones, and my play list is filled with their power, their juice, and their joy. 🙂
…This coffee is almost gone, though… and that means it’s time to begin again. 🙂
Hey! There’s a world out there. No kidding, it’s been kept a closely held secret for many months, but… yeah. There’s an entire world out there! Other people. Other places. Vaccinated yet? Mask up and get out there into the world! See something new. Meet another human doing other human things. Listen to a new tune. It’s a new day.
…Are you ready to begin again?
My Traveling Partner interrupts my Saturday morning reverie; I’d gotten lost in summertime tunes and reflections inward on external things. lol Coffee half gone, completely cold… there’s a summer day out there! Things to do! A life to live! (He misses me when I am “so far away” with my thoughts, as peculiar as that seems to me.)
There’s a summer garden to tend!
I think of far away friends and future travels. I think of trails I could be walking, right now. Errands that need to be run. Summertime music plays in my ears. I feel the smile on my face and the ease in my shoulders and my posture; it’s rare to feel this relaxed, just… “summery”. 🙂 It’s enough. More than enough. Blue skies. Birdsong. Good coffee. A bright summer day stretching out ahead of me just begging me to do something… maybe anything. 🙂
I think of childhood summers. I recall how hard it was understand adults wanting to just kick it on the porch or in the back yard on a summer day when they could be anywhere… now? Now I’m delighted to have a vast-seeming expanse of deck to kick it on, on a summer day. lol Perspective changes over time, as we gain experience and understand other views of life. I guess that is pretty fucking obvious.
…It may be less obvious why I’m not writing, when I’m not writing, though, and I have this to say about that… it’s summertime. 🙂
Begin again. Go, and do, and be. The practice will be worthwhile. 🙂 ❤
This particular blog post is about several things that are more than a little interconnected, but probably also entirely coincidental, and more likely still? I may not actually ever get around to mentioning any of those details in any specific way, because I’ve got this headache “peering over my shoulder” and distracting me. I sip ginger ale in a dark room. My tinnitus is louder than my computer, and I double-check to “see that it’s on” and laugh, immediately realizing how fucking dumb that actually is; I’m at the keyboard, writing. God damn this headache makes me fucking stupid. 0_o How annoying.
I’ve been very introspective these past few days. June 25th has some gravitas these days – the anniversary of my Mother’s death. It’s also got some serious joy – the anniversary of buying our home (we did not select the date). “Mixed emotions” doesn’t even come close to explaining where this put my head these last few days, as we approach the 1st anniversary of the date we actually moved into our home. So many boxes! Last year, all of the days between those dates were midst the COVID-19 pandemic, in the early months of “the lockdown”… strange to discuss it in months, but here we all are. I write a few more grim sentences, then remember I honestly don’t know enough to legitimately have an opinion of some of these things. I delete them, and let my mind wander.
It was hot this week. Like…intensely bold-red-text-heat-warning hot. No kidding. It was… Phoenix hot. Fresno hot. Death Valley hot.
I’m not even exaggerating.
Fortunately, it cooled off quite a bit day by day. It was so hot I couldn’t think. Writing would have put more heat into my studio, so I kept it to the minimum needed to work, and then shut everything down. My Traveling Partner and I mostly sat around bitching about the heat, keeping the things as cool as we could, in darkened rooms, drinking water. Is it weird that my recollection of those hot days is pretty pleasant? I enjoyed my partner’s company when I wasn’t working, and I’ve no memory of discord or fussing at each other. We were a team fighting a common “enemy” – the heat. We were armed with ice cream and humor. LOL Much fun was had by all. I mean… that’s how I remember it.
Memory is weird. I’d link a particular song that comes to mind…but I can’t remember the title… and then, when I do, I can’t find a link to it… I’m no longer sure I’m remembering it correctly, at all.
…On the other hand…I clearly remember exactly what a summer night in Maryland smells like, how it sounds, how the humid air clings relentlessly to sweat…
Memory is weird.
…I had forgotten how much I like ginger ale…
I sit quietly awhile, just listening to my tinnitus and sipping ginger ale. I could do without the headache that persists in hanging out with me. I rub my neck and remind myself it won’t last indefinitely – what ever does?
…Wow. That went downhill fast. LOL
Roses in my garden
It’s summer, I guess, for real. Hotter summers now, that seems clear. The summers definitely were not this hot 10 years ago (and more recently than that, Portlanders could be heard making jokes about “June-uary”, because summer didn’t really arrive until July). My garden didn’t die this year, when the heat came; my Traveling Partner set up a simple drip irrigation system for me. My tomatoes did not seem to suffer with the heat at all, quite the contrary; I think we’re going to have “too many tomatoes”. LOL Win. 🙂
Evening Light 