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Sometimes Kind of Blue

August 23, 2017 //
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My evening ended on a blue note. I wasn’t just kind of blue, I ached with it. I felt… low.  I logged off for the evening, uncertain if media-over-stimulation might be contributing, although there wasn’t much that was definitely bad in the news (well, bad relative to the constant droning and pinging of real-world bullshit, which is bad already, and fairly ceaseless).

My tattoo had begun to itch a little, as the surface skin began to pull away from the healed skin beneath. A little like a sunburn pealing, it was nagging at me for attention, and I really did not want to scratch and damage the tattoo. I couldn’t really relax. I was feeling sort of tense of fussy, just generally, waiting to hear from my Traveling Partner that he was safely on his way back to the world after a weekend of festival camping I could not take time off to enjoy with him. (I’m not welcome with his other partner, regardless, and realistically, my “issues” would not be likely to do well for an entire week of festival-going; it’s not really about the time off.)

Looking back, there were surely things I could have done differently, other practices, other choices… I yearned for connection but was too distracted and irritable to do so comfortably. I declined a number of offers from people dear to me to chat (“I’m here if you need to talk…”). I just wasn’t really up to it. I was mired in my bullshit mood, for the moment. I put on a favorite old jazz album. (Maybe you are listening to it now…) I wrote a cross email to a friend who finds some humor in my cross prose. I lingered in a long sensuous somewhat-warmer-than-tepid shower for like… forever. I gave myself a pedicure and a foot rub (I grant you, a foot rub is better when someone else is doing it, but it’s still pretty nice to do for myself). I crashed early with a book I then did not read; I fell asleep. Sleep may have been what I really needed; I woke to the alarm.

Don’t look directly at the sun.

It’s a new day. I get to begin again. Shortly before I went to bed, my Traveling Partner sent me a quick “I love you”, and I could once again see him on the locator map. It felt comforting that he was again “in range”. When I woke, his message letting me know he’d arrived “home” was waiting for me. I check the locator map to see where he meant by that. lol

I can choose.

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Categories anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

How it Works to Choose

August 18, 2017 //
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The news? Pretty nearly all bad. The song in my heart? Pretty much, most of the time, all good. The way I get that done? I choose. You can too.

But wait – am I so cruel and clueless as to suggest that people struggling with mental illness can just “choose” to be okay? “Choose” a happier song? “Choose” to get over it? Omg – no. Not really. When we’re sick, we need care. We may need appropriate medicine to treat our illness or injury. We may need a visit with a doctor, or a stay in a hospital. We may be offered a treatment plan to follow… and a different one when that doesn’t quite work out… and another after that… and then… more verbs. Fuck. And results will vary. We each walk our own hard mile. It’s so not as easy as “pick a different song to sing“… except… It’d probably help though, and why would we not, if we can make the effort, choose to do the things that help?

So… I choose. I am, myself, among the “mentally ill”. PTSD is a real thing. My TBI on top of that (or underneath it, as it were) complicates things. I struggle with anxiety. I struggle with emotion, generally. I’m very human. This is a journey in progress. I have hard days. I also choose better practices than I once did. Meditation really works well for me, helping me find that chill space in my own head that prevents me descending into despair on some spiral of tears and rumination. Taking better physical care of this fragile vessel has been of value; I am less likely to quickly exhaust myself due to lack of sleep, or poor nutrition. I have fewer nightmares, and I have learned better “sleep hygiene”. Developing better emotional intelligence has incredibly worthwhile; my relationships are more fulfilling, and less fraught with confrontation, because I am more able to take time to listen deeply, to avoid becoming fused with someone else’s emotional experience, or to be manipulated by their expectations and assumptions. I am more able to avoid coloring my experience with an internal narrative built on my own untested assumptions or implicit expectations. These things have value. All of these improvements required making choices, and changing some behavior and thinking. Turns out that isn’t so hard, in most cases – although it also isn’t as easy as just saying words, either. There’s been quite a lot of practice involved – there always will be.  I’m even okay with that. Incremental change over time is a real thing; we become what we practice.

It makes sense that choosing our practices in a willful way, understanding of our needs, and who we most want to be, would result in eventually getting to that place. It ends up also being very helpful, along the way, not getting overly attached to that vision. Outcomes don’t always look quite the way we planned them out in our heads. 🙂

I have an appointment with my therapist next week. Yep. It’s a journey. I still make choices. I still practice practices. I am still walking my own hard mile. Sometimes I still need help. 🙂 I’m okay with that too.

My “stay-cation” destination.

I sip my coffee and consider the short work shift ahead. Change is a thing. I’m back to Monday through Friday, but I have firm plans for today (at the start of the week, it was my day off), so the weekend begins at 11 am, and is a bit longer than usual. 🙂 I hear sleeping in is nice – I’ll try that sometime. Maybe tomorrow. 😉 The weekend unfolds ahead of me rather gently. It feels good to contemplate staying home, doing some more moving in stuff… maybe a walk to the Farmer’s Market (it’s time to start trying to put reals miles on these feet, again)… morning coffee in the garden on the deck… just generally saying “yes” to life.

I’m ready to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Beginnings and Endings

August 16, 2017 //
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Tough day at the office.

I put on a new playlist, one with beats and edges and emotions – all of the emotions. I let it carry me from here to there. It covers a lot of emotional ground, highs and lows and inbetweens. I dance. I manage some housekeeping along the way. I medicate. I cry a few tears that weren’t at all about me.

I dislike endings, even though they are no more permanent than the beginnings are, and with few exceptions, generally precede beginnings. I take time to feel the weight of the truth of it. This too shall pass – a helpful thought. Change is. We don’t always choose it, sometimes it just shows up to the party uninvited.

I don’t mean to be vague-book-y at all here, truly I don’t. There were some organizational changes made at work. I lost a team member. Funny thing about that, though; I’ve grown. Some of my colleagues are my friends. He’s one such, and so – my heart loses nothing. I dig working alongside this guy. He’s sharp. Get’s it. He’s got a good heart, and a lot of commitment and skill. It will suck not seeing him already working when I get in each Tuesday. I will have to go digging each Monday for the information he always provided me in his hand-off each week. But, and this is real and so important, we’re friends. There’s nothing lost there. I’m still here. He’s still here. We’ve got each other’s numbers. lol There’s nothing to see  here, besides change, and change is always with us.

I still cried. I did. Yep. (I’m grateful I didn’t have to break it to him. I had it easy.) Change is a thing, but fucking hell – we’re a fantastic team at this. I miss him already. I worry whether he’s okay. We are friends; I want to help. I smirk at myself in a moment of honesty; now I have to do verbs to maintain this friendship. I can’t just show up to the office.

Tomorrow will be different. It also won’t be the end of my work week. So much change for one week… I gotta get some rest, though. Soon I’ll have to begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5

Tears On My Pillow

August 16, 2017 //
0

Yeah, our individual lives and experiences continue alongside the culture-storm of change going on around us. Well… mine does. Doesn’t yours?

I sip my coffee. Breathe, relax. I don’t avoid the awareness that cried myself to sleep last night. I keep my heart open to the awareness that I don’t fully “know why”. Sadness crept in. Tears spilled out. I’m no saint; I’m pretty sure my tears were “all about me“.

My Traveling Partner got into town sometime yesterday, busy with plans and no time for me. It’s an honest truth. My heart aches with it. This morning as I wake he is already far away. His route took him the closest he has been to my new place, since I moved; approximately just 1 mile away, passing by in the night, sometime after I had gone to bed. No drama. No storm of “if you loved me, you would…”. No conditional affection. This event has been planned on his calendar a long while. This makes only twice he’s been in town since he started his new job. Both times he was in town briefly. Both times for other purposes than seeing me. Neither time did we see each other. I’ve lived here now for one month; he has yet to see the place, though he has keys. I get through those thoughts, this time, without tears.

I sip my coffee, and move on with my own experience.

I keep an eye on the clock. There is an early morning meeting at the office, and I will make a point of being there, without resentment for the disruption in my schedule; it is a welcome distraction.

I let my thoughts coast through memories of other lovers, feeling grateful for this partnership I’ve got. It allows me to live (and thrive) on my own terms – even when those terms became “I need a place of my own”. Our choices reliably have consequences. Some of the consequences of our choices are not easily predictable for us, as individuals in the moment, sometimes because they can’t be predicted with ease, sometimes because we refrain from looking ahead with cool-headed clarity.

I find myself “listening for the rain”, thinking perhaps I heard drops on the windows or rooftop, but no rain is falling. No tears, either. I’m okay right now. I sip my coffee, and let contentment wash over me. Running from my feelings doesn’t get me here so quickly. Neither does wallowing in them, allowing myself to spiral downward into the darkness. It’s a peculiar thing to sit with my emotions. Make room for them as if for a fellow traveling on public transportation; sometimes quite reluctantly, but not wanting to be rude. Giving myself a comfortable moment to feel my feelings without taking action, to listen to my moment gently, and to allow myself to feel heard from within can make such a difference in emotional moments. Yeah… as always… verbs. Practice. Varying results. (See that subject line? Results vary!) I’m grateful for mornings; each one utterly new. A restart. A do over. A beginning.

Where does this path lead?

I miss my Traveling Partner. I feel the feeling of it. I allow myself to be wrapped in the love that makes missing him matter so much, and soak in that for some minutes, recalling things we have enjoyed together this year. I allow the mixed emotions to be what they are. There has been little of this so-precious time shared this year. Tears and a smile. I’m okay with that. I think ahead to the week to come. It feels a little empty knowing there won’t be a last-minute urgent message from him late on a Thursday suggesting I drive down to see him, followed by a message noting that he’d checked my calendar and sees I have plans… or a reply from me that I’m on my way, or… soon. We’ll see each other in September. We saw each other once in August. And in June we spent a weekend together for my birthday. Soon, autumn, the holiday season… more weekends together than not, perhaps. Perhaps not. I smile and let go of my expectations like airborne fluff from a cottonwood tree. It’s a journey, and what’s up ahead isn’t very clear. I’ll take it a day at a time. Each rung on the ladder individually climbed. Each step in the staircase individually tread. Each moment individually lived. Well… as much as possible. I’m quite human. lol

It’s time to begin again.

 

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Pain

August 14, 2017 //
2

All of the pain this morning, and a hearty helping of “aggravated with America” besides. Fuck this bullshit. I snarl as I open the windows to the breezes. I hobble around making coffee on my aching ankle, the broken foot experience is largely behind me now, this is just routine, everyday, ceaseless “holy-fuck-is-there-anything-at-all-left-down-there-that-properly-functions-as-an-ankle??” pain. The rain yesterday was a relief. Today my arthritis is acting up. This headache seems worse than usual. I am on the edge of tears and my anger just simmers, waiting for a moment to call its own.

It’s just pain.

The splinter in my finger adds to the experience in an extra frustrating way; every time I hit a key with that index finger, I either feel the stabby irritated inflamed pain of the splinter in my finger, or somehow manage a sloppy assortment of unnecessary letters (mostly “g”) that must then be removed. It’s extremely aggravating. My quirky sense of humor is such that at this point, I wish I’d left all the “g’s” in place for amusement. (You’re welcome.)

It’s just pain.

It’s just physical pain. There are literally more important things going on right now than my individual physical pain.

Again I let it go. Start over. Begin again. I do what I can to support my physical needs along the way. There is work to be done “out there”. The difficult work of seeing past my privilege. The work of using my privilege as an umbrella, rather than as a shield. The work of being considerate. The work of being helpful. The work of being kind. The work of setting a good example by being the change I wish to see in the world. The work of listening past my own biases. The work of recognizing we are each having our own experience. The work of compassion. The work of being the village it takes to raise our children to become the future caretakers of the only world we currently call home. The work of seeking a true truth stripped of provocative buzzwords and catchy slogans, laid bare of ideological bias. The work of being a better human being today than I was yesterday – every day.

Fuck… that’s a lot to do. I could say “I hurt too much, today, I’ll get on it tomorrow…”, only… they seem the sort of tasks that would quickly pile up, get out of hand and… oh. That’s right where we are. Now. Shit.

Well. I guess I’ll begin again. Will you?

The time is now.

 

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words
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