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Reflections vs Resolutions

January 6, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, reflecting on the year behind me and thinking ahead to the year that has newly begun. “The journey is the destination.” So it’s said. So I hear. I accept that as a given, actually, after walking my path awhile. It’s the first “proper Monday” of the new year as I sit here at my desk, and I’ve a pen and a small notebook at hand. I make notes as I reflect on my life and my achievements, missed opportunities, and occasional disappointments of the year behind me. The notes are in two columns this time around; “stepping stones” and “pitfalls”. The stepping stones are things I can adopt or continue as practices that will tend to build the life I want to live, and help me become the woman I most want to be. The pitfalls are those things that may tend to hold me back or undermine my progress. Simple stuff.

I’ve given my year a “theme”, intended to represent a destination of sorts, on which I can anchor my intentions, goals, and priorities. This year my theme is “living a quality life”, which I am defining as living my best life without exhausting myself (or my resources).

My list of stepping stones is quite practical, and seems very achievable. It’s not even long, and is made up mostly of things I greatly enjoy. How handy is that? This is by intention; it’s easier to practice things that are either very enjoyable or which have an immediate “pay off”. There are only two wholly conceptual items, but they are important ideas for the year ahead: presence, and consistency. I see them as being necessary to the success of everything else on my list.

  • Learn a language (I’m already working on this one, by working on rebuilding and improving my Czech language skills, which are quite rusty)
  • Read more bound books (I’ve got a stack of them, and I’ve already finished one – but it’s not a race, and comprehension is a key part of the experience)
  • Paint more (this one is a bigger deal than two small words imply, and meets many needs)
  • Walk more/further (788 trail miles in 2024 – can I hit 1000 in 2025? Self-care? Meditation? Fitness? A bit of all that and more.)
  • More strength training (an important part of fitness and health as I age, and utterly necessary as I continue to lose weight and use semaglutide to manage my blood sugar.)
  • Food/diet – explore new recipes and skills (and write down the successes in the new family recipe binder my Traveling Partner gifted me this year! The semaglutide being what it is, food has become a very intentional thing, which seems healthier, too.)
  • Drink more water (the science says it really matters – and I definitely feel better when I do.)

My list of pitfalls is surprisingly short, but each item on that list is a potential chasm – a sinkhole more than a pothole on life’s journey. Self-reflection lets me get down to basics in a way that prevents me from petty self-criticism or negative rumination, and provides me with positive observations I can really work with to limit poor behavioral choices, and to develop better practices that are themselves in line with my “presence” and “consistency” stepping stones. Win!

  • Autopilot (no lie, I like things easy, and I rely on habit and routine to stay the course with some healthy practices, but leaving things on “autopilot” is the literal opposite of being present, and it comes with some troubling negative consequences. It’s worth learning to remain present, aware, and mindful even when being consistent with some routine practice – and potentially more joyful.)
  • Failed practices (being human, failure is a thing and there’s no dodging that, but healthy practices need… practice. Resuming a valued practice that has momentarily failed is a matter of beginning again. Worth the effort.)
  • The fallow garden (literal and metaphorical; 2024 was a terrible year for my garden. My Traveling Partner needed more from me than I truly had to give, and that wasn’t negotiable from my perspective – other things, particularly my garden, fell by the wayside and need new resolve and attention in the year to come.)
  • Malaise (it’s easy to let fatigue push me to failure through exhausted inaction, it’s hard to overcome, but good self-care and careful management of time and energy are worthy tools to prevent falling into this trap)
  • Resentment (another all-to-human trap, this one is avoided through connection, openness, skillful communication and boundary-setting, and reliably consistent self-care)
  • Sugar! (Just keeping it real, this shit is like poison for me.)

This stuff isn’t complicated. Just some notes taken as I reflect on my life and consider what I want out of it. What do I want? I want joy and contentment. I want improved wellness. I want improved intimacy and connection in my relationship(s). I want satisfaction in life and “order from chaos”. I want to live on principles of sufficiency, within my resources. As I said – it’s not complicated stuff, and mostly seems pretty doable. It’s not “fancy”, and as goals go these seem rather more “within reach” than grandly aspirational. I still have to really work at all of this, though. I’m quite human.

I make a point to “set myself up for success”. I’m not looking at the calendar telling myself I need to be a size 8 by next Thanksgiving, or that I’ll be fit to run a marathon by the 4th of July. I’m not making a long list of weighty tomes and demanding that I finish them all before the next new year. In fact, these mostly don’t adhere to “SMART” goals at all. (SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based, great for professional project management.) My life is not a corporate entity with a 5 year plan and key performance indicators that must be reached to qualify as a success. lol I’m not saying SMART goals are not worthwhile in a great many use-cases. It’s more that I’m a human being, living a life that I’d like to enjoy. My mortal time is finite and precious. So… these are my goals, approached my way. The success is defined by me, based on my values. This works for me. It’s enough.

Speaking of limited time… it’s already time to begin again. I make myself a calendar entry to remind me to look back on this moment of self-reflection later, and see how I did when this year ends. (I do find purposeful self-reflection very useful.)

…I wonder where this path leads…

Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.
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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter, Words

Ring Zing Buzz

January 4, 2025 //
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My tinnitus is super loud this morning. Distracting. Annoying. I breathe, exhale, and relax, as I absentmindedly rub my left trapezius muscle, up near my neck… Or is it my sternocleidomastoid? That general area. Feels like it is carved of stone and most of the time also a prominent source of day-to-day pain. I see one of my care providers today. He’s very skilled and I am hopeful that I’ll have a few hours or a couple days of real relief before my fucked up neck recreates the painful circumstances all over again. I’ve grown resigned to accepting that it is simply the byproduct of an old neck injury, combined with progressing degenerative disk disease (C3-C4 mostly and cervical arthritis from C5 on up to C1). It sucks and it’s painful, but, and this is important and real, it could be worse.

I walked down the trail listening to the crunch of boots on pea gravel, and I focused on the external sounds around me; it helps push the tinnitus into the background some. I got to a pleasant spot along the river to sit for a moment. The world is quiet and from here I can’t hear the traffic on the nearby highway at all. Whether this is an atmospheric phenomenon, a lack of traffic, or hearing loss is not clear to me, and maybe not even relevant to this pleasant moment. There’s a strip of color, not quite orange, on the eastern horizon, peeking between hillsides, silhouetting the trees on the far bank where the river bends. I have the trail and the park to myself this morning, alone with my thoughts (and my tinnitus, and my pain). Well… mostly…

I sit quietly as a rather large raccoon waddles past. She gives me a look and hesitates a moment before proceeding. I sit still and watch her discreetly from my peripheral vision hoping not to discourage her and choking back a laugh remembering the desk sign my Traveling Partner made for me (“most likely to be eaten by something she shouldn’t be petting”). As the raccoon continues past she’s followed by 2…3…4…5 chubby fuzzy youngsters, one of whom appears eager to get a closer look at me. Mom looks back and lifts herself on her back legs and makes sounds that clearly manage to communicate “Damn it, leave that human alone, you have no idea where that thing has been! Come on, we don’t have time for this.” It’s super hard not to giggle but I really don’t want to alarm Mama Raccoon – she’s pretty big, and I’m definitely not up for defending myself from an angry or frightened raccoon; they are not to be trifled with.

She walks on with her youngsters following, heading down the river bank. I walk on, too, heading back up the trail toward the parking lot. It’s daybreak. Good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter

On Being Adaptable

December 31, 2024 //
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Well, shit. It’s the last day of 2024. Hell of a year. A lot of things changed in 2024 – it was a very eventful year. I’m not going to bother listing all the details, plenty of other people will.

…This morning I woke up ill. lol Just fucking great – not what I planned, obviously – this would have been a routine work day, instead I’m calling out sick, and going back to bed after having some hot tea and quickly looking over my work email for anything urgent (there isn’t anything). I’m having some oatmeal (soothing, sort of, I guess). Annoyingly enough, I’d left my laptop in the office all set up for work this morning – a convenient little luxury now and then (since I usually haul it back and forth between shifts). So… yeah, I had to drive to the office to pick it up. I’m laughing at myself. I’m okay for many values of okay, I’m only ill with whatever local ick is going around right now, and the symptoms prevent me from working comfortably, but it’s not like I’m fucking dying or anything. I’ll be okay, it’s just aggravating.

I sigh to myself, sipping my hot tea between flavorless bites of oatmeal. It could be worse. It’s not Norovirus. It’s not Covid. It’s barely a headcold of some sort or another; I can breathe pretty comfortably. I’ve got a massive (new) headache, and all my joints ache like crazy, and I’m mired in this overall “cellular level” feeling of “don’t give a fuck about any of that” fatigue that will send me back to bed as soon as I have returned home. Still… it could most definitely be ever so much worse.

It’s the end of 2024. Instead of going out with the pop of a champagne cork, I guess it’ll go out with a sneeze and a sniffle, and the sound of me ripping open a new box of tissues. lol

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sip my tea. I eat my oatmeal. I focus on good self-care, and being careful as I make my way through the moments of the day (my mind is foggy and I’m a bit sluggish, and it’s wise to account for that). Being sick for New Year’s wasn’t part of my plan…but reality doesn’t care about my plans, at all. lol Just gotta roll with the circumstances and do my best. I make room for gratitude, while I also recognize the chills that wash over me. Time to head home, and go back to bed.

…Here’s hoping 2025 is a better year, generally, for everyone, than 2024 has been or so many people…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Practices, The Art of Being

A Point of View on Perspective

December 29, 2024 //
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I drove to the trailhead this morning thinking about how far away this once seemed, although it now feels quite close to home. It’s become a familiar drive, and is also the approximate halfway point on my morning commute when I work in the office. Those details don’t change the distance in miles, nor do they alter the time it takes to make the drive, but what a difference in perceived distance and inconvenience!

I got to the trailhead still thinking about time and distance and the differences in perception perspective on a journey can make. A very long walk often only feels long when it is new and unfamiliar, seeming to grow shorter over time as walking it becomes commonplace. Funny how that works…

I walked down the trail in the pre-dawn darkness, thinking my thoughts. I came upon a good stopping point after what seemed a long while; I’ve been walking a different trail here, but with all the recent rain, only the “all season” trail is actually walkable now. The change in trail is a change in perspective, and perceived distance. I was still sore from yesterday’s walk, this morning, too; it has more hills and felt like a somewhat more challenging workout. This morning feels like a serious effort, and a bit “too far” though a look at my step counter and the trail map tells me there’s very little difference. Perspective.

I sit quietly, writing, enjoying the quiet. It feels colder this morning, though the temperature is the same as it was yesterday, maybe even a degree warmer if I trust my recollection. My legs and back ache, and my discomfort sets me up to “feel the cold” more, perhaps.

Repetition and familiarity create an experience of “ease”, and what seems easy also seems to require less time, or amount to less distance. Practice changes our perception of difficulty. Just something I am thinking about as the new year approaches. Want to get good at something? Practice. Want something to feel easy? Practice. Want some particular skill or response to become “second nature”? Practice. Do the verbs. Do them again. Do them better. Do them over. Keep practicing.

… Fuck I wish I didn’t ache like this though…

I laugh to myself and shake off my irritation with the pain I’m often in; it would be much worse if I gave up on the walking. I know this from experience. Experience also brings perspective. The journey is the destination. The longer I walk my path, the easier it may feel, and the more I may understand. (I say “may” because there are damned few guarantees or certainties in a human lifetime, and a lot of verbs required, and my results do vary.)

I begin to notice the chill a bit more in the darkness. I see a hint of daybreak in the blue gray of the eastern horizon. I can make out the path without my the headlamp now. I guess it’s a good time to begin again – with new perspective.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter

A Little of This, A Little of That

December 19, 2024 //
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Odd morning. Not a bad one at all, just a profound departure from the routine. For one thing, I overslept my artificial sunrise, and woke to the full brightness of the lights in the room, 10 minutes or so later than intended, and far later than typical. I woke in considerable pain, and very stiff, feeling like I’d been sleeping in the same strange position “all night”, with a stiff neck and back. Awkward. I moved slowly through my morning routine, almost leaving the house without putting my shoes on. I arrived at the trailhead emotionally prepared to walk, but feeling less than ideally eager to do so – the crick in my neck was still really super painful (and still is). Rough. I got a short walk in, then headed to the office to… work?

First I sipped coffee. Then I read my email. I watched a couple videos without really paying attention, then listened to some music. It’s been a weird morning. I pulled my attention back to work, and got some things done, now I’m distracted and a bit irritable because somewhere, someone is vacuuming something rather loudly, and the noise is carried through the building – a high pitched whine that I could seriously do without. What a peculiar morning.

I make another cup of coffee. The noise of the vacuuming finally stops. My neck still aches, but I’m not in a bad mood over it. I look at the picture of the Giftmas tree that I snapped this morning on my way to work for some reason – just pure childlike delight, I suppose. I grin to myself happily in spite of the pain in my neck. It’ll pass, eventually. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Only two days to the Winter Solstice. Only a week until Giftmas. Just 13 days to an entirely new year year. Wow. 2025 already here? How the hell did that happen “so fast”? Was I just distracted with the work of worrying and caregiving all year long? Damn. Life feels pretty good right now. This moment right here? Quite a nice one. I smile and take it all in, and sit with these positive hopeful feelings awhile. Soon enough, it’ll be time to begin again, practicing practices, and walking my path. For now though, this moment is enough.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being
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