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Oh, Hey, Don’t Kill My Vibe!

August 19, 2015 //
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I woke with a stuffy head this morning – a cold? No, just a stuffy head. Allergies? I guess…maybe…or maybe my head is just stuffy? The morning I feel slow, unproductive, distracted, sluggish. How human! My attempt at iced coffee doesn’t have enough ice…the coffee ice cubes melt down, and the result? A tepid coffee…taller than usual. Not really the desired outcome…but it was an after thought, midway through making coffee. As is often the case with whims, the lack of planning, the inadequate preparation, and the lack of focus result in the sort of hit or miss outcome that, in this instance, is clearly farther along the ‘miss’ end of the spectrum. I’m having to invest in a positive state of being a bit more actively than usual.

I put on music that keeps me moving and puts a smile on my face. My sleep wasn’t especially restful. In addition to the stuffy head, I woke feeling sort of… desiccated, and headache-y. My traveling partner has indeed been traveling, and we hung out last night, it’s possible I got exposed to a head cold virus…but it doesn’t really feel quite like that… Why am I fussing over it? There’s more value in the awareness, the acceptance, and dealing with it – the why is sort of pointless, isn’t it?

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

I am thinking about the evening, hanging out with my dear love. Emotions come and go – my volatility is off the charts this morning, and I don’t understand that, either. Cuddling together on the love seat, hanging out, talking, and just being together, it was wonderful celebrating the profound connection we share; I miss living with him. I don’t miss the niggling little bullshit arguments that crop up when we live together, and seem oddly important in the moment – those I am happily doing without. I don’t miss the two of us tripping over each other’s baggage, and aggravating each other’s issues. I don’t miss those peculiar moments of doubt when I look into his eyes and wonder, just for a moment, if I actually understand what’s going on at all…or the look of doubt in his when some moment is seriously affected by my injury, and he wonders whether he can make love work with that.  (Yes, I can see it.) I definitely don’t miss the challenges around living with the mismatched assorted others in our experience that aren’t a good fit for one or the other of us; I definitely find not living with the OPD an improvement. I miss living with his smile, though, and his touch, and his everyday utterly inappropriate humor. I miss his scent, and his aesthetic, and I miss his conversation. It’s hard to ‘get enough’ of any of that without living together…on the other hand… I’m enjoying me so much more comfortably without the constant self-consciousness, and self-doubt that crops up so much more when I live with other people.

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other; I’m really settled in now, and this is a comfortable space to hang out, to be, and to enjoy each other. It’s a drama free zone. I look over my shoulder at the fireplace and imagine a crackling fire in autumn, feet up, arms around each other… Yes, Love, I am happy here. This works for me. This is my home.

Home.

Home.

This morning, though…I’m moody, irritable, and potentially a walking negative outcome waiting for the wrong moment to become real. What’s up with that? Freaking moody human primates! Who needs this bullshit? This morning I am working at the task of ‘defusing the bomb’; it’s less than desirable to go into the office teetering on the edge of having my temper flare up unexpectedly – at work it wouldn’t matter whether the context seemed ‘reasonable’ or the reaction ‘understandable’ for the circumstances. People are uncomfortable with strong emotion in the work environment, generally. This morning, I practice the practices intended to boost my emotional resilience – also those that tend to reduce it. This morning I am taking time to meditate. Then more time. Then another time. Then some time while I boil water for coffee. And after my shower. And when I got up. And a few minutes from now… yeah. It’s like that today; chasing stillness while the worst of my volatility simmers in the background, likely to go off without warning.

So much of life is about love and loving.

So much of life is about love and loving.

Al Green begins to sing to me about sexual healing – a light bulb goes off in my head – is that all this is? Am I a bitch in heat, grumpy and frustrated, and without a ready outlet to meet that need? I chuckle with gentle sympathy for myself, out loud, shaking my head – it’s a lifelong challenge managing my libido and my injury. Together they add up to a sex drive that no partnership but one has ever satisfied, and even that only survived the endless need for about a year. I am learning to go without more graciously. I am learning to accept love’s delights less demandingly. I kind of have to – real life, in this area, doesn’t manage to feel like ‘enough’. I am at least learning to accept that I will be drowned in enthusiastic hyperbole in every new relationship as potential lovers assure me they can easily meet my needs, and assurances that they too have a crazy high sex drive… It’s almost impossible to communicate successfully that we’re talking about very different magnitudes of drive; the disappointment each time I face that moment in a partnership when the truth of it becomes clear is always a bitch to deal with.

My thoughts stray to the approval of flibanserin – a drug intended to boost female desire – and I gotta wonder, if a person doesn’t want sex, how is that ‘disordered’? If level of desire can be a disorder… then what about women such as myself, where my level of day-to-day desire creates problems because it seems – to my partner(s) – excessive? I assure you, if feels perfectly normal to me.  Am I to be expected to take a drug to make me want sex less? I could see taking an appropriate medication if my body’s response to desire wasn’t consistent with my psychological or emotional experience of wanting… but… to make me want, if I don’t? I don’t get that. It is, however, a very hard conversation to have to have with someone when they are not desired…particularly if the relationship has a sexual component. It happens. It’s even happened to me – which is damned awkward. Still… I think having the honest conversation makes more sense [to me] than taking a mind-altering anti-depressant class of drug to force oneself to feel desire, when desire doesn’t exist. Maybe those honest conversations could result in people taking steps to create desire through action (the Big 5 is super helpful there)… or move on to a relationship in which their needs are more easily met? Seriously. If the sex matters that much (it does for me), and I can’t get what I need in a relationship, there are other choices than ‘going without’ (or ‘enduring what is not desired’), or ‘taking a mind altering drug to become more what the partnership requires’…but a lot of those options do involve investing in additional relationships of some sort. Inconvenient. Time-consuming.

Yeah. I’m feeling cross and bitchy today. I’m feeling critical of myself, my mood, my writing… and I’m betting that if I do something as small as just easing up on myself this morning, it’ll be a much better morning straight away. I’ll just set this one aside right here, today, and move on with the morning, taking the very best care of me that I can.

Stick with the basics - it's a great place to start.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

Today is a good day to avoid taking my own bullshit too personally. Today is a good day to treat myself gently. Today is a good day to remember that we’re each dealing with our own bullshit – and we’re all very very human. Today is a good day to invest heavily in kindness – it’s free, and there’s an endless supply – and it might change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

A Weekend Off – A Week On

August 3, 2015 //
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It’s Monday morning. I woke with some effort, to the alarm, and still struggle to ‘really wake up’. I slept well and deeply, and woke up only once, and at an unusual hour. At 3:17 am I woke, thinking I heard a noise. The noise was the sound of a front door buzzer pushed twice in rapid succession “bzzzt bzzzt”. It seemed an actual sound, but whatever actually woke me didn’t do so with any ease. I was incredibly groggy and dizzy, and there was nothing at the door – or elsewhere that I noticed – and I returned to sleep so quickly that I wonder now if any of it was real – even the waking up and getting up, parts.

I’m having trouble waking fully and getting my brain online. I am groggy even now – more than an hour after waking. The sky is still quite dark. Dawn has moved later into the morning. I am impatiently waiting for my coffee – which I am having some trouble making with skill, because I am not quite awake. I take my time with it – and successfully stop myself from rubbing my eyes while I am making coffee, avoiding rubbing coffee, coffee grounds, or hot water in my eyes. This morning, that feels like a major success. 🙂

The morning is cool, and I feel the cool air filter in through the open patio door and the vertical blinds. I am drenched in sweat after making coffee and feeling peculiarly overheated. Hormones? Please, no, not today…it is, after all, Monday. I take a deep breath of the cool morning air, and fill my thoughts with the memories of the weekend as I fill my lungs with fresh scents of this summer morning. I took the additional ‘taking care of me’ step of un-syncing my work email over the weekend, and resetting my smart device so that my work email will only sync manually outside of work hours, reducing the likelihood that I will waste precious life-time on work-related matters by reflex or habit during leisure hours. It is powerfully freeing to return to a lifestyle when work is limited to those occasions that it is scheduled for. I needed the break, badly, and don’t easily set those boundaries with myself unaided – which definitely makes setting those boundaries with colleagues challenging. My traveling partner had observed rather firmly quite recently that I was not taking the best care of myself in this area; change was needed.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the morning with my traveling partner, unexpectedly, and to my great delight. It was a lovely treat, although he arrived distressed and agitated. The level of day-to-day drama in his experience at home is much higher than mine, here at Number 27. I did everything I could to support and soothe him, and even though we shared some [perhaps unnecessarily] emotional moments together, I cherish the time with him. He made a point of following through on his commitment to provide me with some technical support (my bluetooth wasn’t working, and my own troubleshooting did not resolve the issue), and in the process uncovered the likely cause; I had peripherals plugged in to USB ports in a sort of willy-nilly random way, primarily intended for cable management, without regard to USB 3 ports, or always-on ports, or what devices need what sorts of ports, and having no particular understanding that those details were important I had created conflicts. I feel a moment of sympathy; it’s probably just as hard on my laptop to be mine, as it is for people to live with me! This morning, though, there is music. (And yesterday evening, too.) 🙂

Change is. Progress happens. We are at a disadvantage if our understanding of the world becomes 'set in stone'.

Change is. Progress happens. We are at a disadvantage if our understanding of the world becomes ‘set in stone’.

We enjoyed coffee together, and conversation, and laughter, once the technical work was finished. It was hard coming to terms with one facet of aging; I am struggling to remain current with technology, now. Poignant and emotional for me, frustrating for my traveling partner; there is no room for crying during technical support. He’s a decently good sport about it, and although somewhat impatient with me, and frustrated by my emotionality, he makes a point of hearing me. That’s enough. I got by on that, and we moved on with the morning. The high point of my afternoon was soaking in a hot bath, listening to Barry White, and talking on the phone with my traveling partner – an experience I could not easily have had the day before (my stereo sounds way better than music played over laptop speakers). 🙂

My point is that the ups and downs don’t have to be tragic, or an unrelenting buzzkill; we’re all people, having our own experience, and it is sometimes an emotional one. How we treat each other – how we treat ourselves – can be accepting and supportive and aware, and emotions pass. The respect we give each other – each having our own experience – and consideration we give each other while we do so, are a big deal; they define our character, and define the love we share. An honest apology, no excuses, goes a long way when we are not at our best. Our loves are not a dumping ground for emotional toxic waste, and when we share hurts, strong emotions, moments of anger, it’s urgently important that we follow-up with consideration, with compassion, with recognition of their difficult experience sharing that moment with us. Being open isn’t solely about sharing who we are, and how we feel – it’s also a willingness to listen deeply, to be present in the moment when our love sets boundaries, or tells us we’ve caused them pain, and accept the consequences of our actions with honor, with respect, and providing reciprocal support. In this, too, there are practices to practice, verbs involved, and room to grow – and incremental change over time can seem so slow…because that other person can matter so much.

I am taking the morning slowly.

I am taking the morning slowly.

It’s a Monday. This one begins, for me, on a foundation of adequate rest, and good self-care. It would be lovely if that were an absolute assurance of a great week, but I know that there are verbs involved, and plenty of decision-making, and opportunities to communicate with clarity and practice good practices that support my needs over time. This morning, waking so slowly, it is as if I have a head start on slowing down, perhaps there is greater potential there than I understand?

Today is a good day to take things one at a time, with consideration, listening deeply, and recognition that each of us is utterly and entirely human. Today is a good day to be aware that the relationships matter more than the challenges. Today is a good day to ask for help when I need it, and accept help when it is offered. Today is a good day for beginnings; a good beginning has all the potential to change the world. [Note: there are verbs involved, and your results may vary.]

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Sometimes It’s Harder

July 29, 2015 //
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I had a lovely dinner with my traveling partner, after a very productive and thought-provoking appointment with my therapist. “Effective” is a good word. Maybe follow that one with “important” and “relevant”, maybe add “needful”… now I am alone. Alone is hard right now.  I don’t even know why I’m crying, right now… It is a measure of progress that I know it won’t last and that trying to stop the tears has other, sometimes profoundly negative, consequences. The tears themselves serve a purpose, the science says, and will reduce my (apparently high) cortisol levels faster than most other things might.

The a/c is on, and the house is cool. The day has been very hot. I got home with a headache from the heat, and more than a little noise-sensitive, uncertain if I might be ‘dealing with the appointment’ – there is often a delay between the appointment dialogue itself, and ‘when it hits me’ later. Often. More often than not.

It passes. I remind myself that it will. I breathe. I let the tears fall. I feel grateful that I didn’t get to this place while hanging out with my traveling partner – he is supportive on a supremely deep and connected level, but I know that going through these things with me is hard on him, too. It is, frankly, one of the reasons I moved into my own place – some of this is ‘easier’ to face alone. Sometimes is just harder, in general, to face it at all.

I have all the usual choices in front of me. All the practiced practices supporting my emotional resilience – much improved over the past two years – and I feel equipped to take care of me, even now – but fuck it’s harder than I want it to be. I think back to the morning’s contentment and ease. There is another morning tomorrow, and surely I will not still be weeping. I don’t understand why I am weeping now…unless it is simply that some stuff really is worth crying over – at least once – and some of it I just never got to that part at that time. I was too busy enduring, surviving, overcoming, managing, withstanding, and holding on to whatever fragments of self I could maintain in the chaos. The damage piled up, and now I am crying. So. Okay. Now what?

A bit like squinting at fruit I can't reach, with the sun in my eyes.

A bit like squinting at fruit I can’t reach, with the sun in my eyes.

A few more deep breaths. A big drink of water – it’s a hot day and the headache itself is enough to make me weep. A cooling shower…comfy clothes…yoga…meditation…medication (medical cannabis, I’m looking your way on this one!)…and being gentle with this fragile vessel and the tender hurt thing resting within it. We’ll be okay, this woman in the mirror and I; we’re making this journey together – and we aren’t traveling alone; I’m never far from my traveling partner’s thoughts. I could call, right now, and he would answer.

Hell…incremental progress over time is – and in fewer than 500 words, harder already seems a bit easier. I wonder for just a moment whether posting this is “necessary” and realize…maybe that isn’t about me, at all. It wouldn’t be a very complete narrative if I just take the bits I don’t find comfortable out of it. Isn’t that part of what hasn’t worked for me before? It seemed ‘too easy’ – and not relevant to the very real ups and downs. The failures. The struggles. How much harder it sometimes seems…the tears. I get back up. I start again. I let it pass.

It rained the other day, quite a lot. It isn't raining now.

It rained the other day, quite a lot. It isn’t raining now.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Bitch, Don’t Start With Me…

July 28, 2015 //
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I woke ahead of the alarm, and almost immediately my thoughts turned in a dark direction, filling with negativity, doubt, imagined hurts – all in the seconds after waking, before my broken brain really has a chance to boot up and fight the demons in the darkness. With a sigh I flip on the light – and reach for the alarm clock. No way to I want to hear it go off – my internal alarm bells were already clanging away.

I took my morning medication and went straight for the music – “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” for openers, first thing, and loud enough to hear in the shower. In this case, the ‘bitch’ in question is the woman in the mirror – and I sing along, right to her face, all through my shower and getting dressed for the day. Seriously? Acknowledging the power of my own freedom to choose, and the potential it has to color my experience, means on a morning when my own brain attempts a sneak attack – it’s totally okay to call me on my bullshit, myself. By the time my coffee is ready, I expect to be past the difficult waking moment, without using up the emotional reserves necessary to deep dive the chaos and damage; it’s enough to recognize that I have more than my share, and understand that it can make for some challenges now and then. (At least, that’s definitely enough at 4:30 am on a work morning, before I am even completely awake!)

By the time my coffee is ready – I’ve recovered my now-utterly-routine peaceful leisurely morning. I celebrate with my favorite bounce back anthem. Dancing from the kitchen with my coffee, singing along as I cross the room with a wink and a smile at the woman in the mirror – that crazy bitch knows I am not taking her bullshit today! lol [Reminder: there are no literal voices in my head, and I am just this one person right here – but I do find it handy to face the woman in the mirror on terms that allow me to communicate more easily with myself across the chasm of this injury and the vast piles of chaos and damage left behind from other experiences with other people.]

It’s a morning for music, I guess. I am moved.  Listening to “Love Sex Magic” when it comes up in the playlist, I grin and feel the residual heat and fervor of my love for my traveling partner…and on some other level, my pure delight and animal enthusiasm for healthy adult play, generally. Few things chase the demons back into the darkness like a really good playlist. 🙂

Aside from the complicated moments immediately after waking, it’s a lovely morning. My coffee is tasty, smooth, hot – and I managed it without spilling boiling water on the counter when I moistened the filter, or getting dust from ground coffee all over the floor – I often do both. It’s okay; I’m learning not to take my own humanity personally, or treat small such ‘mistakes’ as any reflection on my worth as a human being, a partner, a lover, artist, writer, or woman – hell, it’s not even “about” having a brain injury. Every human, everywhere, has moments of clumsiness, makes mistakes, causes a mess by mistake, or falls short of their own vision of who they can be on some occasion. Perfect? It’s not a thing in real life. I’m over that. I haven’t lost anything but some needless heartache to let go of emotionally brutalizing myself over ever action or outcome that could be viewed as a mistake – and with good reason, frankly; too many of them turn out to be, if not utterly necessary in some unanticipated fashion, just not a big deal at all, and definitely unworthy of the drama, turmoil, and hurt. I figure, over time, continuing to treat myself well in this fashion will also result in having the reaction, itself, come up far less often. That tends to be how incremental change over time works out.

My arthritis is hurting a lot this week. Dancing helps – hurts, but it does help, and the easiest way to overcome the inertia of pain is to find movement irresistible – that’s dance, right there, isn’t it?  Turning on the music this morning was a good call for my body, as well as my heart and mind. My playlist is mostly dance tracks, hip hop, crunk, and couple of other favorites that ‘don’t really belong here’ (Santana, Billy Idol, Skrillex) … only… this is my playlist, and they do ‘belong’. How much easier would so much of life be with practices that made the practicing itself irresistible? There’s often a real thrill or moment of gratification associated with experiences in life that present the greatest risks of negative outcome… sex… money… rage… That’s more than a little bit inconvenient for a woman with a dis-inhibiting brain injury, trust me. I’m glad I can yield to the urge to dance without concern for adverse consequences. 🙂

A summer day, a journey that continues.

A summer day, a journey that continues.

The point this morning, as much as anything, is that I am often in my own way more than anything else is. Injuries do happen. Pain is part of the human experience. The constant struggling is a choice. Learning to make my choices differently is a process. Today is a good day to practice the practices that are working best for me. It’s a good day to remind the woman in the mirror I won’t be taking her shit, either; we need each other, but I won’t be allowing her chaos and damage to call the shots, when I can avoid it with other choices. Today is a good day to enjoy the journey.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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