Archives for category: Love
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Tonight

February 5, 2014 //
0

I look in the mirror and see so much more than ‘me’ tonight. There are tears queued up just behind my eyes, felt more than seen. Eyes red. Signs of age. Why am I weeping? Tears cascading down unprovoked. My heart feels strangely light. I walked a while in the night air, feeling the softness of a spattering of rain drops. Smelling the flowers of coastal California, somehow recognizably different from ‘home’. Where exactly is ‘home’ these days? Somewhere in my heart, I guess, not quite on a map that has any reality outside my own experience. I find myself wondering what a ‘map of the world’  might look like if the scale and importance were determined by my recollections and experience, only, rather than what ‘is’ – or seems to be.

The night tells its own stories.

The night tells its own stories.

Tonight I had dinner with an old friend. That seems simple enough. Out of town, on business, catch up with old friends… it happens in every city every day, I’m sure. We talked about challenges and old heartache, of friends, and changes, and loved ones now gone. We talked of triumphs, and wonder. We talked of love and growth. We laughed.

Why am I weeping? I’m not sad, exactly. I’m not wounded. I’m not grieving. Hell… I just had a great time, connected and deep, and transcending time and space, with a friend I’ve missed a while and love to hang out with. We’re open with each other.  The conversations we share are deep; they always have been. Why am I weeping? Is this what having a heart feels like?

Emotions are strange. I’m okay. I’m… moved. Deeply moved by the pleasure of a good friend’s company. Moved by how good it feels to be human and connected and able to feel so much so deeply. Tears fall. I’m still okay, and there’s nothing ‘wrong’ at all.

Stillness, perspective, and a cup of tea.

Stillness, perspective, and a cup of tea.

Moments come and go. Challenges rise, and we rise to face them. Truths in life are revealed, and accepted, rejected, denied, or held dear. There’s always time, and rarely enough. Aren’t the laughter and the tears just part of it all? Part of this human experience? My tears dry as I make a cup of tea and ponder life’s ponderables. Slowly the sounds of traffic outside my window overcome the sound of stillness in my hotel room.

I’m not a little girl anymore. 50. I still make mistakes. I make a lot more of them that I’d like. Tonight I learned that one of those is how little I invest in some of the relationships I hold most dear, allowing myself to coast on what has been. It’s a poor investment practice, when the return is so high to choose differently – and really, at any time, we could be … or not be. Snuffed out like a candle at bedtime. Finished like a writing assignment on a deadline. Done. Gone. Ended. Over. No longer on the premises. The chances to be with my friends are not unlimited. Life is not unlimited. Time is not unlimited. I will make different choices. This matters too much to me; I can tell by the quantity of tears and the pure relief of seeing an old friend again, even for a couple of hours.

Tonight I am grateful. Grateful for love. Grateful for good friends. Grateful for those few precious relationships in which I feel visible and understood. Those feelings are powerful – certainly worth tolerating a few tears. Tonight I am thinking of you, my dearest friends, and all my loves – then and now and evermore. I miss you – out there, somewhere, in the night. I hope you are each and all warm and safe and dry, that you have what you need and more, and that you feel loved, and welcomed wherever you are right now.  Take care, and be well – and let’s get together soon.

❤

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words

Life Needs a Caution Sign

January 30, 2014 //
4

Or two, or three, or hell – let’s just pave it into something comfortable, predictable, and mapped, settle into easy contentment, and call it a day?

I had a great day at work, yesterday. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that ‘work life balance’ may actually mean that when things at work suck, things at home are lovely, and of course…the inverse of that would then be true as well. That, thankfully, is fanciful bitterness with struggle, and with the simple ups and downs of life.  We’re each having our own experience. The experiences we have are not all uniformly pleasant, or comfortable. I guess I’ll keep practicing the practices that seem to build a life that is more up than down, more content than not, easier than hard, more pleasant than unpleasant, and see where all that goes.

This morning isn’t my best morning. I woke crying from dreams that contained content ripped from the most difficult moments of the prior evening. It was nearly an hour before my brain would even acknowledge that the evening had ended on a relatively positive note – or at least finished somewhat supportively. My heart feels heavy, and tears are queued up waiting for a reason to spill over. This is one of my least favorite emotional states.

The bottom-line is that I want more than I have in life, in love, emotionally, sexually, even financially (although that one is very low on my list, and exists more to bolster the likelihood of other things I value being attainable).  I think wanting is probably pretty commonplace.  It takes wanting to reach a sense of being without, after all.  I even understand the connection between craving and discontent, and how difficult life can become when we desire only those things that are out of reach, or when we lose sight of the wonders we already have in our life.  I started 2014 knowing that ‘sufficiency’ is a big deal for me, and that ‘contentment’ is an emotional experience I enjoy, and a quality I would like to develop and support.  What I don’t know is where the subtle distinction between genuine contentment and ‘settling’ for something is, and how to recognize it. Is there a difference?

I struggle to communicate with the people nearest to me. Setting boundaries, sharing needs, speaking calmly and explicitly about what I want, what supports my needs over time, being honest about how I feel in the moment, or in general, these are all very difficult for me to begin with. Doing them well is something I find myself working so hard at, and still not succeeding with any reliability. At least, if I am succeeding, the outcome is incredibly unpleasant much of the time. This morning I woke wishing I could just stop talking at all. No more words. No speaking. No writing. No.More.Words.  I seem to have a gift for saying too much, or phrasing something in the worst possible way.  I rarely feel actually understood, or even heard. (It makes it so much ‘worse’ that there was a time and a relationship in which I did feel understood and heard, making it something possible in life that I just don’t have now.)

This morning I have a lingering feeling that the things that matter most to me are simply things I can’t have, or will experience only very rarely. I want very much for that to just be okay, if it is true. If it isn’t true, I’d like that emotional cocktail to just go away. I would like to have a better understanding of ‘sufficiency’. Enough. What is ‘enough’. How to I get that? I have the nagging suspicion that even intimacy is easier/better when approached mindfully… but I’m not sure I ‘get’ how to approach it at all. I suspect I may not have correctly labeled whatever the hell I think the experience of intimacy feels like, and am chasing an unknown experience, or ‘shooting at the wrong target’.

I am grouchy and things suck this morning. I am very human, and even though my intellect politely reminds me that ‘this is a construct of your own thinking and you can choose differently’ and my recently-more-mindful-and-learning-more-all-the-time heart tells me ‘this too shall pass’, I’m hurting now, and it is hard to stop picking at it. Soon I’ll head to work, and the process of getting there will distract me for a time, and maybe it will be forgotten when I head home tonight?

Right now is right now. Right now I feel like giving up. I’m frustrated, hormonal, and cross. I spent the night with my fears and nightmares and woke feeling sad, tired, and crying. Right now is harder than it has to be, and right now I’m struggling. This too – quite inevitably – shall pass. Time runs out, moves on, and brings change. So. Yeah. (I hear myself laugh out loud, it sounds a little worn down and bitter, and I think about how lovely yesterday was – that passed, didn’t it? Yep. So…this will as well.)

Some lovely pictures from yesterday…

We can build serenity.

We can build serenity.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming...

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming…

Getting right up close doesn't always simplify our view of things.

Getting right up close doesn’t always simplify our view of things.

I am grateful that my experience this morning is largely subjective and a construct of my brain. I can find my way to something different. Compassion first, then, this morning? I pause with a certain surprise to realize that as I typed those words, my internal critic was hurling invective at me, launching emotional weaponry, and rallying my demons… I’m not always fully aware of the nasty bits and pieces of old hurts and old programming ‘going live’ to defend themselves in the background. Grim. Definitely compassion first…well… sort of first. Okay, not even a little bit first – that would have been a more positive start. Still human. I tested me. lol

Compassion, then, this morning – now that I see how much I need it.

Today, I am human. Today I face my hurts with self-compassion, and my certainty that emotional states rely on choices, too, however inevitable or permanent they feel in the moment. Today I change the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

A Beginner’s Mind

January 25, 2014 //
0

Strange, beautiful, wonderful day; sights and tastes and conversations with strangers, and after all of it, I find myself at home, secure and comfortable, safe from the world – and from myself, which is a new thing to explore.

It’s been building for a couple of days, this strange juxtaposition of new learning and new experiences, this willingness to let go and allow life to unfold, fearlessly. I am unconcerned with whether it ‘is real’ or if it will last longer than now. It’s now. I am here, in this precious lovely moment, after this delightful day, and it feels so effortless to contemplate the quiet of evening ahead. This is nice. I hope to repeat it (the feeling, in general, I mean – the moment has been enough on its own, and unrepeatable).

Today I awoke at an odd time, later than usual, but ahead of the alarm – itself set for an out of the ordinary time of morning. My routine was in tatters before I ever woke, and knowing that when I descended into sleep the night before, I woke unconcerned about it.  I made two lattes, and enjoyed a morning of intimate, gentle conversation with a partner already awake for the day, and left with a smile near to the time I needed to, imprecise and free from chronological bondage, to catch the train to an appointment. A hair cut, and a manicure later, I headed for my last errand, thoroughly enjoying the day and feeling very pampered.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

What made today so rare, so extraordinary? Well, for one thing, the sun shined like …well… something brilliant and without adequate words. I enjoyed all manner of odd experiences along the path of my day-that-routine-forgot. My morning was unscripted. My haircut is different – on a whim. I got my nails done somewhere I’d never been. I had a bite of breakfast at an odd little stand-up cafe wedged among the food carts; it was very early and I munched my breakfast sandwich standing alongside a small throng of ‘the unwashed masses’ panhandling for a shot at a sandwich. It was a very good sandwich, and the conversation wasn’t bad, either.   I had a maple cinnamon latte at a cafe obviously frequented by artists – I’d never been there, but the conversations swirling around me in the background were a giveaway. Later, as I headed home, I saw a SuperHero cross the street, quite properly, at the cross walk and head into a small pharmacy. I wasn’t surprised, which did surprise me. A block or two along the way, I spotted another, then another SuperHero – tights, spandex, cape, all of it.  I don’t always think to question the extraordinary. This was definitely one of those times. It was many miles and minutes later before I thought to wonder – SuperHeroes? Why were there SuperHeroes?

I was offered an earnest moment of self-awareness and perspective, along with the fun of the day.  To reach my last destination, I walked across the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

To do so, I had to carefully make my way through huddled groups, tribes, clans, of homeless people finding what comfort they can, where they are permitted to do so. Years ago, I’d have felt invisible passing between and around them, camouflaged by my own indifference to their privation, and mine. More recently, I might have averted my eyes, instead, hoping to avoid interaction, and allow what little dignity I had to offer through my lack of observation. Today I felt humbled; aware that I’d just had my hair and nails done, a recent shower in a safe and secure home of my own, an exceptional cup of coffee and a nutritious breakfast, and very aware of what a privilege that actually is.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

On the train home, I continued my reading (Buddha’s Brain). The books about mindfulness are piling up. Some take a practical perspective. Some take a poetic tone. Some are quite spiritual, but striving to distance themselves from religion. Others are about the science. I am still a student, of life, of love – of mindfulness. I still have PTSD. I am still a survivor of trauma, and of a brain injury. I’m still headed for menopause.  While those things are parts of my experience I’m willing to identify as ‘facts’, I am also no longer utterly dominated by them. I’m learning. I’m studying. Bit by bit, I seem to be gaining on real wellness and balance. I hope I never find myself taking them for granted when I have them – and it does look like ‘when’ now, more than ‘if’. I wish I could share it. It’s all in print, in every one of these books. Each book telling the tale in a slightly different way, with different words, and different authors of different traditions and styles of communication. It’s all there, though. Mindfulness. Meditation. Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

It’s not about ‘practice makes perfect’. There is no perfect. No need of perfect. There is only practice. A bit at a time I am catching on to the idea that the journey itself is the thing to attend to.

Along the way, more practice.

Along the way, more practice.

Today, I face the world with a beginner’s mind. Today I am compassionate. Today I am tender. Today I am changing the world.  Here it comes.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

A Suggestion, An Observation, A Paradox

January 23, 2014 //
0

Be kind to yourself. Just that. Simple as suggestions go.

The paradoxical search for enlightenment...

The paradoxical search for enlightenment…

“When you change your brain, you change your life.” from Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Hanson, Rick).

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Uncategorized, women, Words

Waiting for the Dawn

January 21, 2014 //
0

I am almost eager for dawn to come, for the clock to tick around to that particular moment when I head out the door for work. It is a rare feeling for me. I enjoy it, and I don’t question or doubt it. It is simply a feeling, and a pleasant one.

My fears that I would again find myself utterly unable to manage balance and fulfillment in the 4.5 hours left to me outside the workday Monday through Friday (once sleep and hygiene are accounted for) have proved to be unfounded – at least so far. Yes, time is precious and limited during the week, but somehow the weekend was vast and satisfying, and I met needs I’ve had for sometime and had struggled to fulfill, even between jobs. Time is non-negotiable and does not take any shit off of me, for sure. I am learning to enjoy moments, without clocks, and time seems to slow down for me when I do.

This weekend was made up of relaxed mornings meditating, doing yoga, writing, and reading. Time to study, and time to dream, even time to do seemed plentiful this weekend. I feel rested, and because I didn’t feel run down and emotionally drained at the end of the week, just tired, I didn’t have to work so hard to recharge. A solidly good weekend makes an exceptional jumping off point for another week of work.

I wonder if my new understanding that I am not obligated to do any particular job, or for any particular employer, also contributes to the lack of that other feeling I have for so long associated with employment… obligation pushed to the point of feeling trapped and resentful. It’s very nice not feeling that. Feeling trapped into employment resulted in work feeling more like indentured servitude as I scrambled to cover bills, struggled to get to ahead, and found myself making choices to go without some small thing or another, and having to prioritize the needs of an employer over the needs of my own heart and soul. Too ‘lefty’ and ‘soft’ for you? That’s okay with me – you go ahead and choose differently for yourself. 😉  I find myself content and comfortable with putting myself at the top of my To Do list.

No pictures today. The commute certainly offers up occasional photo-worthy moments, and I carry my camera with me nearly everywhere…the last few days I haven’t used it much. I’m still getting the timing on my commute down, still feeling a tad self-conscious about missing a connection. I get two shorter walks, a ride on the light rail, and a ride on the not-so-light rail, amounting to a commute of about an hour – not much longer than the previous commute, but considerably more dependent on good timing for success. Soon though…I’ve been playing with settings and lighting and taking time to get more skilled with my little camera.

Life feels pretty good. I smiled as I headed into town for my appointment with my therapist yesterday with a smile on my face. Somehow, I still ended up in tears in his office. How the fuck are there still so many tears to cry?! It’s strange crying in front of him – he doesn’t make the same faces other men do, who have seen me in tears. Why is that, I suddenly wonder? And why has it not occurred to me to wonder before? He and I simply continue to talk, my face leaking mostly goes unnoticed. I wouldn’t mind figuring that out with other men in my life, too. The tears are largely pretty inconsequential, putting an important emotional conversation on hold over them is a big distraction. lol

So, here we all are… a few words, an imminent dawn, a Tuesday morning. The new routine slowly develops around new choices, ongoing needs, hopes, dreams, projects… I’m working on a manuscript, it’s enough to say that, I think. No plot spoilers from me. lol. Then there’s clay, and there are images, and there is paint, pen & ink, life and love, a few chores to do between the fun bits… It may be some weeks before I iron out the details and find myself easily writing every day, again, at least here. I’m writing a lot, reading more than I have in years (turns out that a Kindle is a great choice of gift for me). Life has flow and balance and joy… and coffee. 🙂

Today…I am, and for the moment it is enough.

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »