Archives for category: Menopause
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A New Day Dawning

January 12, 2015 //
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The alarm went off, and through the surreal sludge of dream leftovers I reached out and shut it off. I stood in the hot water of my morning shower contentedly, and for some time without real purpose, willing to take my time and enjoy the simple pleasure of the moment. I made an Americano, and changed my mind about it, splashing soy milk in it as an after thought as I headed off to meditate, and do yoga. My morning feels ‘out of sequence’ but not disordered. The day begins quietly.

I catch myself, moments later, just sitting here in silence, letting words pass through my consciousness, sipping my coffee. The weekend was productive, but in other respects left me speechless and discontent. I got a lot done, but never quite crossed the strange gulf I perceived between myself and any secure connection with another. I went to bed last night still feeling it, as one might a loose tooth, poking at it with my awareness out of curiosity and concern, and wondering important things like ‘what the hell?’ and ‘what do I do with this?’. Sleep caught up with me before any answers did.

A goal, a dream, a chance, a yearning; perspective still ends up being a very useful tool.

A goal, a dream, a chance, a yearning; perspective still ends up being a very useful tool.

This morning I sip my coffee and observe the vague sense of dueling internal states: one fairly positive, hopeful, and ready to act, and the other with a more negative perspective, rooted in a lifetime of experience with frustration and pain. The tension between the two creates a weird sort of balance; knowing that this ‘balance’ is built on the tension between incompatible emotion states, though, finds me wanting very much to loosen the grip on my heart that the negative one still has, like a parent gently and firmly opening the clenched fist of a distressed child to find the source of the commotion hidden within. I am still practicing the practices that have brought me so far; I take time, too, to linger on the weekend moments that were soulful, pleasant, filled with love, and representative of where I am headed with my heart and my relationships, reinforcing those powerfully good simple experiences in my consciousness. There are things to say, questions to ask, in due time; all that can wait, while I enjoy ‘now’.

Today I am taking care of me, and taking care with my  heart. I am making room for my emotional experience, and finding contentment in this simple lovely moment of morning stillness. For now, it’s enough. Life’s curriculum has a lot to teach, in calm moments as much as any other. Today is a good day to learn what the world has to teach me.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5

Some Restrictions May Apply

January 10, 2015 //
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Love is wonderful. Life is fairly amazing as experiences go. We are, however, imperfect mortal human primates, made as much of flaws and bad decision-making as we are of ‘star stuff’. This human experience is complicated. In every moment of misery, I try to hold on to something I find to be true about suffering, which is that the intensity of suffering tends to be a fair indicator of the magnitude of joy I am also capable of feeling. Some days that’s not much in the ‘something to hold on to’ department, but paired with ‘this too shall pass’ it’s generally enough to get by on, in a bad moment.

This morning I raise my mug in wry appreciation for the misery that woke me. I’m grateful that my traveling partner was awake, and there with a warm hug, and a hot latte. I woke feeling bereft, cut off, lonely…’lonely’ doesn’t really do the emotion that woke me justice. It was the loneliness of the friend standing by as the person they yearn for talks about ‘finding someone just like you’. It was the loneliness of the ‘tween who wants with so much hunger…and hasn’t yet become woman enough to be interesting romantically. It was the loneliness of sleeping alone, of waking alone, of being alone…and wanting intimacy and connection and companionship so much more than solitude. It was the loneliness of love lost, and the loneliness of the realization that what had been found wasn’t love at all. It was the loneliness of being ignored, or being forgotten. It was the loneliness of being unpopular. It was the loneliness of walking away. I woke feeling every lonely moment I have ever known, simultaneously delivered as a single waking moment, a sort of distilled essence of loneliness. The power of it was horrific. I woke stunned and emotionally immobilized long enough to take my morning medication, and try to go back to bed, uncertain what else to do. I felt ‘coated in distance’.  I pulled the covers over me, made my body comfortable, took a breath and relaxed to return to sleep and… and then I cried. I cried for every lonely moment I’d ever felt that I didn’t have tears for at the time. My heart melted, and it broke, and I cried until no more tears would come. I am clearly not going to be going back to sleep.

Thoughts of coffee differ from actual coffee.

Thoughts of coffee differ from actual coffee. It’s strange how intensely real thoughts can seem.

I finally woke up enough, some minutes beyond the crying, to realize that just laying there was pretty pointless, and, well… coffee. I got up and went first to my traveling partner, rather reassuringly relaxing in the living room and reading his email, sipping his morning coffee, looking for all the world like a man having a nice morning, in a world that is…just fine. He asked me how I’m doing, and I said it simply enough, without baggage or drama, “I woke feeling lonely and weird.” I accepted the offered hug, and he held me for the rest of our lives – well, no, actually just for some moments of lovely warmth and comfort, but it felt good – reassuring, safe, and comforting. By the time I sat down at my keyboard, with my latte, my heart was already feeling calmer, and the loneliness I woke to was receding. I have to wonder…how deeply can I connect to someone, how intimately close can I be with another human being, how vast is my capacity to love – if the loneliness that woke me is something I am able to feel, at all – and not only to feel, but to endure, and survive? Wow. I am eager to find my way to that connected intimate place.

Loneliness is a painful emotion to experience, and one that I find difficult to discuss, or to ease. I don’t often feel it so intensely; I enjoy my own company, greatly. For so many years my ability to connect with someone on a deeply intimate level, and my interest in doing so, was very limited. Lonely didn’t come up much, because I hadn’t the capacity to recognize I was missing something when I was alone, and when I did feel lonely it was generally a fairly biological thing driven by hormones and sexual needs, not at all on the order of the powerful loneliness experienced by someone yearning for a cherished deeply felt intimate connection that has been lost, or the loneliness of heartbreak. Perhaps learning to love truly well must include the experience of loneliness, to be valued in full? That seems a positive way to consider it, and I’m content with that for now.

I don’t know what today has to offer, or the weekend ahead, or the work week that follows. I am adaptable, life is unscripted, and reality brings spontaneity and change every moment of every day. Today I am a fearless explorer on a journey into an unknown future, with only ‘then’ and ‘now’ as compass and map. I hope to discover great things. Today is a good day to discover love.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, women, Words

Synonymous With Weird

January 9, 2015 //
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Today has been…strange. Peculiar? Sure, that, too. Perhaps a bit surreal, too, although bizarre would go too far. It’s late in the afternoon, and odd time to find me writing. That’s strange, too.

I slept deeply and well, and woke easily this morning – but woke thinking in the moment that it was during the wee hours. I felt discontent and off kilter to check the clock and have the alarm go off in my hands. My coffee was hot, and the household woke shortly after I did – only, I did not wish to interact with anyone. I heard beautiful music in the other room, and felt moved to greet my traveling partner, and the start of the day. He changed the music just at the moment I got to the living room. It was still a great track, not in step with my mood, but I lingered to enjoy it. Conversation developed, on a topic of shared-interest, and I didn’t really get to listen to the music. Then curious fact-finding questions resulted in de-railing the conversation, itself and I ended up being cut-out of the conversation. No one noticed, and I excused myself politely. Shortly after that I managed to turn a compliment into a contentious moment, making the mistake of trying to explain something that didn’t require an explanation, as it had gone unnoticed by anyone but me.

I’ve felt more than a little ‘out of step’ most of the day. Peculiar describes it well enough.

I don’t really have any enthusiasm (or interest) in troubleshooting circumstances; there’s really nothing ‘wrong’. I also don’t know that I have much more to say about it. I feel… weird. The weekend is almost here. The day is almost over. There’ll be another tomorrow. I don’t know what, if anything, I want out of ‘now’ – a connection; that’s as close as I get to understanding what I want.  A particularly intimate, deep, comfortable, reliable, loving, romantic, profoundly secure emotional connection…that I don’t know how to achieve, yet. (I will not be particularly surprised to find, on my deathbed, that this thing I yearn for doesn’t actually exist, but I am not convinced that it doesn’t…because I have the recollection of having achieved at some other time, what I yearn for now…which I also can’t count on being real.)

Inconveniently, the doctor put me on an Rx that may influence my thinking…so…what can I be sure of, at all? Yeah. Well…I’m sure it’s been a strange day.

A moment of illumination is sometimes not so easy.

A moment of illumination is sometimes not so easy.

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Categories Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

This is Why…

January 8, 2015 //
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I didn’t get far with my day yesterday before the news was filled with murder, and soon thereafter #JeSuisCharlie – and with good reason. It’s criminal to murder. It’s unacceptable to take lives over a difference in aesthetic, opinion, lifestyle – I mean, let’s face it, murder just isn’t okay.  How do people ever get the idea that there is adequate justification to murder? That’s a level of righteous entitlement that frustrates and angers me, and I feel helpless. That’s perhaps the point; to render voices silent. I am moved by the outpouring of support as artists of all sorts stand, come forward, and make statements of their own – because we are all Charlie Hebdo; artists take risks with words, images, and songs. Every one with a voice, everyone with something to share, everyone with a message, everyone with an experience outside the ordinary, everyone moved to create art, compose music, or put words in a row, is Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo isn’t an individual anymore than The Onion is an individual – and the more powerful for having distilled the voices of many into one; this terrorist attack resulted in real human lives lost, real murder, and it’s really not okay.

This is why we can’t have nice things. How many times do we have sit back in shock and horror because some lunatic jackass(es) thinks they have the right to take a life to make a statement or prove a point? It’s horrific, and fairly stupid, that this goes on… but we live in a world where whole nations commit to acts of genocide, slaughter, land-grabbing, and warfare, over opinions, over resources, and over ideology. I defy you to find justification for any of it that is ‘rational’, reasonable, or truly necessary…but we all grow up in a world where our own leaders set an example that says to us all that we are not safe, and that our lives lack value, and that for some there is justification for murder.

I, too, am Charlie Hebdo. Aren’t you? What will you do to make the world safer for the artists who amuse, who enlighten, who delight, who move you to a different understanding than you had before? We need your help, your support, and the power of your convictions. Each of us, all of us, are Charlie Hebdo; don’t let your voice be silenced.

Tiny worlds exist between one perspective and another along my way.

Tiny worlds exist between one perspective and another along my way.

My own day was much less eventful than Wednesday in Paris. I went to my medical appointment, arrived on time, had my procedure. No amount of comforting medically dismissive preparatory dialogue is adequate to describe how much this procedure hurt…but the acute moment was very brief. “You may feel some cramping…” was definitely not accurate, relative to my own experience. It was vile. Invasive. Painful. I spent the remainder of the day gently, taking care of me in the company of my traveling partner. I called it a night early. Today I feel okay, although a little achy in an area I usually don’t feel much moment-to-moment. In the context of global terrorism, murder, and the viciousness of free-range human primates it seems a small thing. I can’t help but wonder…what would the perspective be of the wee life forms living in the moss growing in the crack on a brick wall, on our madness?

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day to treat myself gently – and to treat the world gently, too; we’ve been through a lot, haven’t we? Today is a good day to be kind, out in the world.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, grief, Healthy Living, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, women

Real – Really?

January 7, 2015 //
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I woke with some difficulty this morning, so stiff that rolling over to shut off the alarm took effort, and the seeming ceaseless beeping until I got to the clock didn’t seem to do as much to wake me, for real, than I might have expected had I been sufficiently awake to have expectations beyond expecting to be able to turn off the alarm sooner, with greater ease. I’m still groggy.

I’ve been sitting here, gazing vacantly at my aquarium, and listening to a jazz standard that doesn’t sound quite right…even though I feel sure that the version I am listening to it the one I favor most.  It’s an odd sensation, that finds me searching YouTube for other versions, by other artists I have listened to singing this song… none of them sound the way I remember. the arrangement is somewhat different in all of them. Then…as I hum the version I expected, quietly, it hits me; I’m hearing the version of the song that is most representative of me singing it, myself. Yep. I sing jazz standards, mostly a capella, mostly in the shower, in the car, or out walking…and I rarely do so when anyone can hear me because my singing is actually pretty dreadful. lol I love the feeling that goes with whatever moves me to sing, and alone I feel no hint of self-consciousness about delighting myself in this fashion. I find it unexpected that my favorite version of any of these songs I love would be my own.

I suspect being hung up on this song this morning is a kindness my brain is offering me to distract from both pain, and the worrisome appointment later. It is convenient that the biopsy falls on the same day as therapy – however emotionally challenging the biopsy procedure may turn out to be, I’ll be getting pro-level support later. By the end of the work day yesterday, I was feeling pretty pragmatic about the appointment – and the procedure. I’m still tense about it, still a bit worried about the outcome, but it’s no surprise to me that I’m mortal, that I’m 52 this year, that aging is, or that uncomfortable medical procedures are sometimes necessary. I’m fortunate to have ‘procedures’ available that may save me from an early demise. Fear subsided by day’s end, and this morning I am…tense, yes, but unafraid. That’s an improvement.

The worst case scenarios my brain devised, of course, are dreadful – and seemingly reasonable, or at least potentially possible, but that’s sort of a requirement for a really terrifying worst case scenario, I think. I didn’t get past the fear until I allowed myself to consider these ‘worsts’ to their apparent likely conclusions, and took a moment to consider those proposed outcomes with an open heart, self-compassion, and acceptance. “What if…”  It added some things to the disappointingly long list of shit I think I need to work on, and served to reinforce an eagerness for life that is pretty positive, generally. My next step – and this one needed real will, and commitment to action, was to take some moments to consider that these worst case scenarios are just my brain running simulations – “what if” analysis – and they have no more reality at all than any other work of fiction. They are merely words, images, and projections of potential moments that are not yet, and may never be. They have no power over me that I do not give them, myself.

Perspective

Perspective

Having reached a point of emotional equilibrium about this appointment, it’s disappointing to wake up this morning in this much pain, and this stiff. My spine feels like my vertebrae are super-glued in place and lack any flexibility at all…but, hey… great day to see a doctor, even on an unrelated issue. (Are there really any ‘unrelated issues’, ever?)

So here’s a question… If you had to check out today – and I do mean end your mortal experience here in this plane of existence, no planning, no preparation, no last great experiences, just wrap things up and call it good – if you had to check out today, are you content with what you got done for yourself, and for the world? Have you left a lasting positive legacy of some kind, even if it’s only the lovely memories of having loved you that remain? Was it ‘worth it’? If the answer is ‘no’ – what will you do differently tomorrow? It was this question in mind, last night, as I arrived home that gave me insight I needed to communicate, at long last, something that had been throwing my heart’s song off-key and I was finally able to express it as a question without accusation, or grief, or baggage, and that was a wonderful moment.

Well…here it is, today, and no more stalling. Today is a good day to take care of me. Today is a good day to recognize the sometimes hurtful fictions in my thoughts are not the experience I live, unless I choose that experience, myself. Today is a good day to let events unfold gently. Today is just one day of many, and I am just one person, each of us having our own experience of the world.

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Fiction, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, winter
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