Injustice, hate, simple rudeness and inconsiderate behavior… Today the world is not a pretty picture…until and unless I turn my camera’s eye toward the beauty of a summer day.
I don’t have the words to convince anyone, and for now I am satisfied to see for myself.
Every day is a new experience. Will your choices change your experience, and the experience of others, for the better? All others?
Choose wisely; the quality of your experience depends on it. 😉
Well, maybe, maybe not…’sexy’ is pretty subjective. Interesting concept, too; part emotion, part aesthetic, part visceral response to…someone. Sex is a big deal for a primate. I guess maybe a few people get The Sex Thing figured out pretty easily. I thought I had. I mean, The Sex Thing has always been a subject worthy of considerable contemplation (and practice), and I’ve long wondered why we don’t take it all so much more (and less) seriously. We don’t expect nuclear physicists to wake up when they turn 18 and suddenly know what is unknown, or expect educators to be born fully formed and possessing all the known information of the universe to pass on to the youth of the next generation, or expect needed knowledge or skills to be magically in our possession without taking the steps to learn them, refine them, enhance them – and share them with others. Somehow, someone somewhere got the dumb-ass idea that sex doesn’t require – or warrant – study and education and skill building. lol. I’m still – after giving the matter approximately 39 years of contemplation – I’m still entirely bemused that as a culture we can be so incredibly short-sighted, and yeah…just not very bright, to think for a moment that sex doesn’t rate the same serious study and pursuit of knowledge that any other meaningful endeavor in life is expected to require.
Oh…maybe sex isn’t ‘meaningful’? Yeah, we can stop there. All I need, personally, to ‘prove’ the meaningful quality, the value, the importance of sex is a moment to observe the huge amount of human bandwidth that goes into getting sex, having sex, stopping other people from having sex, regulating sex, talking about sex, thinking about sex, writing about sex, video taping sex, measuring things that are relevant to sex, cataloging practices and achievements that have to do with sex someone, somewhere, is having – real or imagined. There are multiple industries that support our appetite for sex, and our sometime desire to stop ourselves from craving or pursuing some particular detail that really does it for us as individuals. If sex weren’t meaningful, we would have no need to enact laws that regulate or govern it, or our freedom to have it, or our restrictions from having it – and we sure wouldn’t be spending any of our limited mortal hours speaking in envious, or horrified, tones about the sex someone else is having. So sure, meaningful, obviously.
Sacred? Could be…but to whom? Why? What quality about it? Does one person’s sexual take on life, the world, and ‘everything’ have any real relevance to anyone else’s? Does what we know, think we know, or once thought we knew about sex have any permanence? Mores change. Taboos change. “Normal” isn’t any more ‘real’ than the thinking that defines it.
Honestly, it’s on my mind a lot lately – sex. The whole thing; how it feels, what it means to me, what I like, what I need…and mindfulness. The March Toward Menopause continues, slower than I’d like, but perhaps I need the time? I’m not the same woman I was at 18. I understand the world differently. I understand myself differently. Even sex is different…and I haven’t ‘figured it all out’, yet. (We’re all adults here, right? Can we talk about this?) The mindfulness practices I am learning are so helpful in so many areas of life – my overall stress level day in and day out is much lower, and I feel more comfortable living my life and enjoying my experience…and I am still struggling to figure out how to apply ‘mindfulness’ to sex. Seriously. So far, most of my experience applying mindfulness to sex, or attempting to, results more often than not in an intensely ‘self-conscious’ experience, with far more awareness of small points of physical discomfort, concern about my partner’s experience in the moment, and ‘performance anxiety’. I’m pretty sure that last one is a pretty huge indicator that I’m not making best use of the potential in mindfulness, at least where sex is concerned. lol Fuck, at least I’m still laughing about it. I like sex too much not to keep trying…but I do tend to be a bit on the ‘think-y’ side…so of course, I go looking for any available resource. What do I find?
A quick Google search for “Mindfulness and Sex” returns more than 5 million hits, and the first two pages include links to some excellent articles…and I’ve read them, each and every one. Hell, I took notes. I did further reading on relevant topics. It hit me today… it isn’t that mindfulness ‘isn’t working’ for me, where sex is concerned. 😦 It is working…and I am becoming aware that some of my experience includes feelings of anxiety, of performance pressure, of physical discomfort, of subtle moments of resentment or anger when things don’t go quite as hoped, and of simple self-consciousness and concern about the small details that matter, and my partner’s experience. Mindfulness isn’t broken because my experience isn’t universally simple, easy, and ecstatic – it is working quite nicely – because my experience isn’t actually simple, easy, or a matter of getting from arousal to ecstasy quickly and without complications. It isn’t reasonable to expect it to be, is it? Sexual trauma survivor…going through menopause? Right, looking at it in print, it seems pretty silly to have expectations of sex that could be filmed in a single take, with the history I have. lol.
It’s looking like ‘dealing with my shit’ is going to include a whole new understanding of my sexual self…I’d like to embrace that as an adventure, an opportunity…no, no that’s not quite true. I’d like it not to be on my agenda at all. Seriously? How do I even start? What are the ground rules? Why can’t I just ‘take a class’ at the local community college? Why didn’t my education prepare me for this?
Well…I haven’t figured everything out, but it is still a lovely summer day. 😀
Lovely pink flowers on a summer day.
Let me get what is true and obvious out of the way, first, as an effort to find clarity; it is a lovely summer Saturday, sunny and mild.
“Sheer Bliss”, and a breezy, sunny Saturday.
It is also pretty disappointing as Saturdays go, at least for now. If it just sucked from the moment I woke, I think it would be less bothersome that it sucks right now. Unfortunately for my present mood, the morning was lovely, and I developed expectations of how great a day it could turn out to be. It fell apart unexpectedly, largely due to the vagaries of the human primate experience in the close quarters of self-imposed captivity, hemmed in by walls and windows and expectations and needs. Because I’m not very comfortable with dealing with my own anger – or frustration or disappointment – with some sort of genuinely adult skill and graciousness, I’ve ended up being more than a little discontent in general, disconnected, and finding little pleasure things I could be doing instead; they entirely lack any satisfaction or enjoyment for me just now. That’s enough to render the moment complete suckage, for the time being. Very human, and very reflective of a lifetime of following the lead of my emotions as if they were a powerful current with irresistible pull.
I am returning to my ‘now’ again and again, taking a breath, and putting ‘things’ on pause to feel the moment, hoping to find some small pleasure or delight in it. I mean, seriously? For fuck’s sake – there are easily a million people in the world right now without enough to eat, without a safe haven from a storm, or respite from war, or a secure home to live in, or affordable medical care, or the simple decency of being accepted by their community…all I’ve got to bitch about is that my Saturday isn’t as pleasant as I’d prefer? It’s not exactly a global crisis, is it? I can do better than this.
Still…sand in my oyster. This has every potential to be an awesome Saturday, full of laughs and good fun with people who matter to me. How do I create a pearl? (I find myself contemplating the possibility of a ribald ‘pearl necklace’ joke of some kind here, but come up empty-handed. lol > sense of humor still intact)
So…
…It takes a few moments (ha! sometimes much longer) to write one of these – at least it does for me – and it is now quite some time later than it was when I started. I mention it because over the few minutes writing, feet up on the ottoman, toes warmed by the sunlight pouring in through the skylight, the soothing trickling of aquarium noises, and the bump of bass in the background, I am finding myself slowly letting go of my anger, finding a more compassionate perspective to embrace, and time begins to slow down…the day is still ahead of me. Â My day. I can do a lot with that. I can take care of me.
It is a quiet morning, beyond my common understanding of quiet. I am still and serene. I am… ok. It’s been a couple of days to take care of my fragile heart, to heal and to rest. My eyes still tear up when I think about Tuesday morning, and I hurt down deep that ancient pain can still touch me at all. That it can reach through progress and every day delight to grab hold of my experience and continue to torment me saddens me a great deal, and so much of that vague simmering undercurrent of anger in ‘who I am’ is about this…that the pain of what-has-been can still touch me.
I see the reflection of my face in the dark mirror of the unused side monitor…I don’t look broken. I don’t look like I’ve lost my mind. I see the hint of a smile, and a subtle knowing look that suggests ‘you can’t fuck with my head so easily’…although I don’t think that’s accurate, as much as how I see that reflection; a hint of a woman I am becoming, more than the woman I have been in the past. There are also big colorful earrings…which is for the moment more relevant to my pleasure in that reflection. They match my shirt. I feel a moment of familiar affection for this complicated being that I am. Becoming more…’aware’…has also resulted in some fun moments of friendly exasperation over being so very human. I’m endlessly amused by my vanity…do earrings really matter? That the purple of these bold cheap purple and green daisies is quite the same purple as the hand-me-down purple thermal delights me in a sweet and simple way. It isn’t that the purple is a match that matters, as much as the delight. The delight is more about where the earrings and shirt came from. Every material thing I cherish has a story, or holds a memory.
Today isn’t trivial. Today isn’t tragic, either. It’s just a day. It is, however, a day that has started well and for now that is more than enough to put a smile on my face. It was a tough week…strangely, and wonderfully, it’s an enormous improvement over other, older, more difficult weeks. It’s been about resting, recovering, healing…instead of ‘more of the same’ and the pain and anger and the tears. The mindfulness practices I am learning have helped more than I can describe; imperfect perfection. I need a lot more practice. lol. Progress, though, is enough to show me I am choosing a path that is taking me to some desirable destination. Again, that’s enough. It wasn’t so long ago that I’d have spent days bouncing in and out of horrible states of rage and despair, frustration and tears, unable to get ‘unstuck’ from ancient pain, unable to be aided or consoled, begging for mercy, unheard. Then there’d have been days and days of fatigue and exhaustion, wandering around in a blue funk, teetering on the edge of ‘more of the same’, until it all finally ran its course. This is so much better.
It is Friday, though…and that means therapy. Progress is awesome. Doing the work that supports further progress…not always so awesome. It’s ok, though. I have the support of my partners, and 50 years of life experience to remind me that my demons only have the power I give them, and that the journey is not about the goal, or measuring the distance walked, as much as enjoying the experience over time.
No pictures today, and far fewer than a thousand words.
PTSD. This morning these are the most important 4 letters in the alphabet, for me. They are not important individually, and they are not important for the words the initialism represents, at least, not right now. Right now they are only important because they name my experience and give me shared language to attempt to communicate with the world.
“Broken” 2012, detail
For now, I am calm, again. Things seem quiet. An eternity ago the morning started easily and beautifully. Something went very wrong. The brain injury complicates my experience. I’m so fatigued now, and my memory of what went wrong, exactly, and what set me off, and what exactly transpired between then, and some short time later (an hour almost exactly) is all pretty fuzzy and jumbled. Confused. A moment of irritability became ‘an episode’. I don’t actually know what that must be like from the outside…I can’t see me from that perspective. From the inside it is…frightening, actually terrifying, and the loss of control is…hard to describe. Lost in panic and terror, uninhibited aggression is a very real and imminent threat, and the awareness of that adds to my terror and panic. I do remember reaching again and again for mindfulness practices I am learning – this was their first real ‘test drive’ in my emotional ‘badlands’. I kept trying to breathe, to focus on that, to allow that moment of new breath to give me just a bit more control over my actions…no throwing things…breathe…no slamming things…breathe…no head slamming…breathe…no self harm… I achieved a personal best this morning. It wasn’t everything…I’m not strong enough yet, or skilled enough, or… perhaps just too broken. It was finally too much to manage and I was overcome, overwhelmed by chaos and damage. I remember feeling as if I were under attack, as if my life, my will, my liberty were threatened, as if my actual being were at risk of…not being. The world seemed to fall away and I remember crying out…pleading, I think, for help…or mercy.
I am fortunate, so very fortunate. I sit quietly here, soft jazz playing, tears still sliding down my face on and off as my emotions come and go, and my poor tired broken brain does its best to regulate things appropriately. My partner was with me, and he is more prepared than most people to support a partner with the issues I’ve got. “There for me” doesn’t even begin to describe it. He is the voice of reason calmly observing I’ve been triggered; before I realize myself that I’m going off the edge, he’s giving me something to grab onto for emotional leverage, for perspective. He’s the warm embrace comforting me, in spite of my behavior, and emotional state. He’s the thoughtful touches: the ready kleenex, the sympathy, the jazz playlist, the good listener, the wise storyteller. He gives me closeness, then space, as he watches me move through the badlands; helpless to share my experience, ever willing to share ours, and always doing his best to nurture me and helping heal my heart. I can’t ask for more – I doubt there is more to ask for.
My other partner woke later, the worst of it past. Less experienced, but all the love the world to build on, her first question was ‘what can I do to support you?’ with the firm commitment of a soldier on the battlefield, her will and her resolve available on request, without hesitation. I am fortunate to be so well-loved.
I know more about taking care of me, now. I’m taking that very seriously these days. So, today will be that – taking care of me. Recovering. Healing.
“Emotion and Reason” 2012 detail
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Evening Light 