Archives for category: Metaphors
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Gray Rainy Days

December 16, 2020 //
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Living in the Pacific Northwest, at least currently, results in a lot of gray, rainy, autumn and winter days. I love the rain. My arthritis doesn’t respond to it as pleasantly. I’m in pain. It’s just physical pain. I think over past winter holiday seasons, and try to recall the last one that was not characterized, in some way, by the amount of pain I’m in. It’s been a long time. I give up on that, take a breath, exhale, and let it go. I think about Giftmas, instead.

The tree glows merrily. The mantlepiece, too. The gifts under the tree are a dazzling display of festive wrappings. I am eager to open them, and to enjoy the holiday with my Traveling Partner, here at home, us two, together. A simple holiday at home seems more than sufficient; I’m delighted with the planning, and the decor, and the company. I think about far away friends and family, and wonder about their plans, and wish them well from afar.

…I am reminded to do the holiday cards, like… tonight. lol It’s almost too late…

I sit with the last dregs of my morning coffee, and a gray rather dismal view through a rain spattered window. There is plenty of work in front of me. I took this break to write hoping to return to work feeling refreshed. 🙂

What is “enough”? I’m sure a lot of folks out and about without a mask on, possibly without practicing social distancing, maybe even without giving a care to people who may be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than they themselves feel, are struggling to feel a sense of sufficiency faced with limitations on their movement, their social activities, and all the details of life in the time of pandemic. I don’t really understand the feeling of invulnerability. I definitely don’t get making it a political matter. I breathe through that, too. I let it go, with a reminder to myself to wash hands often (and with care), and mask up before going out, and maintain social distance. Sure, it’s taken getting used to for me, too. I gotta admit though; I do like how much cleaner stores seem to be. I like how much less often people seem to go out into the world when they are obviously unwell, and how few coworkers attempt to work when they are sick, compared to last year. These seem to be improvements worth hanging on to… I hope we do.

In the meantime, Giftmas draws ever nearer… and I’m excited. 😀

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Mixed Emotions

December 9, 2020 //
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What a peculiar day. Busy on the work side, scrambling toward the end of the calendar year. Merry on the personal side – ’tis the season, etc. Ups. Downs. Emotions. Today I had a moment of deep sorrow and self-directed disappointed, in the middle of a morning filled with self-doubt, then, immediately following (even caused by) that moment, I went on to have one of the most moving, intimate, profoundly connected moments of supportive partnership with my Traveling Partner that I can recall in our 10 years together. Seriously, right up there in my top 10 deepest and moved love-infused experiences.

…Never even finished my second cup of coffee. What a day.

Sick fish in the aquarium are not good news, and omg I so did not need that on top of… oh. Hey… interesting. It’s not really “on top of” all that much. Mostly things are pretty okay. Needs are met. Love is enduring. The sky is still blue. I’m okay right now. In fact… aside from feeling a sad acceptance that I may lose some or all of my aquarium fish to illness (and being fairly over the momentary hurt of it, at this point, aside from the bit of sorrow that is what it is)… it’s honestly an okay day. A bit stressful. A bit busy. But… yeah…

The holiday season is here. The cookies I’ve been baking are yummy. I’m okay with the social distancing and staying home stuff, mostly. I do miss my friends. I miss brunches out. I miss even being able to say in any reasonable way that I’d like to visit family. It’s not always easy, but… mostly? It’s not all that different. I just don’t rush off to go here and there on a whim, and I’m sort of mildly annoyed that I can’t yet comfortably really just explore this new community I live in, because… pandemic.

…Things could be much worse. I’m feeling both fortunate and grateful, which turns out to be enough on which to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, gratitude, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Buttons and Dials

November 25, 2020 //
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I am sipping my coffee at leisure; I took today off. I know, sometimes it’s tough to sort out the days during a pandemic, working from home. Some folks may find “taking a day off” sort of pointless under those circumstances… I still find it pretty essential for my quality of life and general enjoyment and self-care. So. A day off? Yes, please.

I’m thinking about how easily loved ones can “push each others buttons”, even without meaning to. I contemplate how much more comfortable human beings often seem to be with being their most vile self in the context of their most favored or intimate relationships. (I still do not get how that makes any sense… why not, instead, be your worst self with absolute strangers, than with people you say you love? Would you not want your loved ones to enjoy the best of who you are?) It often falls to the individual to vigilantly “supervise” their vulnerable “buttons”, and to learn to be less reactive, generally. I’ve certainly found value in that, although my results do vary. “Expectation-setting” and asking any one individual to avoid pushing a given button doesn’t seem very helpful, sometimes (or within some relationships).

I sip my coffee, and my mind wanders on.

I think for a moment about the coffee, itself. A moment of comfort. A metaphor for self-care, for being centered, for self-reflection (at least for me). I so routinely take a moment of ease over a cup of coffee that having a coffee cup in my hand feels “complete” in an odd way. So… what happens when the coffee runs out? What would replace this coffee cup in my hand, if there were literally no coffee (or, at least, none for me)?

My mind wanders on. Payday tasks are handled. There is a secure comfortable feeling that comes with that, these days, especially with the holidays ahead. Another sip of coffee, and my mind moves on…

I hear the soft sound of lo-fi coffee house “radio” from the other room, over the whirr of my computer’s CPU fan. It reaches my consciousness as a sort of “wellness indicator”, telling me it’s a fine morning to enjoy life, just as it is. This prompts me to consider other “indicator dials” and gauges of wellness in my moment-to-moment experience of living life. What other signals do I send myself that “all is well”? Do I recognize conditions on a spectrum, as one might see on a gauge or dial on the dashboard of my car? Do I have an “internal dashboard” that I could quickly glance over in a moment, and correctly evaluate conditions developing in real-time? I mean… that’s sort of what all of consciousness is, more or less, I suppose… if I listen. I like the notion of an internal “wellness dashboard”. Buttons and dials. Better be careful with that. I smile at the thought of it. I have another drink of my coffee.

My mind wanders on. Not a bad start to a long holiday weekend at home with someone I love. Certainly it’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being

Then The World Went Spinning Sideways

November 24, 2020 //
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I woke too early this morning, got up to pee, went back to bed to grab a few more minutes of precious sleep. So tired. Ready for it. I laid down, instantly comfortable, and started to drift off…

…The world seemed to spin madly off its axis unexpectedly. Vertigo. Fuck. How bad would it be this time? I held on to the edge of the bed (no idea why it reliably seems this should help, it doesn’t, really), hoping it might just clear up right quick and perhaps I’d still sleep… No such luck. I rolled ever-so-carefully onto my back, reminding myself continuously in my head that the spinning isn’t real. I reminded myself to remain calm. To breathe through it. To let things settle down, patiently. This makes about half a dozen serious vertigo “events” I’ve experienced since the first one, which was, as I recall, back in 2014? 2015? Before I moved into my own place. After menopause, but before the headache came. It doesn’t matter in the moment that I’m enduring the vertigo, just gives my mind something to play with while I wait it out… like a string, offered to a cat. I remind myself to follow up with my GP that the vertigo is still “a thing”.

Best I can figure, with what I know, I most likely slept in one posture for too long, that may have pressed my neck “too bent” in one specific direction (in this case, tilted away from my left side toward my right, as I slept) and when I laid back down (on the other side, head bent in the other direction)… vertigo. It remains sufficiently rare that I count and make note of every occurrence. It’s problematic mostly because, from my own perspective, it is scary as fuck. It passes, though.

I moved on with the morning. Greeted my Traveling Partner. Made coffee. Read the news, briefly (long enough to be certain I didn’t find anything word actually reading waiting for me). Then face getting on with the work day ahead of me.

When I sat down at my desk, I leaned left (and tilted my head, also left) to turn on my laptop – vertigo. Fucking hell. I sit upright. Posture very correct. Very still. Breathing. Waiting. Holding the edge of my desk. When it passes, I go back to sipping coffee and start the work day.

It’s worth noting that I’ve recently been trying to get back to working on fitness goals. I enjoy playing Beat Saber in VR for some of my exercise – super fun. I started getting back into that over the weekend after some months away from it (the move, then time just got away from me). It’s rather taxing on my neck, and seems the likely cause of this recurrence of my vertigo. I find myself bothered that it has become “my vertigo”… a thing I deal with often enough to consider it a thing I deal with. Fuck.

Well… damn. I guess it amounts to another opportunity to practice healthy practices. To take better care of the woman in the mirror. To take my fitness needs seriously, but also approach them with consideration and care. To be patient with myself. To be thorough about taking note of changes in my health generally. Adult shit.

The day has begun in earnest. The sky is gray, the day chilly. My arthritis pain is noteworthy, but I am distracted by my concern over the vertigo, and overlook it for now. I need more coffee. There is a long holiday weekend ahead, and it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices

Sometimes It’s Hard

November 23, 2020 //
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I hurt today. Soaking helped some. Medication helped some. Morning yoga helped some. I still hurt. I’m cross, and finding it hard to deal with people gently. Pain is not visible – still complicates my interactions. Everything from a partner’s heartfelt well-intentioned fitness reminders that seem to overlook how much pain I am in to a colleague’s pleasant inquiry whether I am “having a bad day” (nope, just pain) that lacks any context regarding the one thing truly amiss (pain). I am as frustrated with the lack of ability to really drive the message home in a way that sticks with loved ones (it’s almost always just pain) as I am with my lack of ability to do anything substantial to reduce my day-to-day pain in a reliable way. Neither bit of frustration is the slightest help for actually improving anything whatsoever.

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let go of the frustration. Let go of being annoyed by the fairly steady lack of any real helpfulness involved in asking me what can be done to help. Let go of being annoyed with being reminded to do things that are good for my physical wellness, but so very difficult to embrace because I just fucking hurt. Let go of the whining about any of it (while I whine about all of it, right here). Just… let it go. Feel the love instead of the futility. It’s a tall fucking ask, I grant you that. One more thing to do, it sometimes seems…and sometimes I just feel so… tired. I take a breath, and let that go, too. Even that. Let it go.

There are tears in my eyes. Less the pain than the frustration with the pain. Sometimes it’s hard. Challenging. “The struggle is real.” I try to stop struggling and just surrender to this moment, here, now. It’s not a bad moment. It’s got some nice points to it. The work day almost over. Nice. Warm cup of noodles next to me waiting for my attention – a satisfying small bite of lunch, once it’s ready. Nice. The rain has paused and it looks like a good day to walk – I even have a purposeful destination in mind that should be within my fitness “reach”. Nice. All of that is good stuff. None of that is specifically about the pain I am in. I sit with that perspective instead, for a while.

…These noodles are ready, and it’s already time to begin again. I put the work in front of me on pause, and take care of this fragile vessel. For now, that’s enough.

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Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices
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