Archives for category: more than a little bit of bitching
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That Uncomfortable Moment

May 6, 2022 //
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I woke in a sweat, uncomfortable and shaking, tearing my consciousness from a nightmare that I had gotten pregnant – at 60, post-menopause – and unable to terminate my terribly risky and thoroughly unwanted pregnancy because the law had changed, and my bodily autonomy as a human being was utterly lost. My heart was pounding. I paced restlessly for a moment or two, feeling vaguely unsettled and with a persistent “uncomfortable” feeling in my guts.

I laid back down, fighting sensations very much at odds with each other; the sweats and discomfort, the fatigue and sleepiness. I felt peculiarly averse to going back to sleep. I wasn’t exactly nauseous… but I felt suspiciously as if I might feel better if I got sick and got past it.

Predictably enough, I was quite sick moments later. Something I ate apparently did not agree with me. The stressful nightmare was likely a byproduct of the combination of physical and emotional discomfort – one from whatever I ate that did not agree with me, the other from the recently leaked not-quite-official-yet Supreme Court document regarding the likely end of Roe v Wade. My physical discomfort was greatly eased by vomiting. My emotional discomfort… well, it’s no surprise that it persists.

…Tell me again why someone besides me, myself, has anything to say about whether or not I carry a pregnancy to term? I’ve chosen to be childless. Period. Seriously. I did not want to be a mother. Why would my choice be out of my hands? When I hear people spouting bullshit talking points about the sacredness of life from the moment of conception, I reliably find myself wondering how they are so easily able to overlook the sacredness of the life of the pregnant person, herself? How do they justify what is fundamentally a position that states women should be coercively required – forced – to bear a child? Forced to bring a pregnancy to term that they do not want. Forced to endure a potentially life-threatening pregnancy for months. Forced, potentially, to go through all that and the trauma of giving up a child for adoption in order to avoid motherhood? How is that acceptable?

I hear a lot of religious arguments against abortion. My thoughts on that are basically… by all means, if your faith restricts you from terminating a pregnancy, definitely do not do that, then. I get it. Your religious freedoms absolutely permit that choice for you. My religious beliefs do not in any way restrict me from choosing to end a pregnancy. My religious freedoms should ensure that I continue to have access to a full measure of reproductive medical services – including abortion. I know, it probably sounds like I am taking this damned personally for a woman on the other side of menopause… doesn’t even affect me, directly, right? I am taking this personally. Having abortion available to me ensured I was able to choose to be childless by intent. My choice. I was able to graduate high school. I was able to join the Army once I did. Both of those would have been beyond my reach, without having been able to terminate a pregnancy while I was in high school. I had birth control measures available. I used them. My birth control failed – which is not uncommon. I was fortunate to live at a time when abortion was available to me, when I needed it.

I needed to get that off my mind. Thank you. If I’ve upset you, I regret the distress I’ve caused you. Not enough to change (or withhold) my thoughts on this topic, but it isn’t my intention to cause you suffering if we disagree.

…But… can anyone tell me why it seems acceptable to tell someone that they must be forced to bear a child against their will, or potentially under life-threatening circumstances? Why is the not-yet-viable-outside-the-womb fetus “life” worthy of respect and value – but the living breathing human person with that fetus in their body is less so? I don’t get it. Like it or not, that’s really what is being proposed; forcing people who do not want to bear a child to go through that process because someone else is not okay with an abortion that they have nothing to do with at all. Yes, I’m unreasonably angry about this, and taking it personally. It feels personal.

It’s late. My guts are no longer churned up. I’m no longer sweating. My breathing is relaxed and even. It’s quiet in these wee hours, and I am alone with my thoughts in the night. I’m okay, though. No despair. Just quiet. There’s no stress to these sleepless hours; tomorrow I return home to the welcoming embrace of my Traveling Partner. I’m definitely homesick. I’m eager to be at home all through the month of June.

A yawn unexpectedly splits my face. I’m tired and sleepy. Time to try that sleep thing, again. Tomorrow is a new day, and plenty soon enough for new beginnings. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Rape, Sleepless Nights, Spring, War and News of War, women

Another Sleepless Night

May 4, 2022 //
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Awake again in this noisy place. The lights here have a hum. Each light has its own. Most of them fall just enough outside the frequency range of my tinnitus that I do hear them… and more or less as if my tinnitus has somehow expanded. Super annoying, but in the darkness of night that is not what woke me. It wasn’t even the occasional mechanical grinding of the parking garage door opening, then closing. It wasn’t the talkative folks in the adjacent room; they’ve finally settled down to sleep. It isn’t even the acid reflux that seems to be along for this trip to the office.

…I think I’m just homesick…

I miss my Traveling Partner. He’s getting some uninterrupted work time, which is likely pretty helpful right now. I know he misses me, though. We exchange text messages through the day. Gentle pings. Reminders of love. I appreciate this practice quite a lot. I’m eager to be home, though, and the week feels long and fatiguing.

I’m fortunate to have so much to go home to. I’m eager to return home. I miss that place. I miss my garden. I would miss these things even in a solitary life, sure… but what I miss most is the love that waits for me there.

I sit quietly awhile, writing paused. I reflect on love. I think of my Traveling Partner’s soft breathing as he sleeps. I wish him a good night’s rest from afar. I sip on this bottle of water, waiting on the acid reflux to subside a bit. It’s not quite 2 a.m. this time. I woke around 12:30 a.m., and I’d very much like to get more sleep. lol The work days feel long on these visits (they are), since I’ve little else to do (I tend to be rather focused on purposeful on these trips). I haven’t done much sightseeing, so far. It just seems to require more of me than I’ve got available, energy-wise. So, the work days run longer, compounding the issue. S’okay, though; I’m here to work. So I work. 🙂

In another time and place, I might have gotten dressed, put on my shoes, and gone out into the night to walk awhile. Pretty healthy choice for dealing with insomnia, but Seattle is a big city, and this is not a great neighborhood to be a wandering stranger in. Times have changed and the world feels less safe for that sort of thing, generally. So, I don’t go walking. I consider the small gym downstairs… but the lights there are ridiculously bright, and that would likely result in further sleepless ness.

…I try not to spiral down dark mental alleyways, and avoid looking at the news…

I’m feeling pretty over this acid reflux nonsense. I try to remember why I did not go to the corner store at the end of the street for antacids, earlier… I think I was just tired. Short-sighted. I’m regretting that I allowed fatigue to put me in this situation a second night.

…I can’t believe there were no Tums in my toiletries (there generally are)…

There was a time when I had acid reflux so chronically, even in spite of taking a prescription strength treatment, that I developed a hacking little cough, and was perpetually distracted and bad-tempered with it. My mind mentally wanders through what I recall of the sundries here in the hotel, while I am wondering if a delivery service may provide relief… then I remember that the hotel does have “the pink stuff” in stock. That’ll do, I guess. Some relief – in exchange for the potential that it may “turn up the volume” on my tinnitus (taking aspirin or other salicylates does seem to have that as a temporary consequence, especially with prolonged use).

I dress and walk down the hall, get some Pepto-Bismol, and some Benadryl (because my spring allergies are going nuts here in Seattle). I pick up a cold bottle of sparkling water, too – it sounds refreshing. The night crew in the lobby have the music turned up, playing something with a thumping beat… Beyonce? Could be. I smile as I return to my room. I’m glad they have a good time in the wee hours. Night shifts can be difficult, and a bit of fun helps.

My phone buzzes at me and I realize I was so tired when I crashed for the night (quite early) that I never silenced it. Could be what woke me in the first place, although the acid reflux would have, eventually. I’m already less uncomfortable, now, and soon the Benadryl will have me thinking of sleep… the trick now is to be sure of going back to bed with no less than 2 hours yet to go – otherwise I’ll wake groggy and stupid, and struggle to “restart my brain” when the alarm forces my attention to the new day. lol It’s not yet even 2:30 a.m…. I think I’ve got this. 😀

There’s something to be learned from this; my reluctance to compromise on my solution-of-choice resulted in two nights of poor quality sleep, and two days of discomfort. Was it worth it? It was not. I chose poorly. Something to think about, as I head back to bed.

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Categories Allegories, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Spring

Staying Within a Budget

April 23, 2022 //
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I’m drinking water. It’s a sunny Saturday in April. The weather is mild and well-suited to getting outside into the garden. At least at the moment, I’m not “there”.

I’m fighting off a UTI, and I’ve been very fatigued recently, though I feel decently well-rested today (and since the antibiotics started doing their thing on this infection). I made a delicious scramble for my Traveling Partner and I to start the day on (he’s working, I’m… doing things that definitely require effort, but don’t “seem like work“). This antibiotic is best taken on a full stomach, so breakfast definitely made sense.

…After breakfast, I cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes…

…I broke down a bunch of cardboard and took it out to the recycling bin…

…then started laundry (towels mostly)…

…then I made the trek down to the city to pick up a snap-together little garden shed to put all my gardening gear in, to get those items out of the shop space that my Traveling Partner needs for other things…

…then I came home (very cramped drive back, since that shed, even in pieces and boxed, barely fit in my car at all) dropped the shed off at the house, and headed out for some quick grocery shopping, and to return an item that didn’t suit the purpose for which it was purchased. Thankfully both tasks could be done at the same retail location.

By the time I got home again, it was lunch time – so I brought lunch home with me and sat down for a few minutes with my partner over a bite to eat between tasks in the shop. He’s got multiple projects in progress. I do my best to be helpful and supportive where I can.

…After lunch, I put the little shed together. Once completed, I asked my Traveling Partner if he’d like to help me decide specifically where to place it – he must have misunderstood my question; he came right out and put it where he wanted it. I’m cool with that; it isn’t heavy, this shed, but it is awkward, and it’s nice to have help. (I could have moved it into position, I’d just forgotten where we had talked about putting it.)

…Then I broke down the surprisingly large quantity of cardboard that the shed arrived in, and stuffed it into the back of my car for a trip to the disposal place next week; it’s too much to fit in the bin here at the house.

…Then I realized I was already feeling fatigued, and it’s not even 2:00 pm (at the time I noticed my fatigue, that is)… so… I sat down, here, with this glass of water for a few minutes of restful self-care. There’s still so much to do…

I had thought I’d spend the day weeding the garden and maybe painting… the decision to go get that little garden shed sort of threw that plan out, in that instant of spontaneous decision-making, and the discovery that there was exceedingly limited local availability of these specifically sized small sheds. I still feel the motivation… but for the moment I am wiped out. I need to give myself a proper break.

…Then…maybe…I’ll get a short walk in, out in the sunshine, around the neighborhood, checking out the progress of Spring in everyone’s flowerbeds along the way, and pick up the mail on the way back… I definitely want to do that; I’ve got new seeds waiting in the mailbox. They won’t do me any good there.

Soon the towels will be dry, and they’ll need to be folded and put away. There’s still plenty of weeding to do in the front flower beds… and my clean laundry (from days ago) has yet to be folded. “Fuck how am I already this tired?” I think to myself, drinking my glass of cool water. I know the answer; resources are finite. That’s it. That’s the whole truth of it. Whether we’re talking about acreage, or fresh water, or cash money, or our actual living life force expressed as our capacity to do work… it’s all dreadfully finite. It’s important to “stay within our budget”, but it’s not always entirely obvious that there is one…

…I felt so incredibly free and energetic – boundless energy and sheer force of will, on demand, at any hour, any day (pretty much) when I was younger. I’m thinking teens and 20s, when I make this observation. That kind of seemingly unlimited individual energy probably wasn’t as unlimited as it seems looking back on it. I do miss having just a bit more to draw upon, when fatigue seems to set in well-before I’ve checked off my to-do list, and before the afternoon can become an evening. Sometimes, a break to rest, to drink water, to sit for a moment with my thoughts, is enough to recharge for the next little while, and I get a few more things done. Yesterday, I even managed to push past my fatigue to prepare an excellent evening meal that we both enjoyed immensely… I wasn’t good for much after that. LOL I had “used up all my spoons”. I went to bed early(ish).

Today I tried to budget my energy – and my time – a bit more wisely. I don’t know that I succeeded at all… but if I stopped right now and did not one fucking thing more, I’d be pretty okay with that… but oh! there is so much more I do want to do today…

…It’s time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Ungracious Prick

April 17, 2022 //
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I’m annoyed. Not my best look. I don’t like how feeling aggravated feels. When these feelings, so personal, crop up in interactions with friends or colleagues or loved ones, it’s worse. I guess I kind of expect strangers to be occasionally unpredictable, occasionally unpleasant, or antagonistic, or irritable. I suspect I don’t leave enough room for people close to me to have those moments, too. I feel reliably hurt when someone “comes at me” unexpectedly over something that seems, to me, to be inconsequential – or at least not worth all that negative emotional energy suddenly coming my way. It’s too easy to center my experience as what matters most. Hard to find the right balance of agreeable, kind, compassionate, empathetic, approachable… and do that while also managing skillful boundary setting, deep listening, and non-attachment. It’s a very human experience. I get mixed results.

…I keep working at it…

I take a breath, have a glass of water, and walk away from the moment. “Let it go,” I remind myself, “it isn’t personal; we’re each having our own experience.” Words. For an instant I feel myself resist – embracing those hurt feelings, and my initial flare-up of my own anger and aggravation feels so… important. At least momentarily. I have that “what about me?” moment. Very angst-y, very cross. Another breath. I let it go. Again. I sit down at my computer to work it out in words. (Thanks for listening.) I put on a video – rain falling on a country road. It’s the background noise I’m looking for. It tends to help push the tinnitus into the background; it’s loud today.

…My Traveling Partner comes into the studio with an ice tea for me. He glances at the title, and back at me, as he hands me the tea. “That’s nice.” he says. I think I detect a hint of sarcasm. I’m not certain. I’m a bit tone deaf to some of those conversational nuances (and it’s why I have worked at not using those sorts of things myself, with mixed results). I worry that he thinks I am writing about him. I figure he’s probably been with me long enough not to read into one of my titles what my intent – or content – actually may be.

…The iced tea is very pleasant, but with a hint of something… bitterness, maybe? He had said he did not like this batch. I don’t taste bitter very well (at all?)… and many people dislike bitter flavors if they are strong. So… maybe that’s it? Maybe there’s a metaphor in there somewhere? Something about individual perspective, and subjective experiences…?

I feel like a jerk when I take some small moment of discord as a personal attack. I guess that’s appropriate; it’s not ideal, and hinders pleasant social interaction. I contemplate whether an apology is due (usually, if I’m wondering, then yeah, it’s due)… and what, precisely, I am considering apologizing for – because that matters. Sarcastic non-apologies, or defeatist passive-aggressive attacks phrased as apologies are neither helpful, nor are they any sincere reflection of regret. I reflect for a moment on what it is I regret, from that moment, right now…

There is a bee, in spite of the chilly day, nosing around in the pear blossoms beyond the fence. I only see the one, and I wonder if the bee feels like it has happened upon amazing abundance… or is just doing bee things, unaware of it’s solitary moment in the pear tree? You can spare me the word of caution against anthropomorphizing the life of a bee. I get it; bees are not people. Well… I mean… they are not what we understand ourselves to be as people…but I’m not sure we truly know all there is to know about the consciousness of other sorts of creatures than ourselves. We barely have any fucking idea how we work, or what our consciousness “is”. lol

Chilly day. Tasty iced tea. Pleasant bite of lunch with my partner. A moment of human failure worth a word of regret. All part of this very human experience… I breathe, and get ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Like Sisyphus, But With Pain

April 2, 2022 //
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I am in an unreasonable amount of pain today. I can’t argue with the experience; it’s the one I’m having. Physical therapy-recommended exercises often help. Not so much today. Staying active, or distracting myself, works a lot of the time to reduce my subjective experience of being in pain. Today the pain just seems to color every experience. Sometimes medication dulls the pain. I guess I’m grateful that it probably did do that, today, although I’m not sure I feel that…I’m fairly sure it could be worse. My Traveling Partner has his own experience – both with his own pain, and of course having to exist alongside mine. That’s got to suck.

Meditation could help… sometimes it helps a lot. Today it’s just another box I ticked on the “list of things to do about pain”. Down the list I went. Some things helped somewhat. I’m doing my best to be okay with that and not lash out at “the world” over the pain I am in. There’s no “fault” in this here-and-now experience of pain. It is what it is. Uncomfortable. Limiting.

My world shrinks when I am in this much pain… so… I spent a portion of the evening in an altogether different world, in Minecraft. My world. My way. My peculiar blocky homes and wanders, walkways and walls, tunnels and staircases… for a couple hours I am elsewhere. Oh, sure, I still hurt… but, I’m not focused on that; I’ve got a glass tower to build, or a pyramid, or a terra cotta tile floor to lay, or…

…There are verbs involved. Doing the verbs does not guarantee a particular outcome, or offer any assurance of success – it’s just that not doing them definitely limits the chances of getting that outcome or success, at all. So… verb verb verb verb. Even in Minecraft.

I just keep at it. One moment, one day at a time. This happens to be the struggle I’ve got. It’s maybe not that big a deal for someone else… they’ve got their own struggles. Maybe pain isn’t one of those. Maybe it is. We’re each having our own experience. Each walking our own path. What’s odd, I think, and also kind of … hopeful? Is that we’re also each sharing some basics of lived human experience that can allow us to look upon one another with compassion, empathy, and fond regard – if we let ourselves. We “get it” – maybe we’ve “been there”, or just understand through similarity. Handy. Sometimes it’s hard being human… feeling lonely on top of that just suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Let’s not do that. Share. Listen. Be open to “being there” for someone else. Be there for yourself, too. (Definitely be there for yourself!)

I’m sort of “over” Minecraft for the moment. I still hurt. Pain is distracting me and preventing me from becoming sleepy, which definitely sucks. I feel a yawn come over me… can I sleep? Will I at least rest?

Fuck pain. I mean… just… yeah. I’m not enjoying this experience of today, though I really wanted to. I’ll just have to begin again. Maybe less pain tomorrow?

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, gratitude, health, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being
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