Archives for category: more than a little bit of bitching
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What Is There Left to Say?

October 3, 2017 //
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I hadn’t read the news, yesterday, when I sat down to write in the morning. Of course, at this point, it isn’t new news that a shooter in Las Vegas killed a bunch of people. I don’t intend to minimize by saying so little, so briefly. Now news feeds are filled with noise. Repeats of the same talking points. Refutations of arguments for gun control. Reminders that we ought not overlook the atrocities perpetrated against our native forebearers. The push-pull of cries for attention by marginalized groups, all of us, of every sort, struggling to sort out what this heinous act of violence against strangers means for us, as individuals and groups. The resentment and fears of firearm owners who don’t want this to be about them. The anger, sorrow, and outrage, of folks who stand entirely against any form of gun ownership who just can’t believe that we’re all allowing this bullshit to happen yet again.

Change is a verb. Until we take actual action there will be no actual change.

Stop talking – well, stop just talking. Do something. Words pouring onto pages, whether paper or digital, is not enough. Blog posts. News articles. Social media posts. Research. Data analysis. Passionate oratory. Conversation. Argument. There’s really only one sort of words left that have legitimate value here; legislation. There is one group of people to whom we should be talking, loudly – and using firm clear demanding language, and not shutting up about it, ever; our elected representatives at all levels.

(Make a list. Start phoning them.)

It’s time the grown ups in the room sat down and drafted clear, reasonable, prohibitive legislation that secures the freedom of Americans to own firearms, while also securing the safety of Americans who do not own firearms. (If the representatives we currently have won’t enact change, vote them out.) It’s time we acknowledged that we don’t want “everyone” to be able to buy or own a firearm – and also decided who those folks very specifically are – without being afraid to say out loud that indeed we do think some people are a poor fit for gun ownership. It’s time we made it necessary to take safety and knowledge tests for gun ownership – just like we do with getting a driver’s license. It’s time we required gun owners to carry specific insurance to protect themselves and others from the cost of violence. It’s time we set clear boundaries that prevent people convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning fire arms in the future, ever. We have all the data we need. We know where the risks are. It’s time to grow the fuck up and do the verbs.

We’ve talked about this one long enough. Too many innocent lives have already been lost. It’s time we phoned our representatives – all of them, local, state, and federal, and demanded that they do their jobs, by legislating change.

Change is a verb.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Logic & Reason, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Faced with an Unfinished List

October 2, 2017 //
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That’s how the weekend ends this week, with an unfinished to do list. lol I keep glancing at it, as if awareness alone was ever sufficient to get shit done. I sip my morning coffee with little concern about it in this moment. No doubt it may cause some momentary anxiety now and again, later on.

Yesterday’s early (and enthusiastic) start to the day didn’t result in a fantastically productive end result at all. My coffee may as well have been decaffeinated; after two double espresso drinks, I still managed to feel like a nap. Hours later I woke up and frankly repeated that experience; two coffees, another nap. I remember thinking I wouldn’t be laughing later when all that coffee kept me from sleeping… as I had my fifth coffee… followed by a nap. I woke a bit past 1:30 pm. Finally feeling sufficiently rested to be up “for the day” – what was left of it. I felt surprisingly weak and lethargic, and that never really passed. I had ended up canceling evening plans, between naps.

I ended the day quite early. Wishing my Traveling Partner well, and logging off of devices before 7 pm. Meditation was obviously going to become… sleep. So, fuck it, I went to bed super early. Most of the day I wondered, on and off, if I were perhaps fighting off some virus. I woke twice during the long night, quite briefly, to pee (no real surprise considering how much coffee, and water, I had consumed throughout the day), but went immediately back to sleep each time, after drifting through the dim light provided by carefully placed night lights (still haven’t mastered this space in the darkness, and my shins just couldn’t take it any more) and feeling so very light-headed that I wasn’t certain either time that I was truly awake, at all. I felt as if I were floating. Bobbing rather recklessly through the air. Careening gently between walls and doors.

I woke aware that I am “not at 100%”. The alarm yanked me from a sound sleep with some effort, pulling me free from my restless weird dreams as if they were quite sticky. Headache-y. Sinuses stuffy. Eyes gummy. Yep. I’ve come down with something or other. It could be worse. I’m getting around okay. It could be a lot worse; I really just want to go back to sleep. Aside from really wanting to go back to sleep (after almost 10 hours of sleep), I’m “okay” for most values of okay. I work in an interaction center environment, so… illness happens. We’re having our first significant wave of autumn ick going around… could be I’ve come down with it. If so… yeah, I’m feeling pretty fortunate. This is not that bad. Saturday’s stressful morning probably hit my immune system, opening a window of opportunity for illness to take hold. Predictable.

The headache is the worst bit. The fatigue is second runner-up. I may come home early today, but it is hard to justify in the face of the mountain of work ahead of me this week. I frown at my monitor, chewing on my lip, wondering which is the more appropriately adult set of choices. Something to think over, while I drink my now cold coffee. I’ve lost interest in my coffee completely. It “tastes off” and doesn’t seem at all enticing. I swallow what is left of this first cup of coffee; it’ll be enough to prevent a headache (from lack of caffeine) later.

I sigh and prepare to face the day, resolved to do the right thing by the woman in the mirror (short of just… going back to bed, which still sounds like a first-rate idea). I begin again.

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Categories anhedonia, autumn, Brain Injury, health, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

No Convenient Title

September 27, 2017 //
3

I’m dithering this morning. Struggling to fully wake up. Groggy. Dragging myself through the morning, unexpectedly. I think I slept just fine, although I woke briefly around 2 am. I feel disconnected and disengaged. I could happily go back to sleep if that were an option. I sip my coffee and wonder how it is that it is already cold. Have I really been awake more than an hour? Sitting here, fingers poised over the keyboard, coffee slowing going cold, a blank white page in front of my eye holes, just… waiting? Weird. It’s a bit as if I had attempted to boot up my laptop, logged in, then got a progress bar, and… no progress. lol Hung session. I’m stalled. Shit.

“Have you tried turning it off, and then back on?” my brain quips at me, silently. I snicker at myself. It would be handy if it were that easy. As I said, I could happily go back to sleep if that were an option. It is, however, a work day for me… so I trudge through my routine persistently.

The morning continues slowly. Not at all productively. I’m barely on track with basic self-care. lol What the hell? Well… living proof; my results vary. I really need a do-over. A restart. I need to… begin again. lol omg. So tired…sort of… I mean… just not really all the way waking up, yet. Inconvenient – and no proper condition in which to drive a car in rush hour traffic.

I make a fresh coffee, and head to the deck to enjoy the dawn.

So…yeah… spiders are a thing.

Well… I’m awake now. Coffee cup in hand, fresh hot cup of coffee, I step out onto the deck, into the cool dewy morning… and walk into and through one (or more, it’s not clear at this point) vast sticky spider’s web stretching invisibly across the deck, between the eaves, over the entry way. I didn’t see the rather large spider until well after my panic attack (complete with some spastic dancing, and possibly a startled shout, and some hysterical flapping of arms and twirling and stomping – a proper freak out, actually).

I have definitely restarted my morning. LOL After splashing fresh hot coffee all over the deck – and my work clothes – I’ve showered again, changed into other clothes, made yet another cup of coffee, checked again for spiders, like, a million times. lol Fuuuuuuck. Did I mention how fucking alert I am now?? Damn. So… what the hell? Was that necessary? “Be careful what you wish for…” my brain smirks at me. Definitely awake now.

…Still don’t have much to say. Okay, okay, some days more than others, yeah? Time to do a Wednesday.

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

Hello Autumn, Hello Pain

September 26, 2017 //
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I remember being in pain yesterday, in the afternoon. I woke in pain this morning. One nice thing about unreasonably hot, wildfire-dry, summer weather – those long hot dry days are just about ideal for minimizing my arthritis pain, no Rx required.

I love autumn. I love crisp cool mornings, colder nights, and warm afternoons. I love the shff-shff of fallen leaves, disturbed as I walk through them. I enjoy the short days, the long nights, the late sunrises, the early sunsets. It’s so exquisitely lovely, all of it, that every year as it returns, I am surprised all over again that with it comes pain. Rather a lot of pain. Everyday pain. Waking up in pain. Yoga to ease pain. Enjoying long walks – that also hurt. It is what it is. I’m glad I am able to walk. To stand. To dress myself. This morning, I find room to be amused that another autumn comes, and again I have forgotten that I am always in this much pain. There will be other mornings, colder mornings, on which I no longer find humor in the moment. I’m not in any rush to reach those mornings. I take a moment to appreciate the morning, shored up by perspective on how much less pain I am in right now than I could be.

I have friends who hurt, too. Family members. Loved ones. Pain is part of the human condition. We feel. We experience sensations. Sometimes, feelings are unpleasant. Sometimes sensations are painful. We easily lose sight of the pain of others, living out our own experience of pain. I know it happens to me. When I hurt, and can’t imagine hurting more than I do, it’s way too easy to forget that there actually is more worse pain than what I am in, myself – and someone else is feeling that. Yikes. Talk about perspective. It’s true for you, too; someone else is in worse pain. Possibly more often. It’s something to remember when we face the world, hurting; we are not alone. We may feel alone with our own pain, but we are not alone in the experience of being in pain, generally.

This morning, I am in pain. I’m not bitching. I’m just noticing it there, reflected back at me when I attempt to ignore it, each movement in my spine resulting in mild nausea, and a chronic almost irresistible desire to flex, twist, move, rock – all of which hurts, but the movement may, over some minutes, ease the pain somewhat. I look at the calendar and frown. Not even October? Shit. I feel inclined to say it seems earlier this year – but I say that, and feel it, every year. lol This year, I commit to caring for myself in a reasonable and rational way (still, and, again). I take a deep breath. I let it go. I get up from my chair and do some more yoga. It helps.

I abandon my writing and take another hot shower. Lingering in the hot water, I catch myself daydreaming about the heated seat in my car and the 45 minute commute to work enjoying it. Oh, Autumn, you are so beautiful and so cruel to me! I laugh about it, because this morning I still can.

I make a mental note to myself to be kind to people; I can’t tell what kind of pain they may be in, or how hard they are having to work at being decent to people, themselves. We’re all so very human. We are interconnected, and our shared experiences color the experiences we don’t share. Being a jerk to someone can so easily become the experience that blows their day – just as a moment of kindness can turn a bad day around completely. I consider the woman I most want to be, and commit to be more her today than I was yesterday. I give a mental shout out to the friends who seem to have really mastered “self” and “have their shit together” in all the ways that matter most to me. I find myself thinking about old-fashioned thank you notes.

The morning moves on. I sip my coffee. I scroll through my playlist absent-mindedly, unsure whether I actually want to hear music this morning. Pain, coloring my thinking, changes my decision-making in subtle ways; something to be mindful of as the day goes on.

It seems like a good time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, The Art of Being, The Big 5

What.The.Hell?

September 16, 2017 //
2

Yesterday got off to a great start, and finished, rather literally, with a bang. Well, more of a crash. I got tail-ended in rush hour traffic. No “lol”, no emoji, no minimizing, no catastrophizing; I got hit from behind by an inattentive driver while I was stopped, with sufficient force to leave an impression of her license plate frame in my bumper. It wasn’t what I planned for the evening, it certainly wasn’t what I expected, but it is a thing. It occurred.

I’m okay.

It was a generally weird day that stands out a bit in a sort of “report card” fashion, because quite frankly an ever-loving-shit-ton of stuff (all super strange oddball outliers of events and circumstances) went peculiarly sideways yesterday, a lot of it rather inconsequential, some of it to do with money, all of it touching on the sorts of things that would have grievously triggered me even a year ago. I’d have been emotionally incapacitated, flooded, and completely overwhelmed by a day like yesterday. It most likely would have sent me crashing into a period of learned helplessness and despair that could last weeks, punctuated by reactive relief-seeking acting-out that wouldn’t have helped at all, probably made things much worse.

This morning, I am relaxed after a good night’s sleep. I feel pretty comfortable physically. I’m still on for my trip down to see my Traveling Partner, and don’t seem to be dealing with any significant after-effects of yesterday’s experiences. Things seem quite fine, actually. As though yesterday were entirely separate from today in every way, other than being adjacent to one another on a calendar page. So. Apparently it is possible to “enjoy” a day of utter chaos, with some destruction and loss, and yet somehow not go to pieces, not melt down, not lay waste to whatever is left to hold on to… It’s possible to do a bit better than merely survive what is uncomfortable, chaotic, and destructive. That’s some good news right there. 🙂

I got hit hard enough that I felt light-headed and strange when I got out of the car. Wobbly. Worried about my back, my neck, my head – the other driver. Late into the evening I continued to wonder if the persisting headache was from being struck, or just another persisting headache like so many? This morning – no headache. That’s enough. I slept well, and I feel comfortably able to get back in the car and drive down the highway. Road trip!

Today feels like a good day for beginnings. I find myself hoping this particular day includes a big reduction in the quantity of weird shit going on compared to yesterday. lol Yesterday was a bit much to take, and I’d started to feel a bit.. hexed. Still… wow. How much more well-prepared for living life am I, that yesterday didn’t destroy me? Didn’t even blow me off course! That’s… yeah. Wow. I gotta stop celebrating at some point, though; it is far to easy (for me) to let a moment of celebration become a careless presumption that I am “entirely well” or in a place where I “don’t even have to worry about any of that”, and I lose myself in a quagmire of poor decision-making and frivolous use of resources, and find myself both accountable, and unprepared to care for myself. Like a kid taking the training wheels off their bike for the first time, then falling on their ass. I’d like to avoid that fall.

I find it best to have my moment, enjoy recognizing the progress I have made, and return fairly quickly to practicing the practices that support my wellness over time, and that meet longer term needs, and keep me on a path that supports my goals. 🙂

So, this morning I begin again. Again. I make choices. I get up gently when the alarm goes off. Yoga. Strength training. A leisurely shower. I check my list and begin doing the small things I’d want done before I return home: top off the aquarium, make the bed, tidy up a few things, drop my kindle in the side pocket of my bug out bag. I look around before I sit down with my coffee to write a few words before the weekend really gets going; is this the home I want to come home to? Will I feel “welcomed” when I return? Will I be comfortably able to just walk in, set down my bag, and chill? Satisfied that I have met the needs of a future me (only days into the future, but you know, we haven’t met, yet, and I do want her to be welcome when she gets home) I relax and make an Americano.

I sip my coffee contentedly. I take a few minutes to check in with friends. I smile thinking about a moment in the office, yesterday. I’d seen a colleague looking a little… well, we’re both veterans, and he had that look of being “stuck in a different moment” and avoided eye contact. I reached out over our messaging service a little later and just asked him how he was doing? He said “I’m good”. I wasn’t sure I believed that, but it’s not necessarily helpful to pry people open like clam shells. I replied “Awesome. Big plans for the weekend?” He sent me an emoji back and commented “That’s a solid buddy check right there. I had a moment, earlier. I’m okay now” and proceeded to tell me about his upcoming plans. We shared a bit. Turned out I felt the need for some support too, but it was less obvious to me that it was to him. The power of connection. The power of relationships and shared experience. That interaction was one high point of a strangely chaotic and messy day.

I’m not sure I’ll ever fully leave some of life’s pain behind me. I don’t really expect to entirely clean up all the chaos and damage – but it is pretty fucking splendid just to be able to live my life without everything seeming to crash down, over and over and over again, like a house of cards in a strong breeze, any time something goes a little sideways. Progress. Incremental change over time. Lots of practices. Lots of verbs. Lots of choices.

Oh hey, look at the time! There’s a highway just over there… and a journey to make. I’ve got a map for this one, but even in this instance, the map is not the journey, and I have to make this trip, myself. 🙂 I’m having my own experience.

It’s definitely time to begin again. See you on Sunday – in the glow of evening light, perhaps? 😉

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Categories anger, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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