Archives for category: pain
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Another Day, Another Chance, Another Choice

May 18, 2023 //
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Here we are. Another opportunity to live life with intention. Sounds pretty cool, a little trendy. Modern buzzwords amuse me. I sip my (iced) coffee, and make room for a moment of gratitude; I didn’t sleep well, and my Traveling Partner also missed out on good sleep last night – we still shared a few pleasant minutes over morning coffee together. That’s precious time – it’s not a given that we’ll always be here together. Change is. Misfortunes and tragedies do occur. Life does throw some curveballs. We face our circumstances, and make our choices – our results are going to vary. Maybe a lot. Maybe not in good ways.

…How well we deal with misfortune, adversity, and change, are a large part of our success (or failure) at living well (and just maybe finding happiness). It’s not about the successes and joys so much as it is “how do I deal with this terrible shit??”

So this morning, I’m taking my time really waking up and starting the day. Sipping my coffee happy that I have coffee to sip, and pausing to wonder if I’m making the best choice of coffee beans – can I make choices that are less likely to support a corrupt or exploitative system in which profiteering prevents farmers and workers from living their best lives? Small choices can make big differences. Our choices matter. Even the small ones.

I breathe, exhale, and find myself – instead of relaxing – fighting the pain of my arthritis on a sunny morning. I repeat the exercise: breathe, exhale, relax. I do it again. I keep at it until my first thought/sensation following that exhalation is anything at all other than pain. Small successes matter. I’m still in pain, but now I’m actually breathing comfortably instead of taking shallow breaths stiffened against the pain I’m in. That’s something.

…60 is approaching quickly. I keep finding myself thinking about family, friends and comrades-at-arms with whom I won’t be celebrating – because they’re gone. Just, like, for real gone. Dead. The permanent kind of gone. More than a few missing faces. Gloomy. I don’t know why my mind keeps wandering this path. Feeling my years, maybe? It’s been an interesting life thus far… I’ve seen some things. Done some things. Experienced some things. Some of it good. A lot of it. More good than not.

…I hold on to that thought, “more good than not”…

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, grief, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Sunshine and Pain

May 14, 2023 //
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It’s a lovely sunny (hot) weekend. I’ve spent some time in the garden. Spent some time making shower fizzies. Spent some time on the trail. My Traveling Partner has spent some time traveling. He’s spent some time unpacking the truck, now that he’s home. His adventures were not ideally successful, camping-wise, it’s just too early (this year) for some of the location he (we) wants to go to. We learned a lot about better ways to pack the gear, and other things we’d like to add to that. We (meaning, in this case, he) learned a lot about what the truck can do out beyond the paved roads, too. Worthwhile.

He sent me pictures along the way. (credit to my partner for this image)

I got some solitary time. I also feel incredibly loved; I can’t even fully wrap my head around my partner’s willingness to just keep hitting the road to give me some space, once he understood how badly I needed that time to myself. I am so very loved.

There are sights to see on a small scale, in the garden.

The garden is looking good. I finished the spring and early summer planting by adding a couple tomato plants – a yellow cherry tomato, and an heirloom San Marzano plum tomato variety. I tried to ensure that everything I planted in the veggie bed met two basic criteria: we actually eat those particular vegetables, and the varieties can be expected to do well in my location. lol Flavor, novelty, and experimentation were not my first concerns; I want success this year. I want to harvest veggies and take them straight into the kitchen to add to a salad, a side dish, or a stir fry. I want lush green greens, and good harvests. Everything can be relied upon to taste fresher than the store, just because it’s growing right here, and allowed to ripen before picking, no need to strive to achieve better flavor beyond that, really, it’ll be fine. : D

The lupines are blooming out on the trail.

So… a pleasant weekend. Enough. More than enough. Good…

…Only…

Fuck I am in so much pain. :-\ It sucks. My neck aches, and my occipital neuralgia has flared up. My back aches with arthritis, in spite of the sunshine and the heat. It seems unfair. On top of that, this morning on my walk, I got buzzed by an aggressive jay (I probably strayed to close to a nest, maybe), and without thinking, planted my right foot, and twisted “out of the way”. The twinge of pain in my right leg, outer thigh up high toward my hip, shot through me and immediately impaired my ability to walk (at all). I was (and remain) incredibly grateful I already had my cane with me, but I could have done without the additional pain (and injury). I hobbled carefully back up the trail, and headed home.

My Traveling Partner is in pain, too. He’s been working pretty hard for more than a few days. The pain makes him cross and easily irritated. I suppose I am, too. He makes a point to grief me about mulch left on the sidewalk, assuming that was a byproduct of my gardening instead of the remnants left behind after I cleaned up most of it after cats or racoons made a mess of things last night. I point out the error, and he accepts the correction graciously, but walks away while I’m still talking, and without apologizing for the irritated accusation. It’s that kind of day, I suppose. Pain shrinks our world, and pulls our focus inward, while filtering everything through our negative state of mind. Very human. I don’t make any kind of point about it, instead I just return to my writing, letting the moment go. It’s not personal, it’s just pain.

…Don’t get me started about the allergies. The cottonwood trees are blooming, and I am apparently allergic to those. LOL Fuuuuuuck. Summer’s coming. 🙂

There’s more to do. It’s time to begin again… slowly… while also managing this pain. lol (It’s still a lovely weekend and I am in good company.)

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Categories Allegories, breathe, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

So Many Choices!

April 24, 2023 //
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I am sipping flavored water this morning. I had my coffee on the commute into the office. It’s a Monday, and these days I rarely go into the office on a Monday, but I woke to a reminder from the VA about an appointment today that I had managed to memorize correctly for the date, but somehow thought that would be on Wednesday. It is not. It is today. LOL So I quickly adjusted my intentions, and hit the road for the morning commute. I expected it would be tedious… but… apparently I’m not alone in not going into an office on Mondays; there was almost no traffic at all.

I am thinking about the weekend, and the time spent planning future getaways with my Traveling Partner. The truck has us both fired up and eager to explore corners of favorite places and new destinations previously unreachable in his sedan, or in my Mazda. We have hours long conversations about camp kitchens, roof-top tents, jet-boil stoves vs all the other sorts, the necessity or luxury of taking a portable toilet, and does it make sense to have a solar generator and a fridge, or is that just ridiculous? There are so many options to choose from, so many approaches to overlanding, camping, hiking, from the gear to the routes to take, to the destinations near and far that we might want to see. It’s a pleasant way to pass time together, talking about the options and our choices, and whether we can tackle them now, or whether they go on a list for future purchases – or is there some other way we can do that thing in a less costly more personalized way, using our skills, time, and materials on hand? I’m getting to know a whole new side of my Traveling Partner – it’s very exciting.

I spent much of my weekend in the garden. Planting alyssum for future mounds of fragrant ground-covering flowers. Putting up a trellis for the peas. “Encouraging” the blueberries and the roses with oohs and aahs of delight that they are doing so well, already. Checking to see if the neighbor’s cat is staying out of the vegetables now that I’ve put that cat-deterring spikey-matt down here and there. Weeding out dandelions from the flower beds and the small bit of lawn we’ve got. (So many dandelions!) It was a lovely weekend. Time well-spent.

The real point here isn’t that I had a great weekend spent in excellent company. The point is that I had choices. A lot of choices. I chose to enjoy the weekend in spite of the pain I was in on Friday evening, and much of Saturday. I chose to go hither and thither with my Traveling Partner for occasional errands (I could have stayed home). I chose to garden. Together we chose to put time into figuring out what we really want of our leisure time – and how we can make that happen most easily. Oh, for sure, sometimes I let myself bob around like a cork on the ocean, and circumstances or the whims of my partner made the decisions for me… nonetheless, even taking that approach is making a choice. There is so much that is truly within our control through our power to choose. 🙂

I think I’m saying “don’t choose to be miserable then wonder why you are miserable; choose differently if you want a different experience”. Misery is sometimes kind of an “easy way out”, isn’t it? There are verbs involved in escaping misery. Results will vary. We become what we practice, though… so… keeping practicing? Choose something different? Begin again?

Choices are not always “simple” or “easy”. Outcomes are not guaranteed. We do have an astonishing number of choices, though…

I guess I’ll begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

It’s Always a Good Time to Change

April 16, 2023 //
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I’m sipping a cup of tea and thinking about life. In general, things are good. My anxiety has flared up, though, and it often feels as though “dial is turned up to 11“. My PTSD is reliably aggravated by my anxiety… and my anxiety is aggravated when my PTSD flares up… and around and around I go. My finger tips are torn and my cuticles are ragged from gnawing at them mindlessly. My Traveling Partner notes my overall stress level and suggests various things to help me “relax” – I reliably reply that I am relaxed – I’m not.

My self-care is going to shit quickly… there’s definitely a “mind-body” connection to be considered, too. As my anxiety worsens, I sleep more poorly. As my quality of sleep degrades, my pain becomes harder to manage. As my physical condition worsens over time, my emotional resilience is undermined, and I become more volatile, more easily provoked to anger, and struggle more and more to maintain a rational perspective on circumstances and events. It’s an emotionally painful and demoralizing process.

…I’ve “been here” before. I have tools now that I lacked years ago. I know to address the source(s) of my stress, and to meditate regularly, and practice non-attachment. I have learned over time that my reaction-in-the-moment, at the best of times, is likely to be less helpful that a well-considered, responsive approach, that is nuanced and thorough. I know that I am prone to “catastrophizing” and that this can become a real problem very quickly, robbing me of perspective, and a sense of sufficiency. I quickly “lose my joy”.

So, I am sipping this cup of tea and thinking about practices, and next steps, and how best to take care of myself under the current circumstances. It’s not “easy”, but that’s often the case with stressful situations. I’m fortunate to have a supportive partner, and good quality of life; at least I’m not having to also worry about those details!

I had talked things over with my therapist at my most recent appointment. He made some follow-up suggestions – almost a “homework” assignment, in practical terms. It was just 4 things he wanted me to consider doing. I’ve done two of those, so far. Feels pretty good.

I sigh. I am thinking about how often it seems that when a person expresses a deep interest in a topic, or shares some detail that gives them great joy, there’s often someone lurking in their social network who seems eager to pull the rug out from under them. Weird, eh? Don’t do that. Treat people as people. Treat them with kindness (you don’t know what they are going through). Appreciate that you can’t possibly know life and the world (or the decision-making of others) from the perspective of someone else – even if they choose to share that perspective with you. We’re each having our own experience. Do what you can not to fuck things up for someone else, eh? If we each did just that, the world would be far more pleasant for many more people.

This weekend my Traveling Partner when for a long drive together. We talked about life, and future other camping and cool drives we’d like to take together out in the wildernesses of America. It was lovely. Time well-spent. It’s not enough, however pleasant, to remove all my challenges from my experience of self. I’ve got the issues I’ve got. I’m learning to manage them more skillfully – and sometimes that means “change”.

It’s time to breathe. Exhale. Relax. And begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War

The Clock is Ticking

March 30, 2023 //
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The sound of a ticking clock used to really cause me stress, for a younger me that was most especially true of the steady thunk of grandfather clocks during the wee hours, when I could not sleep. I would lay awake painfully aware that the minutes of my life were… passing. It was a poor choice to focus on the sound of the ticking of clocks when plagued by insomnia, but that’s who I was then, and there seemed to be ticking clocks nearly everywhere. I’m not so hung up on time, these days, and the sound of a ticking clock doesn’t bother me at all. Progress can be measured in some very peculiar ways. lol

My coffee is good. The day is off to an excellent start. My Traveling Partner was already up when I got up this morning, and we enjoyed our first cup of coffee together, which was lovely. I arrived at the co-work space at about the usual time, which made the choice to slow down and have coffee together ideal; it didn’t change the rest of my routine or plan for the day at all. 😀

I feel good. I sit with that for a few minutes… It’s not that I don’t have any physical pain, it’s more that it just doesn’t matter right now. I feel calm and centered. I feel infused with a certain soft contented joy. I feel… relaxed. It’s very pleasant. I find that it isn’t necessarily a useful mindset for writing; I am content with sitting here watching my thoughts drift by. lol So… I do that for a little while, without concern or shame. It’s a short enough life already – I think I’ll enjoy it the way I enjoy it, and be okay with that. 😀

Spring is definitely here. The morning is mild, and in the mid-40s about 6 degrees Celsius. I am thinking eagerly about getting the new blueberry bushes into the ground.

Waiting to be planted.

There’s preparatory work to do, to get the beds ready for the new shrubs. I’m okay with that – a lot of life works that way; we benefit from planning, and also from preparation. Those are both useful for getting the best possible outcome.

I think over the morning, and the day ahead. I remind myself of a couple of errands I plan to run later, and take a look at my calendar for lunch timing – looks like a good day go home for lunch with my Traveling Partner. 😀 What a splendid day so far… I smile and sip my coffee, and get ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring
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