I’m unwinding after the office party. It is evening. I didn’t drink much (1 Sapphire and tonic, not as good as the ones my Traveling Partner occasionally makes for me), and I limited my calories and made healthy choices. I played ping pong with colleagues, and enjoyed some lively conversations. As company parties go, probably the only one I’ve really enjoyed. Ever. Making good choices was definitely part of that. The good company and the venue both also played a part. A pleasant evening out… that lasted too long.
… I’m tired…
… My feet ache, my head aches, and my tinnitus is almost deafening (noisy venue)…
S’ok. I’m fine, just tired. Tomorrow, immediately after the company All Hands, I will get into an Uber or taxi and head to the airport, homeward bound. I miss my Traveling Partner, and I’m ready to go home. Good trip, productive, although peculiar inasmuch as I simultaneously feel that I got a lot done, and also that I got nothing done. Pretty funny. Very strange.
I sit quietly after a hot shower, just relaxing and thinking my thoughts. I could watch a video…or the TV…or read a book… but I just sit quietly, listening to the heat click on and off keeping the temperature a comfortable 73 degrees F (22.7 C). Time passes. My mind idles. I’m not waiting on anything, and I don’t feel anxious or stressed. I’m just being. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Bedtime soon, meditation first. Begin again, tomorrow.
I yawn, and notice a broken nail. Inconsequential, unless it becomes a temptation to tear at my hands. I clip my nails short, and file them smooth. Better. I sigh to myself and turn the thermostat down a bit for comfortable sleep, and stretch. I put devices on chargers, and turn off lights. Sleep now…new beginning tomorrow. It’s enough.
The soft beeping almost didn’t wake me this morning. I had forgotten to set an alarm, but that is rarely of any consequence, since I also rarely sleep past 04:30 or so. This morning the quiet beeping alarm that goes off at 06:00, my morning medication reminder, was what woke me. I slept in! I even “overslept”, if I want to call it that.
I smiled through my shower and while I dressed, half humming some merry tune. I feel good. Rested. It’s a nice feeling. I let myself feel it without resistance or argument, savoring the moment. I make myself a cup of pod coffee in the hotel room, and double check that I’ll be ready to join my colleagues at breakfast.
There’s a pretty long day ahead, although much of the afternoon and some of the evening will be the office holiday party. I wonder how well rested my colleagues will be? They continued the evening after dinner, heading to some local favorite for cocktails. I rarely drink, and wasn’t inclined to join them. It was around 19:00 when I got back to the room, as it was, and I was already too tired for much more.
City lights, a view from a taxi.
… But I’m not seeing much of SF! 😆 Sightseeing isn’t the point, though.
It’s a strange journey, this thing called “life”. Meeting some of my colleagues in person has been an experience of it’s own. There are some very smart, creative, kind people here, sharing this professional journey, and making their own ways in the world. I feel fortunate to meet them and be received and accepted as their equal. I’ve had some great conversations and many chances to practice listening. I even tried shawarma for the first time!
I tidy up the hotel room. Meditate. Take time to write a few words, and wonder how my Traveling Partner is doing this morning, and hoping he slept well and deeply.
I’m in an altogether different place this morning. I woke slowly, to the sound of an audible alarm. Strange enough (for me), and it jangled my nerves a bit; I was deeply asleep and had forgotten where I was (a hotel room in San Francisco).
I got up and dressed, fussing around in a most disorganized fashion, finally starting some coffee brewing before I left the room for a short walk in the morning air. Once around the block, and then back to the hotel room for coffee.
Each journey starts somewhere.
Yesterday was an interesting adventure in travel. Nothing really went “wrong”, it was simply unexpectedly tedious. The taxi from the airport to the hotel was fun; the driver was skillful and made interesting conversation (at half the price of an Uber, as it happens). He even pointed out various sights along the way. It was almost an hour, in heavy traffic. Yeesh. Big cities have familiar big city problems (Like needing an hour to go 17 miles).
Oh look! A sight to see.
By the time I was in the hotel room it was 5:30 pm. How was I “already” so tired? I mean, new city, and I’m in a hotel in a location with a lot to do (Fisherman’s Warf). My feet ached. I was tired. I slept poorly the night before and fatigue was clearly taking over. My Traveling Partner reminds me to eat something in a message, while we catch up and exchange pleasantries. I unpack and get my stuff rearranged such that my backpack is longer luggage, just a computer case. Handy. In the process I delight myself; I had carelessly put three little stuffed kittens onto my backpack “out of the way” while I was packing for the trip and didn’t realize they’d dropped down inside. There they were, soft friendly reminders of home, I chuckled happily and snapped a picture of them.
Small moments of joy are precious.
I spent the evening in silence, just sitting quietly for some little while, before admitting I was just done for the day. By 7 pm, I was asleep, waking only once and promptly returning to sleep. Now, it’s a new day, full of promise. The morning is quiet. I am alone. The only sounds are traffic beyond the window, and my tinnitus. This coffee is okay…pod coffee. It’s generally neither bad nor good, but completely acceptable and of reliable “sameness” every time. I find myself struggling for a moment to find the correct word for that idea. Consistency? So many useful words available to choose from!
A colleague who is also staying at this hotel pings me about breakfast. It’s already time to begin again.
Well, it’s definitely autumn in the Pacific Northwest. It’s raining steadily. I’m sitting at the trailhead, in the car, wondering if the rain will let up long enough to get a walk in this morning? It is beginning to seem unlikely. I sigh out loud and sit quietly, waiting.
…Later, I travel…
This morning, I deal with my anxiety, and I deal with a concerned email from my Traveling Partner. His own anxieties were keeping him awake during the night, and he tackled them directly, expressing his concerns with care and asking me for assurances and charges in behavior. His approach reflects our years together as partners. I read it over, a couple times, before I reply. Of all the things causing me stress right now, this email isn’t one of them. I value his candor.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I find myself vacillating between already missing my Traveling Partner (I’m not even gone yet), and hoping this trip away for work somehow also meets my need to get some real solitude, beyond a trail walk in the morning. It’s been a long time since I’ve managed to get a couple of days away to myself (and being home alone seems completely out of reach pretty chronically).
I have a peculiar sudden stabbing bit of anxiety, weirdly out of place in my experience – I find myself anxious over “what if I returned home and he was gone though?!” I have literally no reason to consider this fear a legitimate concern. No idea where it comes from. No doubt it is some remnant of old baggage or past trauma; I let it go. It isn’t real, and I definitely have enough real shit vexing me and stoking my anxiety.
The rain slows to a sprinkle. I’m looking forward to walking in the rain freshened air before spending hours on a plane. I pull on my poncho and grab my cane. It’s time to begin again.
The first hints of daybreak touch the sky as the rain starts again. I waited out the darkness, after getting to the trailhead early (so early). It was raining, then, and may be raining when I finally start walking. I don’t know. It’s not the most important detail.
Daybreak on a rainy autumn morning.
My mind is cluttered and full of chaos. I half-woke ridiculously early, to the sound of my aggravated Traveling Partner swearing about something (probably about being awake). Some brief time later, (minutes or seconds, I don’t know), he specifically wakes me to check on me. I get up to pee, just to be certain I could just go back to sleep and not have biology waking me prematurely in another hour or two. The next couple of hours pass restlessly; I’d fall asleep, be wakened by some noise or other, and drop off again. At some point I remember beginning, finally, to sink into a really deep sleep. “At last,” I remember thinking contentedly, “sleep. Real sleep.” I woke again, when my Traveling Partner went back to bed. Fuck. I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep, even as tired as I was. I could feel my brain getting going, preparing for a new day, and I was suddenly aware of an owl hooting loudly somewhere nearby. G’damn it. I went ahead and got up, dressed, and left the house.
… How the absolute fuck is my sleep this g’damned bad even after all these years and so much careful practice, good sleep hygiene, treating my apnea, adding a noise masking device to my sleep space… Part of me wants to be really angry about this – but part of me recognizes that the anger itself only further impairs healthy rest (for me). I let it go, but resolve to ask my beloved to please just not wake me when I’m sleeping unless there is some emergency. I’ve got to get some fucking sleep (and I know he understands, as someone with sleep challenges, himself). I rarely have the opportunity to go back to bed later on, and get that lost rest. Working a full-time corporate job really limits that potential.
This morning I’m very tired, my head aches, and my eyes feel gritty. I have errands to run, and a business trip to prepare for.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The morning is a bleak foreboding gray. I listen to the geese overhead, and the tinnitus in my ears. This morning the tinnitus is so annoying that if I thought pithing myself with an ice pick might be helpful in a practical way, I’d probably do it. (Do not do that!!) My tinnitus definitely gets worse and louder over time as I lose sleep. I remind myself that tonight is another night, tomorrow another day; this will pass.
I sip the hot (now only warm) coffee I picked up at the gas station on my way out of town after filling the gas tank. It’s a genuinely bad cup of coffee, acidic and somehow vaguely sludgy. It’s still coffee. Who the hell knows how long real coffee will still even be available? Instead of pouring it out wastefully because it’s terrible, I sip it slowly, letting the caffeine (and the ritual of morning coffee) do its work. I stay in the moment, present, aware, sipping this coffee and appreciating that I have it. Dawn comes. A new day. I’m cross and tired and vexed by physical pain. I look down the trail irritably, aware that I’ll likely feel better on the other side of my walk, in spite of the lack of sleep, and I’m stupidly also managing to be annoyed about that (which just makes no damned sense).
… I try not to dwell on this fucking headache or my arthritis pain…
I look back over my writing, checking for spelling mistakes and incoherence. (Huh. I bitch too much.) I sigh to myself, impatient with my very human limitations. I stretch and grab my cane and my rain poncho. All I can do is my best, and that path begins right here, now, in this moment. It’s time to begin again, again.
Evening Light 