Archives for category: Sleepless Nights
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333

March 23, 2026 //
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I sat for a few minutes at the trailhead before I set off down the trail. The available mileage read 333, and I thought wistfully of turning the car around, calling out from work and driving east to catch up to the sunrise. It’s early. The sun won’t rise for another two hours.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I take a few more minutes to calm myself, to avoid pounding down the trail more stomping than walking; that’s too hard on my feet, ankles, and knees. Pointlessly damaging. Once I am calm, I set off down the trail in the darkness.

I reflect on my experience as I walk, and get to my halfway point annoyed to discover my phone at 35% charged. Wtf? Did I not plug in the charging cable when I went to bed? It’s possible, but the possibility does nothing to charge my phone now. I sigh to myself and toggle on “extreme battery saving”.

This morning I was awakened abruptly by the bang of a cupboard or a door. I dislike being awakened by loud noises. It sets off my PTSD. I’m hyper vigilant as I sit here in the darkness, heart still pounding, tinnitus shrill in my ears, pain amplified by anxiety – all this in spite of well-practiced tools for managing my PTSD. It takes time.

I sit here taking the time I need.

Fucking hell. And on a Monday after a couple days away from work, too. It’ll be a busy Monday. Maybe a busy week. I remind myself that although I can’t reliably control the circumstances in which I find myself, I can control my reaction to them. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate for awhile in the darkness.

I sit listening to the HVAC of a nearby building. This is no wilderness trail, just a pleasant space between human endeavors. Behind me, the acreage of the air museum and a water park, vineyards filling every bit of space in which grapes could be planted. Ahead of me, on the other side of a creek that winds its way to the Yamhill River, an apartment complex, invisible but for a few lit windows and some balcony lights. Later, after daybreak, the farmworkers will begin to arrive, and the construction workers building a luxury hotel none of the locals actually want will begin their work. I sit with my irritation; it has nothing to do with these details, although it is tempting to connect them with my experience.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let that shit go.

I dislike drama. I dislike displays of temper. I dislike unexpected loud noises. It’s a human life; there’s likely to be some drama, some temper on display, and some loud noises. Hell, sometimes I may be the cause. I sigh to myself in the darkness. My anger over being awakened by shit that isn’t even to do with me at all doesn’t help anything. I let it go. G’damn, I’ll be glad to see the Anxious Adventurer move out. The friction between him and my Traveling Partner is unpleasant to live with.

… They are each having their own experience, and in either case, it isn’t about me…

It’s just two more weeks.

My head aches. I take my medication a little early. I hope it helps.

I sigh again in the darkness, and pull my attention back to me, here, now, in this moment. I’m eager to be painting again. The background tension in the household has made that difficult. I sit reflecting on several views, images, and ideas I have in mind to paint. Being in less physical pain day-to-day has increased my feelings of being inspired. I love this feeling. I focus on the feeling of being inspired and “anchor myself” to that feeling, instead of clinging to my irritation. It’s a good choice, and I feel lifted from my anger.

Soon the sun will come. I’ll finish this walk and return home to work – and to make a good cup of coffee, and begin again.

For now, I’ll enjoy this quiet moment, listening to the HVAC in the distance and the creek nearby, and think thoughts of paintings yet to be painted, and moments of joy yet to come. I’ll open my heart to gratitude, and enjoy fond recollections of the time I’ve been spending with my Traveling Partner, which has been exceptionally pleasant lately, and romantic and connected. Time and moments worth savoring, for sure. I glance at the battery indicator on my phone. 31% now. I shrug, look over my writing and prepare to hit “publish” on this very human experience, before I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

New Boots, Familiar Trail

March 7, 2026 //
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My new boots arrived yesterday. I eagerly put them on this morning. I wisely didn’t immediately chuck out my old ones; I don’t know how much break-in time the new pair may need. So far they are decently comfortable.

First steps feel like a new beginning – because they are.

I have on my favorite pair of thick alpaca hiking socks, and these boots feel like they have room for cushioned orthopedic insoles, too. Feels like a win. My gait though is altered just enough to feel different. The boots have a relatively tall sole, adding an inch to my height and changing where I “think my foot is” in space. I chuckle when I recall getting into the car… the first two attempts were just me awkwardly figuring out why, instead of easily sliding into the driver’s seat, I was getting hung up when I tried to put my foot into the car. 😆

… I’m a human primate; I figure shit out…

The morning feels like a lesson in avoiding making assumptions, and perhaps new boots are a useful metaphor. I get to my halfway point. Short walk. Familiar trail. I’m out of breath though, thanks to this fucking head cold. I sit down and cough and sneeze my way through an entire pack of travel tissues, grateful to have brought along two.

I smile to myself contentedly. I am enjoying the morning, and the weather is mild. No work today and I will return home to a human being who loves me dearly. The greatest wealth I’ve ever known is in this love I share with the singular human being who is my Traveling Partner on life’s journey. I breathe, exhale, and… have a coughing fit. I try again. (Damn, fuck this head cold though! 😆 I could definitely do without it. I remind myself that it will pass. Impermanence is more permanent, by far, than a head cold.) I add cough medicine to my shopping list, and sit quietly with my thoughts for awhile longer.

DST changes the clocks tomorrow. G’damn I fucking hate this bullshit. It’s so hard on my body. It changes the timing on all my medications and also makes us all look just a little stupid, as though we think moving the hands on the clock actually changes when the sun rises, or how many hours are in a day. 😂 Fucking idiotic.

I see hints that Spring is coming.

I shrug to myself, and let all that go. Spring is coming. I see it in a faint green haze beginning to show in the tops of distant oaks. Flowers are beginning to bloom along the trail, too. Lush green grasses and weedy plants fill the spaces between the vineyard rows. I love Spring. Funny, I often say that autumn is my favorite season, but I’m not certain that’s true, as I sit here inhaling the scents of Spring. I definitely know what I like. I like the solitary morning moments, and the time on the trail. I like returning home, knowing love waits for me there.

I’m grateful for the paved and level path while I break in new boots. (It’s a metaphor.)

I like beginning again. It’s my path, and it’s Spring. I’m okay with not knowing where this path leads. 😄

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Alone in the Dark

February 10, 2026 //
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It is well before dawn. I’m at a local trailhead waiting for the sun, or maybe just waiting.

My Traveling Partner had a rough night, sick. I felt bad for him, and woke every time he did, but I had wisely gone to bed at my usual early time, and this morning I woke clear eyed and clearheaded, feeling pretty well rested. I hope he managed to get enough rest, himself.

Yesterday was weird. Sort of blurry and surreal from fatigue, I went through the motions of work, and once I had completed everything that was time sensitive and due, I went home and crashed hard. A two hour nap put me right, enough to make a good meal for us to enjoy as a family. Not enough to put forth the effort to clean up. I was grateful to have the Anxious Adventurer’s help with that.

Another day begins. I sit in the dark with my thoughts, grateful for the quiet time alone. My beloved encouraged me to sleep in and work from home this morning. I may yet work from home, but sleeping in? Not gonna happen. I woke at my usual time, feeling quite alert and rested. 😆 I got up, dressed, and headed out into the predawn darkness, rather than risk waking everyone by bumbling around the house or tapping away on my keyboard.

It is a chilly morning, although not particularly wintry (here). It is a mild 40F (about 4.4C), and the night sky is clear and starry for the moment. The weather says a foggy morning, but so far it is not that, at all. Not in this location – and I’m certainly close enough to a creek that feeds into the Yamhill River very nearby to see some fog. On foggy mornings, it’s usually quite thick here. Perhaps the temperature will drop and a fog will develop?

I sit quietly thinking about people and places. Friends. Lovers. Family. Colleagues. Strangers who crossed my path in some meaningful way. People. Lives that matter. Lived moments, shared and unshared. Family, community, and society. Human potential.

I sigh to myself, feeling vaguely disappointed by humanity “as a whole”, but realistically, I am most disappointed with those who contribute to human misery directly through their cruelty, pettiness, violence, indifference to human suffering, and/or self-serving profit seeking at the expense of, and through the misfortune of, others. Exploitative greed and capitalistic callousness is so toxic. We could do better, but to do so would require real change, right down to the deepest layers of what individuals value. We may never be ready to become better than what we are, as a species, and it will likely be our undoing.

… Dark thoughts in the darkness. Fitting, I guess…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let go of my dark musings, and my mind wanders on.

I’m in more than a little pain this morning, but it’s manageable for the moment, and I don’t cling to the experience, I just note the feeling and let that go, too. I’m grateful that chronic pain and some fairly minor limitations to movement and flexibility are generally the worst of it for me. I’m still walking. I sit with my gratitude for the surgeon that day (maybe it was night?) so long ago (more than 40 years now). He was frank with me that if I didn’t have surgery to attempt to repair my fractured spine, I’d be in a wheelchair, and partially paralyzed. There was no guarantee that the surgery would be successful, and there were experimental techniques involved. Two of my vertebrae were basically crushed, and would be rebuilt using hardware and bone grafts. 16 hours of surgery… Weeks in the hospital… Months in a body cast… More months of physical and occupational therapy and restrictions on what work I could do… And eventually, the osteoarthritis arthritis and the chronic pain setting in a couple years later. Small price to pay; I survived that injury, and that marriage. The pain reminds me that freedom has a price, and that the bill will come due.

… What price are you willing to pay for your freedom? Your rights? Your survival?  The price may be quite high. Paying that bill is not optional. You may only have seconds to decide…

Choose wisely.

My tinnitus is loud in my ears. My head aches. I take notice and let those go, too. I “flip a coin” in my head; walk or don’t walk? I make my choice, and begin again.

A new day dawning, a light in the distance. Yes, it’s a metaphor.
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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, winter, women, Words

Sleep

February 9, 2026 //
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My sleep used to be much worse than it is these days. I’m certain the CPAP machine helps (although wearing the mask and the experience of continuous positive air pressure are somewhat unpleasant and took getting used to). Sometimes my sleep is still of poor quality for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s just not enough sleep to feel rested. Sometimes I’m plagued by nightmares. This morning I’m faced with insufficient sleep of poor quality, due to interruptions (noise mostly).

I reliably wake up ridiculously early. Generally at 04:30, probably a lasting byproduct of early mornings in the military, construction, and long commutes for morning shifts of various sort. It requires days of leisure time without an alarm being set to boost my chance at “sleeping in”, and I rarely do. When my Traveling Partner and I were developing our friendship, he had encouraged me to take control of one factor I definitely could control to improve how much sleep I got; my bedtime. He suggested I go to bed earlier, based on when I wake and how much sleep I need (back then I was often up until midnight or later, still up early). It was advice that made a lot of difference for me. I go to bed pretty early as a result, rarely later than 21:00. (He has said, now and then, that he’d enjoy my company and would like me to stay up later, but not only do I still wake up early, I also deal often with interrupted sleep. Going to bed early is my only reliable chance at enough rest.)

Why am I on about sleep and sleep quality this morning? I didn’t sleep well last night, and didn’t get enough rest for the day ahead. It’s occupying my thoughts.

This morning I’m tired. So tired. It was after 21:00 before I went to sleep last night. I woke around 01:50, got up to pee and went back to bed, eventually falling sleep again. Sometime shortly after three, my Traveling Partner woke me. He couldn’t sleep, and was having difficulty breathing. He goes to the living room, wakeful and irritable. I try to return to sleep. Not much success. Every time I start to drift off, another noise wakes me, again. A cough. My partner trying to clear his throat or his sinuses.  The scrape of a chair along the floor. His frustration and sometimes panic feel palpable.

I definitely need more than four and a half hours of sleep, and I keep trying. I’m startled from a sound-but-too-brief moment of sleep by a firm hand knocking at the Anxious Adventurer’s adjacent bedroom door, and my partner’s irritated inquiry. I groan quietly and turn over and try sleep once more.

I drifted in and out of a restless sleep from the time my Traveling Partner woke me until the clock read 05:00 a couple hours later. My head aches. My eyeballs feel gritty and dry. I want literally nothing to do with other people, at all. At least not right now. I dress and leave the house. I don’t feel like walking, either. I just want to be alone with my irritation for awhile. I swing through a local coffee chain for too many shots of espresso over ice, black. Fuck Monday. I’m so not ready for this.

My Traveling Partner had returned to bed as I was leaving for the morning. I hope he gets back to sleep and gets some healthy rest. I get no second chances on a work day. I sigh to myself. It’s not his fault he’s having difficulty sleeping (or breathing).

I’ve set clear healthy reasonable boundaries about my sleep and not waking me if I’m sleeping, unless I’ve asked to be wakened (which I almost never do; I know how to use an alarm clock). I respect the sleep of others. Somehow I have still found myself in partnerships in which my partner(s) have found some justification for waking me, under one circumstance or another (and in some past relationships often). There’s rarely any sort of actual emergency that requires my attention, more that someone “wants a word” or to ask a question, or share a complaint. This frustrates the shit out of me, because it’s already difficult enough to get the rest I need.

Where caregiving or real emergencies are concerned, of course I roll my ass out of bed and do the needful without complaint. Everything else, I try to look past my fatigue and irritation to understand what is going on that might push a person to undermine someone else’s very necessary rest, and I try to be a compassionate and understanding partner, family member, or friend. This morning I’m having to fight through more annoyance than usual; I stayed up later last night to hang out with my Traveling Partner awhile longer, and I’m paying for it with lack of sleep. It feels “unfair”, but it isn’t really about that, and it’s definitely not personal. I made a choice. Just damned annoying that this is the outcome.

… I’m so fucking tired…

It’s been many days since I slept deeply through the night and woke feeling rested. I remind myself that it could be worse. I once endured more than a decade of sleep so poor I counted it a good night if I got even two hours of unbroken sleep, and rarely slept more than four hours total in a night. This is not that.

A new day will dawn. We can begin again.

I sit quietly at a local trailhead, listening to rain tapping the roof of my Traveling Partner’s truck. It’s comfortable and warm, and I am alone with my thoughts and my coffee. I definitely don’t feel like dealing with people right now. I’m tired, headachey, and irritable. Unfit for company. It’s too early for work. I don’t feel like walking.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and focus on sorting myself out to face the day ahead. Soon enough I’ll have to begin again. I’ll do my best. It will have to be enough.

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Categories breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women

Hidden Gems, Hidden Scars

February 1, 2026 //
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I am recalling the excitement of buying a new album, after hearing something I really like that is new to me, or something from a favorite artist, that I haven’t yet heard. It’s often not the “big hit song” or the single on the airwaves that stays with me, memorable, favored, over-played for weeks. It is more likely to be some unexpected “hidden gem”, that speaks to me in a more personal way, found only because I listened with an open mind to more than what was obvious in front of me. I think about that for some little while.

It’s also true that a great many injuries don’t show on the surface, or leave an obvious visible scar that makes it plain that damage has been done, and may linger. These things sometimes erupt as strange quirks of character, or poor behavior, or coping mechanisms that outlive their usefulness. I think about that for awhile, too. It is sometimes very helpful too look beyond the obvious and to listen more deeply.

I have time for my thoughts this morning. I’ve definitely got a fucking cold (again), but I woke after many hours of unsatisfying sleep feeling restless and irritable, with a stuffy head. All I could think about was getting to my feet, out of the house, and onto the trail, just so my head might clear as I walked. I definitely did not want to hang about the house coughing and blowing my nose while everyone else is trying to get some sleep. I probably won’t actually walk…it was the noise of heavy rain falling that woke me I think, and I’m certainly sick.  I should not allow myself to become soaked or cold, and I can wait for the sun, enjoy a cup if coffee and write while the rain falls. Anyway, my sinuses drained and my head cleared some minutes after I started down the highway toward the trailhead. If I get a break in the rain after the sun rises, I might still walk; I always miss it when I don’t.

These are pretty stressful times, and it is hard watching America – part of it – working to become a fascist authoritarian dictatorship or dystopian oligarchy. It apparently makes me ill. Self-care is even more important in terrible times. This is also a hopeful moment in our history, seeing so many organize and protest and speaking truth to power. Wow. This too, all of it, will pass. Even our elected officials and their billionaire handlers are 100% mortal. No one lives forever. Evil governments do fall. I didn’t march or join a protest this weekend, though I considered it. (It would be irresponsible to bring contagion to a protest.) I wrote letters to my representatives, and emails. Complete inaction doesn’t feel like a good choice to me, not while we’re watching democracy burn, and the legitimate progress made since the dawn of the atomic age is being eroded with every injury to a citizen by armed, masked,  government thugs.

… And if someone tells you they are in favor of this administration’s policies because they are against all that “woke” shit? Ask them to define, in simple terms, what they mean by “woke”. I’ve been finding this simple question very revealing (and it tends to force people to consider the reality of the cruel policies being implemented with their support). Don’t let petty nastiness go unremarked upon – point it out and ask why it seems acceptable. Instead of laughing uncomfortably at cruelty, jokes, or mockery at someone’s expense – ask why the teller thinks it is funny.

What we see often depends on what we’re looking at – or for.

I sip my coffee feeling some better than when I woke. It’s still raining quite hard without letting up. A gray rainy dawn has arrived. I look out across the highway at the farm fields that in years past have been a shallow seasonal lake this time of year. This rain is welcome, we need it, but I wonder if it is too little, too late? It may be a very dry summer ahead. I think about camping and wildfire risks. (Yes, it’s a metaphor.)

The rain slows down some. The marsh trail tempts me in spite of the muddy soggy trail I know awaits unwary footsteps. I eye my rain poncho and my cane, conveniently next to me. I sigh to myself and wonder if it is a good time to begin again?

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, Words
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