Archives for category: Sleepless Nights
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Snowflakes and Shortbread Cookies

December 5, 2022 //
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It was a lovely weekend at home. We had a bit of a snow shower yesterday, and enjoyed a quiet day at home celebrating my Traveling Partner’s birthday; one more of the “winter holidays” to enjoy. 😀 We had a delicious stir-fry for dinner (one of his favorites; bell peppers and beef), and for dessert pumpkin pie (at his request). We hung out, enjoyed each other, and watched the snow fall most of the day, although it didn’t stick much at our altitude, and was gone as the late afternoon “warmth” was enough to turn it all to rain (and mud). I baked shortbread cookies in the afternoon, while my partner tinkered in his shop.

The first snow this year, here.

This morning, my day started quite gently and pleasantly. Good coffee. Quiet lo-fi on the stereo. I’d been up for hours when my Traveling Partner woke. He let me know he did not sleep well. He seems cross and quite out-of-sorts with the world, at least for now, and says he did not sleep well. I offer my sympathy and an expression of regret, as I head to my studio (where I generally write, and turn my attention inward, seeking – if nothing else – to avoid “poking the bear”, and hoping to give my partner some quiet time in which to fully wake up and get his shit together).

My writing is interrupted by my Traveling Partner, who is still feeling cross and annoyed to have slept so poorly. He asks me in an aggravated tone to check my oxygen (using the pulse oximeter feature on my phone). At 99% it’s better than usual, and my attentive upright posture at my desk is intended to support good breathing and also help minimize the pain I’m in. He didn’t ask that question, and yes, I’m in enough pain this morning to have taken an Rx for that almost first thing. I have little enthusiasm for dealing with relationship stress stemming from my pain and his lack of sleep this morning. My solution to the challenges of the morning? Get the hell out of the house, taking my laptop over to the co-work space I generally work from on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s a location suited to writing and there’s plenty of coffee available, too.

My arthritis pain this morning is a big contributor to why I chose to simply, quickly, and without fuss get the fuck out of the house as soon as I could; I can manage my pain and my anxiety, but I’m not likely to be easily able to also “manage” (meaning support or account for) his today, too. Seemed the wiser choice to just get the hell out of each other’s way for a while. For sure my writing does not benefit from nagging or vexed interruptions, and neither does my temperament.

…Damn, though… the coffee is so much better at home. LOL

…

…

…

…Yeah, this coffee is so bad it is distracting. LOL Fuck office coffee. LOL

My partner pings me to let me know he misses me. Also to ask about my recent lab results. I take a look, and find myself almost immediately stymied by the VA’s health website. Nothing unusual; their technology and user interface is not exactly state-of-the-art. Funny thing, though; even this small change to my medication (I’m already calling my beta blocker my “chill pill”) has noticeable results even with small day-to-day frustrations. My partner’s morning grumpiness? Not so big a deal – I’ll just get out of his way while he wakes up. No problem. Can’t log into this website or that tool? Meh. I’m over it already and it’s fine; I’ll just do something else and try again later. Not a big deal. Only… these are precisely the sorts of everyday challenges that could upend my entire experience and send me spinning off course, so easily! No tears this morning. No tantrums. Just… moments. Nice change. 🙂 It’s not “everything”, but it’s something – and that’s enough. One step at a time. Incremental improvements will add up. 😀

I sip my coffee and think about the holidays. The tree is up. There are holiday lights on the mantelpiece. There is a Giftmas pudding awaiting its moment. Holiday cards have been sent. The first snowflakes have fallen. Thanksgiving and my Traveling Partner’s birthday are both behind us. There’s no great pressure on the Yule holiday-to-come; we plan for it to be a moment on the calendar, enjoyed warmly, wrapped in love, and characterized more by the festive morsels and holiday cookies than any great number of gifts. We’re focused on other things this year. There will be some small budget for gift-giving, but more of a token of the holiday than a prominent feature is what we’ve discussed. 🙂 I’m even (more than) okay with that. It’s where we are right now.

Giftmas glow. Glad tidings. Happy Home.

I sit for some minutes more. I breathe in and take stock of how I feel. I breathe out and let go of lingering anxiety. I repeat this several times, slightly different iterations with each breath. I breathe in and feel a sense of place within my body. I breathe out and let go of tension I feel in my shoulders, in my back. I breathe in and listen to the quiet of this office place. I breathe out and feel my contentment spread. In. Then out. Just breathing. I “pause” (not the breathing, just the focus on it) to write every now and then. A paragraph. A sentence. A thought. I add a link. I add an image. I look the whole mess over. I resume my observations and my breathing exercise. Back and forth. Breathing. Sipping coffee. Writing. I feel my body and my mind begin to “meet in the middle” feeling more contented and relaxed as I proceed. This is what I was working on when I started the morning. It’s nice to find my way back and “finish what I was doing”.

…It would be nice if the weather were sufficiently pleasant and mild to get a good long walk in…

I think about the day ahead. It’s a day off, although it is a Monday. This feels very luxurious to me. Any time I take a Monday off, specifically, it feels so luxurious. 😀 I’ve a small number of things on my to-do list today – some laundry (just putting clean stuff away), and some tidying up. It’s planned to be a very relaxed day. I hope I succeed there. 🙂 Maybe I’ll bake more holiday cookies…? Maybe I’ll read, or study, or paint…?

I’ve already used one “do over” this morning – it’s good to get comfortable with embracing new beginnings. Useful tool in a chaotic world. Already time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Rude Awakening

October 18, 2022 //
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My morning started too early. The air compressor in my Traveling Partner’s shop “went off” in the wee hours (it hadn’t been shut off the night before, after the work day was completed). Well, shit. I was awake, wasn’t I? He wasn’t, though. I got up quietly, dressed, grabbed my laptop and workday shit, and quietly slipped out of the house, hoping he would be able to sleep in.

I woke feeling a complex stew of crappy emotions. Frustration, sorrow, fragility, the threat of imminent tears without cause or point, anxiety – stress – filling my morning like this Americano fills the cup on my desk. All the way to the fucking top. It’s not a helpful addition to the pain I also woke up in. I’m cranky from being awakened by an unpleasant noise first thing in the morning, too early, on the heels of a bad dream. I’m cross because… I don’t know, just because. I mostly just want to put my head down on this deck in this co-work space and cry for awhile. This coffee isn’t going down very well, and my stomach is sour over it. What a rough morning.

I know, I know, “begin again”… but… it’s easier when it’s easy, you know? Right now, it’s not so easy, and I’m feeling fussy like a toddler with an attitude problem. My “inner adult” knows better, and some of my stress sources in the conflict between that worldly experienced woman with a job to do, and the frustrated fussy little kid that lingers within me.

This lives in my saved images for mornings like this…

I’d like today to be easy. Relaxed. Productive. I’d like to “kick ass” on the job today. I’d like to “win big” at life today. I’d like to be my best self, every moment. In this moment, I don’t know what that looks like. My poorly managed physical pain on top of my poorly managed background anxiety have combined to make me a fairly shit human being right now, hard to be around, cross, irritable, unpleasant, with a seriously dark sense of “humor” that isn’t funny. Looks like a long work day ahead, too – not because I’ve got so much to do, more because I sense that I’m not someone my partner is going to want to be around, in the shape I’m in. May as well spend that time working.

I sit here seething. Sipping coffee. Feeling the tears pooled just at the edge of my eye lids, not falling, not going away. Therapy tomorrow… I can do this, right? I can stretch one day to the breaking point, collapse into a deep sleep, and drag myself back to the office, and then on to my appointment…? That works, right?

Fucking hell. Some days being human just fucking sucks all the god-damned dicks. :-/ Well. I guess I’ll do my best – whatever that is today, and then try again tomorrow. The clock keeps ticking on this mortal lifetime… It’s not easy, but…

…It’s definitely time to begin again.

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Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Frustration, grief, health, loneliness, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights

Day and Night

September 21, 2022 //
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The sun rises later these days than it did back in June. The Autumnal Equinox is tomorrow. It’s quite early and I am at a local trailhead adjacent to a meadow, not far from home. I am waiting for the sunrise, drinking coffee, yawning, and wishing I had slept in. I’ve got my camera ready for my morning walk.

My morning camera walks serve a purpose; they get me out of the house with my camera for a bit of fun, exercise, and “me time”, and they also give my partner a shot at some deep sleep. (When I am asleep I sometimes snore, and when I am awake I am often a bit clumsy and noisy at least until I am fully awake). This approach works for us, but tends to be a seasonal solution. Already I have begun to resist waking up so early, where in past weeks I struggled to sleep during these early hours. The later sunrise is the culprit.

…The early hours betwixt day and night are a good time for meditation and reflection.

An orange glow begins as a thread on the horizon, becoming a sort of messy smudge as minutes pass. Still not enough light for my lens, and the trail alongside the park and meadow, which passes through a vineyard, is still quite dark. I wait. I yawn. I tried to snatch a few minutes of nap time for myself, but the mornings are now also too chilly and I don’t even doze off for a moment – I just yawn. lol

Waiting for the sunrise.

…I think about work and routines and future mornings and finish my coffee. I develop a cramp in my right foot and shift in my seat until I can easily massage it until the cramp eases. The western sky takes on hints of ultramarine and dark lavender. The eastern horizon becomes more peach and tangerine, with swaths of gray-blue clouds sweeping across the sky. This is not wasted time; I love watching the sun rise.

The dawn of a new day.

The sun is up. The coffee is gone. I’ve gotten a good walk in and snapped some pictures. My Traveling Partner sends me a message; he is awake. The day begins in earnest. I have no idea what today will bring… looks like it’s time to get started and find out. 😁

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, Uncategorized

Consider This

September 20, 2022 //
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I’m on my third coffee this morning. I slept poorly. My Traveling Partner slept poorly. I slipped away early in the morning hoping he would be able to get some better sleep, but that didn’t work out ideally well. I am sitting in the studio, drinking coffee and considering the causes and the potential outcomes, and wondering how best to be helpful.

“Being considerate” may very well be one of the most powerful skills (and practices) that a person can bring to social relationships (of all kinds). I have found it sometimes a bit difficult to define “consideration” – in spite of placing it high on my list of things to look for in relationships. I see people who are “considerate” practicing deep listening, explicit expectation-setting, skillful boundary setting, asking clarifying questions, testing their assumptions, yielding their natural desire to be “right” preferring to be kind, making an explicit effort to refrain from “centering themselves” in every circumstance or conflict, and being very comfortable making a prompt apology when another person points out a transgression. That seems like a lot to manage, but it really does all map to “consideration” – as in, genuinely considering what those around them are going through or may need.

Let’s be clear on one point; I don’t see considerate people being doormats or open to being abused or mistreated. They use boundary setting and expectation setting with great skill and comfort. They consider their own needs along side the needs of others, and make a point of practicing good self-care, too.

Lacking fundamental consideration leads people to casually mistreat others without intention – and often without noticing, and sometimes following-up by callously doubling-down on that mistreatment by attempting to deflect blame (by way of excusing their actions as “unintended”). Doesn’t really “make things right” to do things that way, and feels still more inconsiderate. People who are inconsiderate are by far more common than people who are considerate! It has become socially “normal” to see (or have to accommodate) inconsiderate behavior from others. People are busy. Self-involved. Dealing with their own shit. Struggling to heal trauma. Uneducated about the impact their choices/words/behavior has on others. Unaware how much difference consideration can make. There’s a lot going on with inconsiderate people. Most of it is even shit everyone has going on in life. One thing that isn’t going on with inconsiderate people; they are not being “considerate” (probably a huge timesaver, I don’t know…).

Consideration and considerate behavior isn’t “natural” to human primates; we learn it from our social group(s) – and therefore must teach it to our companions, explicitly. Children generally get taught “sharing” – a part of consideration. Every element of consideration probably needs to be explicitly taught. As a culture we’re clearly falling down on the job, there, based on the general rise in inconsiderate behavior, basic rudeness, and prevalent violence. I’m pretty certain that very considerate people are likely less prone to violence. It’s something to think about.

Today, I’m struggling with “my nature”; I tend to be very considerate (of others), but also tend to fail myself on the self-care and boundary-setting side of things. Knowing my Traveling Partner did not sleep well, I consider what I can do to be helpful, or to at least minimize the potential for stress or conflict in our relationship due to the both of us being fatigued and in pain. It’s complicated. What does he need? What does he want? Can I provide those things? Is guessing at them wise? What about me? What do I need, myself? Can I meet his needs and my own? When do well-intentioned inquiries about what he needs become invasive or pestering? How do I prevent my own boundary and expectation-setting needs from being swept aside in the pursuit of a gentle day together (under difficult circumstances)? What is reasonable, and what is excessive? How far do I take “not taking things personally” before it becomes entirely necessary to “push back” or point out a boundary – and how do I do that gently enough to also avoid sounding “bitchy” or unreasonable?

My anxiety simmers in the background, and that’s not at all helpful. Consideration, like “mindfulness”, is something that takes quite a bit of actual practice (at least for me). It’s not my “default” human behavior. It is, however, something I value quite a lot – enough to keep practicing. Enough that it matters to achieve mastery – and balance.

It’s a new day. There are opportunities to be a better person than I was yesterday. There will be verbs involved, and practice required. My results will no doubt vary. It’s a good time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Hitting the Wall

September 17, 2022 //
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It’s a descriptive phrase, is it not? “Hitting the wall”… That’s where I am. It’s been a long, purpose-filled, practical sort of Saturday, and I got a lot done. My Traveling Partner and his son, too, filled their day with purpose and completed tasks on a big project (rebuilding the CNC machine in the shop). I see my partner’s fatigue on his face, and in his posture as he moves through the room. I heard it in my step-son’s voice. I feel it in my bones – that down deep fatigue that is sometimes the last recollection before exhaustion (and sleep) finally overtake me. It’s easy to confuse this feeling with anhedonia – I am for sure “out of fucks to give” at this point, though it’s only that I’m fatigued. Aside from fatigue and physical pain (still have that headache I woke with and my back aches), I’m feeling mostly fairly merry, although I am utterly unreliable about showing it, I’m just that tired.

I’ve hit a wall. I’m done. That’s it. The truth of it? I could force myself to continue to put one foot after the other, if it were urgently necessary for life-saving or crisis management purposes, and I’ve done so under worse conditions by far – but I sure don’t intend to if I don’t have to. I’m wiped out. No “spoons” left at all. It will feel like a noteworthy effort to make my way to bed when that time comes. I don’t see that being very far off, at all, although it is only 19:30 right now. LOL

I have a video on. I’ll end up watching it again some other time if I really want to ingest this content; I’m only half engaged (in anything), and I won’t remember any of this.

G’damn I wish my neck didn’t ache so much. I wish my back didn’t hurt, and that this headache had gone away politely after I took a headache remedy this morning. (It didn’t help, but I had hoped…) I hope to be able to lay this mortal body down and drift off to a deep solid sleep and wake rested and pain-free some hours later. Pain is one of those things that has the potential to prevent me from falling asleep. I’m so tired I just make note of that not-uncommon experience. The thought dissipates as quickly as it developed. I lack concern; I’m too tired for concern. LOL

I sip this glass of iced tea, unconcerned that it might keep me up; I’m too tired to worry about it, and too tired for it to be a thing to be worried over. I think over the day and the week. It’s been good. I’ve gotten a lot done in the days since I accepted the offer for my new job. I’m excited to start, generally speaking, and also excited about this time – my time – between jobs. Leisure time. Productive time. Time helping my partner with his business. Time helping myself through self-study. Time for indulging myself, reading books. Time in the garden. Time soaking in the hot tub. Time learning new, other, things to do with managing my anxiety. Time well-spent.

…I’d say something about “time to begin again”, but I’m honestly too tired for that right now… I’ll begin again tomorrow. lol

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being
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