Archives for category: Sleepless Nights
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Eventually, I Slept

February 16, 2017 //
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Weird night last night. I crashed out on time, fell asleep right away… but didn’t sleep well, or deeply, or much at all, waking groggily at the point at which I’d finally fallen deeply asleep, and managing less than 5 hours of restful slumber out of the almost 8 I actually spent in bed, and that 5 hours was sliced up into small naps, moments of rest, and periods of real wakefulness. I don’t feel rested.

I’m already looking forward to the far side of the day; I’d like to sleep. Really sleep. The sort of deep restful sleep that lasts hours. Maybe tonight. 🙂

I pause to appreciate how much worse my sleep issues have been in the past, and to enjoy a moment of gratitude that the week is almost over. I smile thinking about the hours I spent hanging out with my Traveling Partner yesterday, and how much love we share.

I lose my train of thought daydreaming about laying down on my yoga mat for a cat nap. I don’t even realize it until I am distracted by a noise of unknown origin elsewhere in the apartment.

Looks like I’ll do well to spend the day taking the very best care of the woman in the mirror, until she can return to the cozy warmth of bed and blankets and try this sleep thing again. 🙂 Today doing my best will definitely have to be enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Rainy Monday

February 6, 2017 //
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Mondays have a bad reputation. I’m no longer sure why. Is it merely that so many people work unsatisfying jobs to which they must return each Monday? I’ve definitely been there. It wasn’t the easiest thing to choose differently. I had to learn that I could. So far, the current job has not yet lost its appeal, and going on 6 months, now. 🙂

I woke during the night, no idea why, and quietly walked through the apartment, restlessly, for… what? For about 10 minutes, that’s what. lol I’ve no idea what woke me, and I was on autopilot as I walked through the apartment, from bathroom to kitchen to patio door to studio window, finally standing at the front door, looking out into the wee hours of night, feeling the cold wet breeze circle me and filling the doorway. It was the refreshing cool of the breeze that helped me realize I was indeed awake and walking around, and also that I was still quite sleepy and inclined to finish the night. I returned to bed, and to sleep.

…And here it is, Monday. My coffee this morning is quite terrible, which seems rather odd. In all other respects the morning begins quite well, and I’m not inclined to fuss over the coffee. I rather thoughtlessly rubbed something irritating into my eyes, which as irritants go is unpleasant, but could be so much worse. I notice, as I dispose of the tissue I had dabbed at my eyes with, that I overlooked the little trash can in my studio when I took out the trash this weekend. I’m a tad irked by that, but it is also a very small thing. I shrug that off, too. How much Monday misery is entirely self-selected based on the apprehension that Mondays will suck? It’s been a long while since I’ve actually had a shitty Monday… Today still doesn’t qualify. I keep choosing to enjoy the morning. There’s no particular need to force it, I am okay right now, and that’s enough.

Monday? Yeah, it is. That doesn’t have to be any more significant than any other day of the week, though. There are verbs involved. Choices. Perspective. Practices. You can always begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Taking Out the Trash

February 5, 2017 //
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A steady rain falls this morning. I woke a number of times during the night, and it was raining then, too. My dreams were lively, rich in surreal detail, and graphic, but lacking in emotional content. However grim the imagery was, I felt nothing; my brain was just “taking out the trash”, clearing buffers, wiping away bits and pieces left behind that serve no useful long-term purpose. No nightmares, just data processing in moving pictures. It’s important that our consciousness be ready for a new day, it only makes sense that while I sleep, my brain is busy in cycles, resting, getting caught up on things, resting more.

(Note: I am not a sleep scientist, this blog post is not science, my subjective experience has not been rigorously scrutinized and peer-reviewed, following years of replicable research. There are people doing those things and they are very much worth reading! I’m using words, to share my subjective experience, my own thinking, lacking in any hardcore vetting against known science. My writing may serve someone a useful purpose, be helpful, or an entertaining read, but please don’t settle on me as settled science; do your homework. Use your critical thinking skills. Walk your own mile.)

I woke feeling more than usually rested. I woke feeling more rested yesterday, too. Both mornings follow days with much less involvement with my handheld device, my computer, or the internet, generally. I feel less distracted moment-to-moment. I feel less emotionally volatile. I am less easily frustrated. I feel more content. I find myself wondering how many generations of saturating all-day computer use human beings will commit to before becoming actually able to fully multi-task their consciousness, for real? (No, you can’t. There is science on that.) No doubt over time our consciousness will change with the tools we use regularly, we are adaptable. We become what we practice. Epigenetics is real. Our children’s children will have different characteristics than our Great-grandparents did. Some of those differences may indeed be cognitive. More to the point in this moment, though, is that setting aside the complicated dense multi-channel continuous streaming information into my consciousness for a couple of days has had real value on my overall state of being. I feel more relaxed. My rest is more restful. I feel calmer, less anxious, more easily able to “hear myself think”. I think I may have gotten more done, too, using my time more efficiently, and spending no minutes staring into a repeating feed full of copies, memes, and reshares for unmeasured hours of the day.

A favorite trail was flooded. It was necessary to choose another way.

A favorite trail was flooded. It was necessary to choose another way.

The rain continues to fall quite steadily. It rained yesterday, and I enjoyed the short hike I took through the park in spite of it. Time well-spent, in the wind and weather, breathing the fresh air, seeing the trees tossing in the wind, and hearing the water birds on the marsh calling to each other. This morning the rain is falling harder, enough harder that some of the fun of hiking would be washed away in it. So… perhaps not this morning…

Favorite places for a moment of meditation are flooded, too.

Favorite places for a moment of meditation are flooded, too.

I’ll spend the day taking time for being here, now, and enjoying (or enduring) what is real, and live, and in front of me. Tidying up a bit more. Taking out the trash, the recycling, and maintaining order. Those are useful practices, too. I have found that the state of order – or disorder – in my environment reflects the state of order – or disorder – in my internal world, as well. My consciousness seems only ever as ordered as my environment. Keeping my head, minding my emotional wellness, tends to result in more will to keep my home tidied up and very neat. Keeping a tidy orderly household seems to promote and support my cognitive wellness. I don’t know what the science says about all that; my experience confirms it for me, and as “ways” go, it works for me. 🙂

Today is a good day for practicing practices. Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to be open, to be kind, to be aware – and mindful that change is. It may change the world – we have that power. 🙂

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Home Sick With the Ick

January 28, 2017 //
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I work for a company that has a small interaction center. (We used to call them “call centers”, but the world has gone way beyond phone calls, these days.) My work supports that interaction center. Working in an interaction center, in an open office environment, working closely with more than a hundred other human beings, sharing a kitchen, sharing the restrooms, sharing surfaces, dishes, and utensils, comes with a higher than usual risk of contagious illness. Just as I arrived home from running errands yesterday, happily thinking about the concert I’d be going to later, I was ruthlessly struck down by some microbe to small to see, of unknown origin – but probably work. It is what it is. What it was, last night, was uncomfortably and rather grossly biological, miserable, and spent with unpleasant symptoms of sickness. I didn’t go out. (I hear the concert was fantastic.)

I don’t remember when the worst of it had passed. I don’t recall when I collapsed into a restless interrupted sleep. My fever broke sometime in the wee hours, around 4 am, I think. I woke very late in the  morning (for me), feeling some better, sort of, still plagued with this headache, guts emptied out completely in one fashion or another over the course of the preceding hours. I get up dizzily, committed to coffee, and wanting to check in with my Traveling Partner, so that he wouldn’t worry whether or not I survived my miserable night. I know, I know – I sound so dramatic about it, but truly I was miserable. I feel some better, enough both to piss and moan about how miserable I was, and also enough better to drag myself out of bed, dizzy, and attempt a cup of coffee. That’s a headache I’d like to avoid later, if I can… So far so good.

I had an entirely other blog post in mind, inspired by yesterday’s shopping trip… but no. Today I rest. I drink fluids. I care for the woman in the mirror and this fragile vessel. 🙂 Today that’s enough.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Appreciating What I Can

January 19, 2017 //
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Appreciating what I  can in life seems best paired with not taking the shit I don’t appreciate at all personally. It is a decent arrangement, generally, resulting in considerable calm and contentment. This morning, I am appreciating sleep – the sleep I didn’t get last night – and I’m not taking at all personally that I didn’t get the sleep I needed, which, while I don’t appreciate that, wasn’t at all personal. Sometimes I can’t sleep through the goings on in the world, however local or remote, and sometimes I can’t sleep through what’s going on in my head. I really do enjoy deep restful quality sleep, though. 🙂

With regard to the sleep I did not get last night, it matters far more that I am awake now, alert, feeling merry, and more or less ready for the work day. With just Friday (and today) between me and the potential for sleeping in (on the weekend), this is doable. There’s no tragedy here, and barely any inconvenience. My lack of sleeping is not associated with anxiety or tinged with negative emotions. I am in a manageable, minimal, amount of pain. “My glass is more than half full”, meaning to say that I enjoyed the evening in the company of my Traveling Partner, and feel cared-for and well-loved. Even with the poor night’s sleep, the day begins well. I definitely appreciate that. 🙂

The snow melted away slowly in yesterday’s steady rain. The commute to work was treacherous and slick; the thin layer of water on all the accumulated ice was far more slippery than ice or snow alone ever could be. I skated awkwardly along the walking portions of my commute, appreciative of bus service that kept the walking portion shorter than usual, by far. As the day went on, the snow continued to melt. The journey home wasn’t especially treacherous, slippery, or complicated – just wet.

Coming home to real partnership is something I appreciate, too. My cardboard recycling had begun to pile up, bins were full after the holidays, and later an icy parking lot I could not safely cross on foot with my hands full prevented me handling things. I felt uncomfortable with the clutter, and it had begun to aggravate me. I arrived home to find that my Traveling Partner had taken care of it, and any number of other things: putting away clean dishes, hanging the closet door that so recently came loose unexpectedly in my hands, installing a replacement external hard-drive (he’d also taken time to locate as many of my old back up files and images archived on his network as he could identify, and had already put them on the new drive for me). My quality of life when I returned home was notably improved over when I departed for work in the morning. It’s lovely to be cared for. I appreciated, too, the sweet relief of connecting and sharing time in the same physical space after two weeks of being kept apart by circumstances, pain, or bad weather.

Small things that frustrate or annoy me may have been piling up over time… now, this morning, embracing a moment of appreciation for what is working, what is going well, and what I enjoy in my life, it’s hard to give any weight to small frustrations and inconveniences. It’s a nice change.

My thoughts turn to moving and I find myself wondering if my frustration with not yet finding a new place have been stalling other healthy processes; frustration is my kryptonite, and I try to be mindful of its sway over my thinking when it becomes prominent in my experience. The lease here runs out at the end of the month. The weather has been intensely crappy for house-hunting, or searching for a rental home closer to work, and there are so few hours in the day available for the purpose, at all. There is little time left. Do I sign a six month extension on the lease here? I don’t want to live here anymore. I want a place of my own – really mine, a home. I know so much more about what I want, and what I need, and what is enough… and I haven’t found it, yet. I’m also… not quite ready. I meant to be. The holiday season got in the way of being more prepared, and I made a practical decision about supporting my Traveling Partner’s goals ahead of my own, short-term. We do that for each other now and then, because… love. So… yeah. Six more months here now seems the pragmatic choice, the practical, feasible, doable decision with the least upheaval, for the time being. I would, in all honesty, prefer to move during the summer months, anyway. Less rain falling on paintings being exposed to weather, carried from residence to moving truck, from moving truck to residence. Thankfully, I have options – and an awareness of options. I make an appointment to sign the lease next Thursday, on a day I will be out of the office on other personal matters. I have another week to keep looking. Hell, I found Number 27 less than a week before I moved, back in May of 2015. 🙂

Today isn’t “perfect” – what ever is, really? It’s enough, though. Today is a good day to appreciate having enough. Being enough. Doing enough. I am content with sufficiency. Today that’s enough. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words
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