I slept decently well last night. I woke rested and less uncomfortable than I was yesterday. My head is a bit stuffy, and I find myself wondering if it is seasonal allergies or if I was (already) exposed (again) to some random rhino virus. Doesn’t matter; today starts better than yesterday did. It’s enough for beginning again.
I sip my coffee and look over my garden plan. I think about sowing flower seeds in the front beds, and putting down some fresh growing medium. My Traveling Partner noted recently that the irrigation timer we’d been relying on failed during a hard freeze; likely left with some amount of water in it, and it broke on the inside. Annoying. I didn’t find a suitable replacement for it at the local big box home improvement store. This morning he alerts me that the replacement he ordered online will be here, maybe, today. Handy! It’s already time to get the grow bags on a watering schedule; it has stopped raining every day. A for sure sign of Spring in progress here.
I entertain myself with gardening videos, and catch a glimpse of a loaf pan on a counter top in the background of a video. The narrator says something about summer fruit and quick breads… well, shit. I’ve got ingredients for quick breads… and dried blueberries, raisins, and currents, and plenty of walnuts… why not? “New beginnings” are pretty opened ended, with me. Gardening is in my plan for the day, but I’d like to wait for the chill of the morning to become the midday mild temperatures. There’s housekeeping and chores in my plan for the day, but I’d like to go easy on myself after yesterday. A lovely quick bread with our second coffee would be quite nice…
I look over my recipes with a smile and a happy heart. Definitely time to begin again. I’ve got options, and choices, and the verbs are mine to put into action. I’ve just, rather literally, got to do something. 😀
I am in an unreasonable amount of pain today. I can’t argue with the experience; it’s the one I’m having. Physical therapy-recommended exercises often help. Not so much today. Staying active, or distracting myself, works a lot of the time to reduce my subjective experience of being in pain. Today the pain just seems to color every experience. Sometimes medication dulls the pain. I guess I’m grateful that it probably did do that, today, although I’m not sure I feel that…I’m fairly sure it could be worse. My Traveling Partner has his own experience – both with his own pain, and of course having to exist alongside mine. That’s got to suck.
Meditation could help… sometimes it helps a lot. Today it’s just another box I ticked on the “list of things to do about pain”. Down the list I went. Some things helped somewhat. I’m doing my best to be okay with that and not lash out at “the world” over the pain I am in. There’s no “fault” in this here-and-now experience of pain. It is what it is. Uncomfortable. Limiting.
My world shrinks when I am in this much pain… so… I spent a portion of the evening in an altogether different world, in Minecraft. My world. My way. My peculiar blocky homes and wanders, walkways and walls, tunnels and staircases… for a couple hours I am elsewhere. Oh, sure, I still hurt… but, I’m not focused on that; I’ve got a glass tower to build, or a pyramid, or a terra cotta tile floor to lay, or…
…There are verbs involved. Doing the verbs does not guarantee a particular outcome, or offer any assurance of success – it’s just that not doing them definitely limits the chances of getting that outcome or success, at all. So… verb verb verb verb. Even in Minecraft.
I just keep at it. One moment, one day at a time. This happens to be the struggle I’ve got. It’s maybe not that big a deal for someone else… they’ve got their own struggles. Maybe pain isn’t one of those. Maybe it is. We’re each having our own experience. Each walking our own path. What’s odd, I think, and also kind of … hopeful? Is that we’re also each sharing some basics of lived human experience that can allow us to look upon one another with compassion, empathy, and fond regard – if we let ourselves. We “get it” – maybe we’ve “been there”, or just understand through similarity. Handy. Sometimes it’s hard being human… feeling lonely on top of that just suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Let’s not do that. Share. Listen. Be open to “being there” for someone else. Be there for yourself, too. (Definitely be there for yourself!)
I’m sort of “over” Minecraft for the moment. I still hurt. Pain is distracting me and preventing me from becoming sleepy, which definitely sucks. I feel a yawn come over me… can I sleep? Will I at least rest?
Fuck pain. I mean… just… yeah. I’m not enjoying this experience of today, though I really wanted to. I’ll just have to begin again. Maybe less pain tomorrow?
I’m sipping my coffee enjoying a moment of fond appreciation and gratitude for the life I am living, and love I am fortunate to enjoy. There are no guarantees; circumstances change. Change is. Count on it!
Sometimes small surprises really turn a day or week around. 🙂 I got a nice little package from my cousin. I had sent her a wee note card a couple weeks ago. I think very fondly of her, and we haven’t stayed in touch very well. She replied, and sent me a couple cute quilted items she had made. They are delightful. I’m still smiling. I feel loved. It was such a thoughtful gesture.
Yesterday, my Traveling Partner surprised me with a substantial token of his affection – handmade in wood, a symbol of balance. It’s lovely, and sits here on my desk, just past my keyboard. I don’t know where I will place it longer-term. I like it sitting right here, where I can see it. On my desk, I’ve also got the desk caddy he custom made for me in his shop; holds my stuff, in the relative positions where I would place them on the bare desk, in the order I generally use them. It’s brilliant and I love it. He made a pizza peel for us shortly after we moved in. I use it any time we make pizza. Sometimes I use it as a big trivet. lol
Balance and perspective – critical tools.
I’m starting the morning in a good place. I feel settled and contented. I feel loved. Valued. It’s nice. It hasn’t been effortless getting from “where I was” to “where I am”, and I won’t say that I don’t see a continued journey extending ahead me. 🙂 I am still learning, every day, what it takes to be the woman – the human being – I most want to be. It’s not a journey about money, or material success and comfort, and I definitely don’t see value in making it a competition with other human beings on their own individual journeys. I’m just one woman on this one path of my own, enjoying a quiet Saturday morning over a cup of coffee, and feeling grateful to be as fortunate as I have been.
Spring – the pear trees on the other side of the fence have begun to notice, too.
I’m eager to be back in the spring garden. I’ve got my early stuff planted – but I’ve also apparently got a raccoon “helper” who has been rummaging around in the grow bags I’ve planted with carrots and scallions, and I may need to do some damage control. lol My space for gardening is very limited, so the veggies will mostly be in grow bags, and when warmer weather comes, I’ll add a couple hydroponic pots for things like peppers. I hope to grow some Japanese eggplant, too, but honestly I think those are quite beautiful plants, and I’ll just put them into the flower beds out front. 😀
My veggie garden getting started for the year.
In the simplest terms, it is a pleasant weekend morning. I’m enjoying that quite deliberately, sipping my coffee and thinking about the many things I am grateful for. Embracing joy and cultivating contentment are worthy endeavors; in my own experience “happy” has not come “naturally”, it has taken quite a lot of commitment and work to get past all that ancient pain, all that anger, all that despair. It’s for sure worthy effort, but… it is effort. It does take attention, and practice to make changes. I smile to myself; this morning is sure damned close to feeling “effortless”, and that’s something amazing (and very much worth enjoying while it lasts).
I queue up some gardening videos. I immediately find my mind wandering to cooking… I laugh and drink my coffee. My delight is not affected; if I’d queued up a cooking video, I’d have been thinking about the garden. This is where my happy place is – here at home, where I can cook, and garden, and hang out with my lover (even in when we aren’t in the same room, I feel his presence here at home with me).
Sure, I’ll begin the day again, after I finish this coffee… nothing fancy planned. Grocery shopping. Run an errand. Get out in the garden. Love my partner. It’s a lovely day for all of that. That’s enough.
I’m awake. My excessive awareness of background noise has prevented me going back to sleep since I woke, although I had obviously been sleeping through it just fine before. Annoying. It’s been an hour, spent quietly, eyes closed, mind coasting, waiting gently for sleep to catch up with me.
…So far? I’m awake.
I’m not stressed out or anxious. That’s something. I could read a while, if I cared to. I do feel sleepy, and I am enjoying spending quiet moments with my thoughts. I’m not unhappy, resting contentedly in the darkness… I’d just prefer to be sleeping.
I don’t even think the background noise is actually keeping me awake; I’m simply aware of it, and the background noise seems a bit background noisier than usual. Maybe something left on in my Traveling Partner’s shop or our noisy refrigerator? The aquarium? The hot tub or the neighbor’s A/C unit? Maybe all of those things? Hard to be sure over my tinnitus. lol
I yawn and then yawn again. Looks like sleep is going to catch up with me after all. Good enough.
I am awake. I don’t mean to be. I woke suddenly, feeling very thirsty, and got up to get a drink of water. Easy enough. Feeling much refreshed and still sleepy, I went back to bed.
…I’ve been awake since then. That was about an hour ago. I meditated for a while. That was pleasant and quite relaxing. I am still awake.
I found myself sleepy again and started, finally, to drift off. I sat up abruptly, halting any potential for sleep for the moment, when my brain inconveniently solved a small challenging bit of a work problem (meaning actual math, in this case), unexpectedly. I sat with my thoughts for a few minutes, long enough to minimize the risk of forgetting all about it by morning. No reason to be wasteful with good cognitive work, however poorly timed!
I’m sleepy again. Ready to begin (sleep) again… I start unwinding (again).I let my thoughts drift, here and there… no pressure. Years of struggling with insomnia and nightmares don’t feel like the distant past, right now, but a yawn overcomes me soon, and then another… good enough. 🙂
Evening Light 