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This Head Cold, That Car

August 12, 2018 //
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I was too sick most of yesterday to maintain any excitement about the car in my driveway. Actually, when I first woke up during day light hours and noticed it there from my vantage point at the kitchen sink, I initially wondered who was here, before realizing my error and remembering the car. lol

There was a point, during the later portion of something I am inclined to call “mid-morning” (although for me it is actually, most days, well into the day because I am such an early riser), when I did feel well enough and restlessly housebound enough to want very much to go… to the store? Somewhere. I wanted to go somewhere. To feel forward momentum. To be out of the house for a few minutes. To have a purpose and direction that had to do with any else than blowing my nose again, or making yet another cup of tea, or broth. So… to the store?

I made a short list. Put clothes on. Got into the car and then I got honest with myself. I was restless, ill, and bored, and I just wanted to drive the car. lol I didn’t need anything at the store. Certainly, I didn’t need to spend the money. I pulled out of the driveway with care, and pointed the car in the direction of rural roads. I drove around, through forests and meadows and farmland, contentedly counting on GPS to get me home once I’d satisfied my desire to drive the car and be out of the house a bit. I didn’t bother with the pretext of going to the store. About an hour into that, my sinuses started itching again, my nose started running, and I started really feeling ill again. I eyed the small pack of Kleenex in the console, half gone already. Time to head home. I got home grinning from ear to ear, feeling content, and also feeling tired, ill, and ready to go back to bed.

A point in time between day and night.

I pretty much slept the rest of the day and night, waking now and then only long enough to have some soup, or tea, or re-up on symptom relieving over-the-counter nostrums and use the bathroom. So it went for the rest of the day, all of the night, and until some short time before full daylight this morning. Aside from some volunteer time on Friday, and buying the car, this entire weekend has been blown by being sick. I am, on the other hand, also exceedingly well-rested. lol

I’m sipping my coffee this morning, still feeling a bit fussy, head still pretty stuffy, but pleased that it hasn’t seemed to move into my chest (yet), which is a good thing. My coffee tastes delicious. It’s iced and also seems very refreshing. This seems, to me, to be a clear sign of recovery. I enjoy the moment, and the flavor, and also notice the colossal pile of used tissues, on the floor next to my desk, where I’ve either missed the waste basket or more likely, from the shape of the pile, and its vastness, I simple filled the basket and continued tossing tissue that direction. lol I am mildly embarrassed at the awareness that there are likely piles just like this one next to every over-filled waste basket in each room I’ve occupied this weekend, that the ennui of illness caused me to overlook and ignore. Maybe I have it in me today to tidy up a bit? (I think I might; and clearly I am well enough to notice the untidiness at this point!)

I begin to form a plan, an approach, something gently constructive to do with what is left of the weekend. I remind myself I am still sick, and won’t finish a long list – so I make a short one. The things that will bug me most to come home to, tomorrow: do the dishes, take out the trash, water the garden… I think about adding more, and decide to just stop there. Do those three things, gently. If I’ve got more in me after that, well, it’ll be obvious enough what else needs to be done. 🙂 No need to force myself through a busy day needlessly, it’s still the weekend.

I finish my coffee. Roll out my yoga mat. I begin again.

 

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being

One Kleenex After Another

August 11, 2018 //
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There are now open boxes of tissues in every room of this place, one on each side table, near each place I sit, on every counter top, and next to each of those, small bottles of hand sanitizer – which I don’t use unless I am down with some sort of contagious ailment. Which I am. Down with a contagious ailment. By which I mean, I’m sick. With a cold.

In spite of a fair bit of misery, I managed to get my Friday managed decently well, and the day even ended with a car in my driveway, again. I’m fairly pleased with all of that. I crashed out almost as soon as I got home, got up a couple times for soup, tea, to pee, or to attempt to ease my symptoms. All very human. I slept through the night, I think. I at least don’t recall waking. 3:38 am, my lack of ability to breath woke me. I’d planned to go directly back to bed, feeling woozy and uncoordinated. I ended up here, instead. 🙂

I spent an hour conversing online with a friend having a rough time at the moment. Quality conversation is too often built on someone’s suffering, which is shame, but nonetheless it is good to spend time chatting with a friend to ease the boredom and ennui of being sick. I’m sleepy again, and it’s back to bed to continue to work on getting over this latest bit of ick. (Fucking call centers. They are often disease incubators every bit as much as they are places to work. Don’t get me started about public transit.) Conveniently, from a work perspective, I am sick over the weekend. Inconveniently, from my own perspective, I am sick over the weekend. Balance in all things, I suppose. 0_o

Time to go back to bed. I can try a new beginning a little later. 😉

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Categories anhedonia, Brain Injury, health, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer

Here, Now, Human

August 10, 2018 //
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I am sitting here with my coffee, grateful to be out of the office today. My coffee is still untouched, though I’ve been sitting here with it for half an hour. I have a cold and feel fairly listless and awful. It could be worse, of course, it’s really just a cold.

Having a head cold was not in my plan for today. I am volunteering some of my time… and I am so glad that’s a little later. I take a sip of my insipid, possibly terrible, coffee (is this head cold why it tasted “off” yesterday morning, too?). It was my plan to spend the remainder of my weekend shopping for a car. It’s time. I don’t much feel at all interested in that, at the moment, and I suspect it would be a colossal dick move to go car shopping while contagious. I’m definitely certain it would be grossly inconsiderate to spread this shit around knowing I am ill.

It’s weird to me that many businesses strike a pose of actively discouraging employees from calling out when they are sick, in some cases even penalizing actual sick people for not getting over being sick fast enough. Many do, though, and the effort is leveraged primarily at entry-level workers, and lower paying middle management jobs; humans involved in the day-to-day work of keeping business going. You know, “the working class” folks. I’ve not ever seen anyone in the executive class actively discouraged from being out of the office… at all. Ever. I have reached an understanding that the amount of energy put into “attendance policies” (again, those are rarely applied to senior managers or executives at all) and convincing sick people to show up for work (in spite of potential risk of contagion, or delaying a person’s recovery) says a lot about the high value of their labor – and if those employees cave to that pressure, and work while sick or develop a tolerant acceptance of their exploitation, it says a lot about how poorly they value themselves. There’s definitely profit to be made in human beings undervaluing themselves – they cost so much less! It’s an understanding that, over time, moved me further and further left on the political spectrum as a human being, as a worker, and as a manager. “Who actually benefits from this policy?” became a question I learned to ask – a lot. It is heartbreaking how rarely, in most places, the answer is ever “everyone who works here benefits equally”.

Enough about things to do with working. Bleh. Actually, “bleh” is a good descriptor of where I am with my whole experience, just at the moment. I’m not quite sick enough to give up on everything and just go back to bed (although my coffee is really not the experience I’ve grown to love, and I feel fairly crappy, generally)… and I’m definitely not well enough to pull on my hiking boots and get a couple of miles in before I head to the VA.

…Just thinking about going back to bed, and looking at the clock… I don’t know… bed sounds okay… even if I didn’t sleep… I could just lay there being miserable so gently…

…I can begin again… later…

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Categories Brain Injury, health, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Big 5

Figuring Out What Works

August 9, 2018 //
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I sip my coffee wondering why it tastes crappy this morning, and smile at the recollection of the numerous friends who would likely point out that it could be simply that it is coffee. Having a… “fondness” for (addiction to?) coffee isn’t something everyone has, wants, or seeks out. Coffee, sometimes, tastes like some rare combination of cardboard and tobacco tea. lol It’s not always flavorful and delicious, especially preferring it, generally, black. This morning, this cup of coffee tastes a bit like… coffee filter paper that’s had one cup of coffee run through it, the grounds dumped out, and then refilled with crushed dandelion stems, and some sort of bitter tea has resulted from this process. Only… I don’t really taste “bitter” in any clear way, so… just… not good. lol

…I could set it aside and not drink it, I mean, if I weren’t concerned about the headache that would come later today… or… yeah. Okay. I know, I know. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would I continue?? This is addiction. It’s how it works. I take another sip of my coffee…

…I drink rather a lot of coffee, and sit with that for a few minutes, just thinking about that, and taking stock of how skillfully I am/am not managing that addiction? (Addiction is what this is. The legality is not relevant to the chemistry.) My consumption over the past year has crept up to a very steady “3 coffees”…but… it had reached a point at which those “3 coffees” were all quad shot beverages. lol Oops. That’s a bit much, and even with ensuring my consumption is all in the morning (unless willfully and explicitly to support a late night), it is enough to interfere with good sleep. I’ve already cut way back to just “3 coffees”, meaning, just three actual coffee beverages (and if any one of those is an espresso drink, it only has a double shot in it). My coffee habit, over the years, has required some vigilance. Every now and then, it’s important to notice “how bad it has gotten” and take a step back, adjust, and put myself back on track with what I am really comfortable with. I recall one point in my 20s when I literally (no kidding) walked around more or less always with a coffee cup in my hand, and drank generally nothing else.

This particular cup of coffee is actually really quite remarkably bad. Wow. If they were all like this, I probably would not drink coffee at all.

I let my mind wander to other things. My Traveling Partner somewhere out in the world… The day ahead… Car shopping… The heat of summer… I sip my coffee and enjoy the quiet morning. It hasn’t mattered whether the coffee actually tastes good, not for a really long time. Not really. Sure, the coffee thing is what it is, and what it is, is that I’m addicted to coffee. I’m even okay with that. It’s a moment. A ritual. A part of a stabilizing morning routine that begins my day slowly, encouraging me to take the time to really wake up (and helps a bit with that), before I face the world.

…It does need some awareness and management, that’s just real.

My aching back is back to being more about my arthritis than injury or muscle soreness. Pain sucks, regardless, and I welcome any lessening or reduction in it. I enjoy the moment of “feeling better” without pointing my consciousness back to the pain itself. I find that focusing on the pain, and becoming invested in the emotional experience of the pain, in the moment, tends to amplify it, and I really don’t want to add that to my day. I breathe, relax, and let the awareness of pain, generally, fade into the background. I won’t lie; it’s not a perfect solution. I still hurt. I’m just not letting pain pwn my day. 🙂

I finish my coffee and look at the clock. The world goes on being the world. People are still people. Buses are still running. Commuters are still rushing across town. Work is still something that occupies far too much of the time of far too many people. Too many other people don’t have enough work to support their quality of life needs (because, keeping it real, too many jobs don’t pay a living wage at all). There is still a need for balance. There is still a search for it. Life is a process, and a verb. Active. Changing. Real. Filled with choices.

There is time to begin again. There is time to become the person I most want to be. There is time to change the world. There are verbs involved. Ready? It’s time.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Getting the Timing Right

August 8, 2018 //
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Timing is a thing. It’s morning again. I’m rather aggressively slurping my coffee. There’s less time in the mornings, and I am feeling grateful that I started waking up at 4 am weeks ago (months?). I still get an hour for myself before it’s time for feet to hit pavement, and head to the bus that will take me to the office. I’m not complaining, just noting the change to my routine, and to my timing.

I exchange a few words with my Traveling Partner. I am very much missing him. I think about love for some little while. I try not to count the minutes. 🙂

The walk to the bus stop is easier each day as my body gets more used to it, and my brain gets re-calibrated to the time it takes to get to work. The commute is basically doubled in duration, in both directions, and the bus is crowded in the afternoon, on the way home. I’m not surprised by these things, they are merely characteristics of the new normal.

All the way home, each evening, I consider the things I am going to get done once I arrive. I get home too tired for any of that. This, too, is familiar. Yesterday evening was fairly skillfully done. I managed to stay fully on track with my self-care stuff, and even enjoyed the evening quietly before calling it an early night and getting some sleep. I slept through the night. I woke to the alarm. Getting up was harder than usual – I really wanted to sleep on. lol I tried to convince myself it is Saturday (it’s not; it is Wednesday) and almost went back to sleep. So unlike me.

Finally acknowledging, regularly and out loud, that I have been pushing myself too hard allows me to also admit I need more rest, like, seriously. I’m looking forward to sleeping in Saturday, in spite of knowing I’m likely to wake with the dawn, anyway.

There’s really nothing profound about any of this, and the common truth of life is that much of it is mundane, ordinary stuff, lacking in profundity or significance. A good night’s rest still matters, though. A good cup of coffee (if you’re into coffee) still satisfies. Routine is routine. Average is average. Ordinary is what most moments and days are made of – that’s not only “okay”; it provides the framework to understand the extraordinary, and recognize significance of moments that are indeed profound. This morning is not that. It’s just morning. That suits me just fine – it’s enough.

I smile quietly and swallow the last of my coffee, my eye on the clock. It’s already time to begin again. More verbs. My results may vary. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being
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