Archives for category: The Big 5
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Quieter Mornings

July 23, 2017 //
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Well… I suppose it is time to let new routines become old routines, and for life to “get back to normal”, whatever that is going to be, here in this new place. I have lived here now for fully 9 days. I sip my coffee, very early, before dawn, on a Sunday work day. It is so quiet here. It is quieter, at least before dawn on a Sunday, than the place I just moved out of. There is no traffic at all at this hour. All is still, and calm, and yes, eerily quiet. I scratch my arm absent-mindedly, I notice it seems quite loud in the stillness of this quiet room.

Yesterday was when I first noticed the shift in focus from moving to living, and realized that the move, as a thing all its own, is over. There’s plenty more to do, and the garage has quite a few unopened boxes remaining to be unpacked, but I really do live here now, and these things can be done over time. The big pieces of the puzzle are all in place. Life can be what it is. The rest of the unpacking, like dealing with any sort of baggage, is just part of living life. It’s just unpacking baggage. 🙂

I yawn and stretch. I sip my coffee. This is morning, here. It’s not so different than morning, for me, anywhere. I take my time with it. I sip coffee. I write. I contemplate my mortality. I consider my human legacy as an individual. I wonder where wisdom comes from. I watch a couple exciting movie trailers. I listen to the morning traffic begin, like a new section of the orchestra beginning to play in some grand symphony of noise. Life.

I’ll see my Traveling Partner soon. He’s been away a while. I am eager to hear his tales of adventure, and eager to share my own (somewhat less adventurous) tales. I will get his thoughts on placement of paintings, and his solutions for dark hallways. We will share the warmth of our embraces, and hear each other’s hearts beat. I will welcome him to this new place. 🙂

This feels like “the first day back to work” after a long time away. I haven’t been “away” at all, just took a couple long weekends. It’ll be the first work week since my thoughts became distracted with an imminent (then an in-progress) move, though. It’s been just one day more than a month since I gave my notice, and only a day or two more that moving has filled my thoughts. Wow. That happened fast. lol  This week, I’m just going to work, coming home, doing the things – no distractions. 🙂 It feels good.

I smile contentedly. Filling my awareness with birdsong and my feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. This was a singularly successful move. I make a point of taking time to appreciate how well it went. A good starting point for another of life’s journeys. I finish my coffee. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Here I Am At Home

July 22, 2017 //
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So this is home, is it? Here, now? Interesting that it feels so much so, so soon, so easily, so completely… Is it that way in each new place? Do I make myself at home, everywhere? It’s possible… I don’t take the bait when my restless monkey mind suggests I could dig into old journals and past blog posts looking for “truth”. The relevant truth is here, now, and it is enough. I feel at home here.

I woke well before day break. Dawn is still some time from now. The morning is dark in these wee hours, and the busy street I live on is utterly silent and without traffic so early on a Saturday morning. I woke early, rested, unable to sleep any longer. Easily handled; I got up and made coffee. 🙂

The move is over. I live here. There’s more unpacking to do. I still can’t reliably find my way around in the dark. I’m still constantly misplacing things I’ve set down “for a moment” in some convenient spot “where I can’t lose track of it”, then wandering off and forgetting where I’ve set down… my phone… my keys… that list I just made… It’ll be some time before I really know this space and where everything is “put away” in it. I have regular reminders that I am not yet entirely unpacked, and moments of anxiety about things that may be lost, or overlooked, and actually it’s just that there’s quite a lot still in boxes. An example is that I don’t unpack books until I am certain I have the shelves where I really want them – but some of the boxes of books have some little odd other thing in the top of the box, if there was a bit of space there, but I don’t easily remember that item X is in that box of books over there – for now it just “feels missing”. Getting fully moved in is a process – but it’s lovely that I already feel “at home”, nonetheless. 🙂

I notice that the pre-dawn darkness has lightened up enough to become dawn. Daybreak is here, and the sunrise will soon follow. I decide to set aside my writing, and take my coffee to the deck…

The day begins.

There is no handy view of the sunrise here, but the scent and sound of the forest so near at hand calls to mind so many mornings out in the trees, camping. The traffic hasn’t yet commenced, and all I hear are the sounds of forest life, and a breeze stirring the leaves of trees so close they seem almost within reach. I love the view from the deck. There is no grand vista here, no horizon on the horizon, no broad expanse of meadow…but there is also no busy pedestrian trail, no playground equipment, no basketball court, and no neighbors smoking cigarettes on the patio next to mine. This feels safe, and private, and comfortable. The deck gets some sun, it gets some shade – the roses are doing well here, and making a good recovery from the exposed heat of summer at the other address. I enjoy the convenience of having a water source at hand, making caring for my garden much easier. I check the yard from my deck vantage point, looking for forest creatures who may have chosen to visit, but this morning there are none. There will be other mornings. 🙂

The move is over. The rest is just housekeeping. 😀 I live here. This is home. I sip my coffee as the sky lightens, and smile. Joy feels good. Contentment feels good. Feeling welcome in my own space, and in my own life, feels very good indeed. I take time to really savor these feelings – and to welcome myself home.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Oh, Right, It’s All Different!

July 19, 2017 //
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I’m off for a couple days to get all moved in. I woke this morning too early (earlier than needed, earlier than desired, earlier than I’d planned on) and I am sipping my coffee distractedly, exchanging words with friends who are also awake, preparing for their work days. This is a “work day” for me as well, just work done here at home, in mindful service of home and hearth, taking care of the woman in the mirror. I pause to appreciate having the time off hours available to do so.

I look out the window, through the security door, and smile at the decorative stake that will soon support my hummingbird feeders. It is the one that used to hold the bird seed bell and suet feeder next to the patio at my old place. It makes me feel pleasantly at home to see it here. It’s taken me days to decide where to place it; I wanted to be easily able to see it, from inside the house, which didn’t actually leave many options. I like the placement I selected. I take a moment to fill up on that feeling of satisfaction and contentment. Really pausing to savor those small pleasing moments helps build a substantial reservoir of emotional resilience, as well as – over time – shifting my baseline implicit experience of life in a positive long-term way. It doesn’t happen fast.  It does require practice. There are verbs involved. My results often vary. Still totally worth it. 🙂

What works in one place or circumstance may not be quite the thing in another.

I sip my coffee with a similar experience of contentment and quiet joy. Fresh coffee beans of excellent quality, freshly ground, and a carefully prepared pour over instead of the effortless lower quality mass-prepared machine-brewed single-serve drip coffee I’ve allowed myself to become accustomed to for convenience. I have missed this measure of quality and self-indulgence more than I understood. Why should I rush myself on a day off? 🙂

I’d have slept in… only… I woke up. LOL It is, apparently, a day I am eager to enjoy. 🙂

My ankle has been aching fiercely, more than usual I felt, and the foot (same one as the ankle) on which I’d dropped my (very small) safe still feels terribly bruised, more than I expect it too after several days, and it has slowly been turning a strange shade of blue as the bruising continues to develop. I stopped by Urgent Care on my way home to have it seen to. I wasn’t too surprised to be told I’d cracked a metatarsal bone. So… less about the ankle, actually, and more about the foot, which explains why my ankle brace was giving me so much less relief than it usually does. My foot is now wrapped up a bit differently, but no cast, and I’m still moving around with relative ease using my cane. Nothing much has changed for having a doctor take an x-ray and give me a diagnosis, honestly, but I know why I hurt, and that lets me make better self-care choices. I’m doubly appreciative to have time off for moving in; I’ll have to do it with great care, and more slowly. Totally fine. I’ve got this… after coffee. 🙂

I love it here, so far…

…I can’t find anything here, yet.

So much more to do!

There is more work to be done restoring order from chaos. More verbs. More moments. More lists. More practices. My coffee is finished, and the sky has lightened from dawn to morning. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Bags, Baggage, Things, and Stuff

July 16, 2017 //
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I’m mostly moved out of my old apartment.  Hell, for that matter, I’m mostly moved in to the new house, thanks to the coordinated help of friends, and professional movers, and the bonus that is being able to afford to take time off to manage it. Nothing precious to me got broken, and the only box that got dropped was in my own hands when it fell, hit the sidewalk in front of the new house, and spilled its contents from the split-wide-open box into the driveway. It was a macht nichts moment; just this-n-that from the bathroom cupboards. No harm done. I did manage to startled the professional movers, though. lol I’m tired. Still tired. There’s more to do, of course, mostly of the moving in and getting settled variety. Exciting and fun and… I’m still tired. LOL My ankle gave me far more grief than my back ever did, and by Friday I was back on my cane, and had worn out my ankle brace beyond repair. More than once, I made a point to pause, rest, and give myself a moment to recover some little amount, before continuing. There is still more to do.

I’m eager to see my Traveling Partner again, and welcome him to this new, different, lovely space. My deck is big – huge in comparison to small apartment patios – and there is water right there, making caring for my garden easier than it has been for me since… 1995. There is so much excitement in this process now! I feel that release of tension as sleepiness, more often than I’d like. I smile and remind myself that fatigue is a shout out for rest and ease. I gotta remember to do that, too.

The view from my bed, feet up, taking it easy for a few minutes between tasks on moving day.

I double-check my list of things to do and tenderly add “take care of me”. Soon enough the work day will end, and I will head to the apartment to tidy up, and remove anything left behind from 4 days of moving. There are definitely more verbs involved…

 

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Categories Epsom salts, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Error Message

July 10, 2017 //
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I woke from a deep sleep to some kind of noise…a persistent sound of some sort…a beeping, or chiming, or… and it wasn’t stopping… Oh. My phone was ringing. Only one number rings through my “Do Not Disturb” settings; my Traveling Partner. I quickly lurch from bed and careen through the apartment, stumbling on shit that doesn’t match my mental map of my apartment; there are stacks of boxes everywhere. I reach the phone and answer it, delighted to hear his voice. No emergency, he’s just back in town and wanted to hear my voice. 🙂 It was a short call, and a quick return to sleep…

…only…

Nope. Not sleeping.

…I couldn’t so easily return to sleep.  Just as I was about to drift off my brain decided to attack with a barrage of insecure doubt and anxiety and dread, and oh, just all the things available to keep me laying wakefully for some time. I did eventually return to a restless unsatisfying sleep. Nightmares of loss and loneliness occupied my sleeping mind until the alarm went off.

I woke feeling okay. Feeling thoughtful. Feeling… thought-filled. lol This too will pass. I make a point of reminding myself how pointless rumination is, and that anything of substance that truly needs to be considered will still need to be considered later… after I wake up, after meditation, after my morning coffee, and perhaps even just quite a lot later today – after work. Perspective is helpful. Context matters. Oh, and also – brains make shit up all the damned time. lol My imagination is just as likely to work against me as to delight me. So, I shrug off as much of the weird lingering insecurity, anxiety, and doubt as I am able to, and I push on with the morning.

I have a practice for this one, and although it works, it’s not to be undertaken lightly first thing in the morning by a sleep-addled brain. (I learned that the hard way!) My practice for dealing firmly with insecurity and anxiety is to look my fears in the face without flinching. Seriously – I consider as frankly as I can whatever bundle of fears and bullshit that is freaking me out, and I consider it as if it were simply a given and life is no kidding going to deliver on all of it as if it were a promise. Feeling insecure about my relationship? I consider life without it, no bullshit, no drama – what does that look like? Could I still be okay? What advantages might that bring? Is there a future from that point that may still be quite nice? Does it change who I am? What am I truly afraid of? Is there an opportunity for growth, here? This works for any sort of insecurity, doubt, and anxiety, really. Emotions are powerful. It’s a good idea to choose some moment when it feels truly safe to fully consider my deepest fears. Results vary. Scary, tense, anxious, insecure, doubtful emotions can go sideways so easily, plunging me into real despair… but, all the more reason to learn to face them unafraid of the emotions themselves, and there is so much to learn. They’re still only emotions; getting to know them well, becoming comfortable with emotion, generally, and working to develop a measure of emotional intelligence that supports good quality of life is not only completely achievable, I have found that improving my emotional intelligence improves my interactions with others, too, and sort of “tidies up my thinking”. 🙂

So much of what goes on in our heads is actually completely made up bullshit going on in our heads. 🙂 I am as likely to find my anxiety provoked by things that are delightful, or changes that suit me better than whatever had changed ever could, as I am by things that are legitimately worth being anxious about. Silly primates – given both emotion and reason (which work so nicely together), and yet time and again we keep trying to choose one over the other. lol

I sip my coffee and watch the dawn slowly becoming day. I consider my imminent move. Just two more work shifts before that actually becomes a thing happening in the moment…and one of those work shifts is today. This is happening!! 😀 My conversation with my partner last night opened some opportunities in the context of moving that I hadn’t considered, and although I spent some time wracked with anxiety (because changing plans sometimes causes me anxiety), the opportunities themselves are worth considering fully. Later.

The calm of the morning develops like a Polaroid. I feel settled and secure, and focused on changes that meet my needs over time. I feel content. I feel loved. Fears and doubts fade away as the sky lightens, and anything that lingers to day’s end can be fully considered at some later point, in a comfortable, practical way.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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