Archives for category: The Big 5
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There Was This One Time…

March 25, 2017 //
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I fell asleep composing coherent sentences, assembled from thoughts and words, suitable for this morning’s writing. It was, as I recall, a good idea for a blog post. Unsurprisingly, it was lost among my dreams, during the night. I woke rested, clear-headed, content – and utterly without a thought that seemed worth writing about.

I hoped the blinds in the studio to let the sunrise illuminate the room. I watched the geese on the lawn, sipped my coffee, and listened to the peculiar suburban hum of existing humanity that seems so nearly inescapable, generally. I notice that my throat is a little sore, and shuffle my weekend plans around to reduce stress, labor, and exposing others to potential contagion, in case I am sick. If I’m  not actually ill, the sore throat remains a sign that I likely need more rest than I have been getting. I decide to take care of this fragile vessel this weekend. Life is more a thru-hike along a breath-taking wilderness trail than a paved loop through a state park; it’s important to take care, and pace myself. 🙂

I hear my Traveling Partner stirring in the other room, making coffee. I smile, content and wrapped in love. Last evening was weird, infused with drama. OPD. Not my drama. I am supportive throughout, although I struggle a bit with resenting that a human being I have made a point to cut out of my life completely can still push so much toxic waste into my experience. The resentment quickly fades to sorrow that my Traveling Partner has this bullshit to deal with in another (any other) relationship. I know a lot of people who do. Myself, I tend to fairly quickly find my way to “troll blocking” and “unfriending” these days, even in real life; I have no liking of, or time for, destructive games or drama, and very specifically define “love” and “affection” as exclusive of those sorts of things. Yep. I said it. If you treat someone badly on the regular, it is not understandable (to me) that you “love” them. From my own perspective, you do not. That’s not love. There’s no room for argument, it’s merely my opinion, and how my own map of the world looks.

No drama today, I hope. I sip my coffee and smile. My Traveling Partner puts his head in the studio to tell me that there is a new season of Samurai Jack. Finally! Season 5. We share a fondness for it. I can’t tell if my moment of delight has anything to do with Samurai Jack at all, it’s all mixed up with my delight that my Traveling Partner is here this morning. I have no idea what the day holds. It is unplanned. Unscripted. I wonder what moment will define it.

Today is a good day for patience, and a good day for contentment. Today is a good day to love, and to live gently. Today is a good day for laughter, kindness, and gratitude. Today is a good day to enjoy small things, and to build a drama free zone. Today is a good day to make the choices that change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Human, Adult, One Each

March 24, 2017 //
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Yesterday was… quite a day. Complicated and stressful. On the whole not at all satisfying. No shortage of love, just with multiple side orders of stress and chaos. I don’t much want to consider it right now.

I woke feeling fairly rested, and I was really needing to get more than 5 hours of sleep. I’m grateful I did. The morning began well, although I could have done without my partner’s loud aggravated venting about how the shower was adjusted; I had precisely the same experience yesterday evening, myself, because he’d left it adjusted to meet his needs and I’d forgotten to be mindful he was the last person in the shower, and had similarly sprayed water all over the place. I didn’t yell about it or get pissed off because it’s not that sort of thing for me. I find myself irked that it is that sort of thing for him. We are each having our own experience. I breathe and let it go. I remind myself that yesterday’s health crisis will be likely to have outcomes of its own, because both medication and healing are their own experiences – processes with sensations, and emotions.

It’s a work day. I keep forgetting that detail, wanting so badly to stay home and relax. I’ve enjoyed my Traveling Partner being here. He arrived in crisis, though, and has remained so, although it morphed from an emotional crisis to a physical/medical one. Now things are likely to settle back into more normal routines. I’ll probably be home alone tonight, having served the purposes of nurturing and providing comfort skillfully. There may be an angry moment later, waiting to be had, I’m not always certain of seeing these things coming, but a tiny voice wants to ask “what about what I need? what about my health? what about my circumstances and the details of my experience?”  It sounds pretty selfish to see it written that way. There’s a balance to strike. It’s more difficult when we both have needs to be met more urgently than is usual. I am very likely to put my own aside. It’s what I learned to do. It’s part of why I live alone these days; it’s that much harder to undermine my own needs, and my own long-term self-care, when I am not faced with the constant presence of people so dear to me that I am risk of choosing to undermine my needs in their favor, full-time. Someday I hope to have become so strong and skillful at supporting and caring for the woman in the mirror that I have strength to share, 24/7. I keep practicing.

I’ve held my shit together and done some pretty excellent adulting this week. Tonight I’ll probably loosen my grip a bit, and cry it out. Having that unreservedly emotional moment without judgement or self-criticism, just letting go and feeling the feelings, is also important.

Today is still ahead of me. I’m focused on work. Tomorrow I’ll begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5

Enter Title Here

March 23, 2017 //
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I start writing this morning without a title. That’s not the usual order of things. Another night goes by, I wake and begin again on less than 5 hours of sleep. 4 nights on minimal sleep isn’t going to support great cognition, or emotional balance, and I make a point of setting reminders for later breaks, meals, and coffee. Focus and task management are already impaired. It gets worse on less sleep over time, reliably.

My Traveling Partner blew onto my doorstep yesterday, shortly after I got home from Jury Duty, driven my way by emotional storms and drama elsewhere. We hang out. He talks. I listen. I do my best to avoid criticizing that other person in his life, and to just be here for my partner. It is more important to support my partner, provide a safe place, and time to heal. I had expected to (most likely) spend the evening alone, meditating, relaxing, and making myself emotionally ready for today; I have a medical procedure later. At one or two points I begin to tear up unexpectedly as we talk; although he is here with me, he’s not realistically available to provide the emotional support that I need myself, for tomorrow, and with regards to my health over time. Not right now. I breathe through those moments; I am loved. It isn’t personal. This too will pass. The moments I find myself feeling alone in spite of his presence won’t be what I remember about the day. 🙂

I really need to sleep. I’m still not quite awake. I feel groggy. A little dizzy. I am in more than usual pain, in part due simply to being tired.  I double check that I’ve set my ‘leave now’ alarm. I double check it a few more times. I’m having trouble holding on to the knowledge that the alarm is indeed set. Really. No… really. I check it again anyway, “just to be sure”. I consider taking the car, if my Traveling Partner is still here when the time comes to head to my appointment…faster. Less time spent away from work on a busy work day. It hits me that there was something specific I’d intended to work on… I struggle to remember what. I am eager to be finished with so many things… finished with medical diagnostic procedures, finished with house hunting (and the implied move on the other side of that process!), finished with taxes, finished with hiring a new analyst and completing a software implementation, finished big disrupting tasks and events, generally, and back to living gently, predictably, uneventfully, and comfortably day after day. Sleep. I’d like to get back to sleeping regularly… that I’d like to begin again. Soon.

Speaking of beginning again. I think I’ll go do that. Today is a good day for beginnings. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5

Doing the Thing

March 22, 2017 //
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Jury Duty today. Short morning. Doing my civic duty to be part of American justice is okay with me, though I’ve only ever been picked for a jury once, and that was Grand Jury. For some reason, I get eliminated for regular juries all the time over something or another. Sometimes because I’m an anarchist. Other times because I’m 100% comfortable that jury nullification is a thing. Other times because the reading material I brought with me for hanging out and waiting made some attorney or another less than ideally comfortable. Once because I’d simply seen and heard too much on media about the case being heard. Once or twice because I was a woman, though it wasn’t explicitly stated quite that way.

Jury duty is crazy important. Some citizen – the victim, generally – seeking justice for some wrong, another citizen – most often the accused – very much hoping to be understood as not being the person committing that wrong, or even perhaps hopeful that a “jury of peers” will understand no actual wrong was committed. It’s all very complicated and requires each citizen level up and do their very best. I have doubts that everyone understands it this way, but always hope that if I am ever a citizen in need of a jury, that the citizens on it will take it all very seriously indeed.

So, I’m sipping my coffee and watching the Internet go by. Listening to the new Whiz Khalifa track. I follow it with some Snoop Dogg.  I charge up my Kindle. I load a great playlist for the day. I have to leave the house earlier than usual, and I keep my eye on the time.

Ready? It’s time to Wednesday! 🙂

 

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Categories Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Morning?

March 21, 2017 //
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The sleep I got last night was good, but not enough to be “rested”. This makes two days on less than 5 hours of sleep. I saw my physician in the morning, yesterday. I see another on Thursday. I worked. I saw a house, then home for dinner. The excitement of the day being what it was, I found myself lost in the vastness of it all, crying. Just crying. It wasn’t “personal”, and there was nothing to do about it but let the tears fall. I still couldn’t sleep, so went next door and hung out with friends for a few minutes. I had reached out unsuccessfully to my Traveling Partner; we’d been chatting through the late afternoon, already, and not reaching him didn’t trouble me. I figured he was in the studio. (I was just the tiniest bit jealous to find out later he was sleeping. lol)

I woke with effort this morning. I feel okay, I guess. Scratchy eyes. Headache. Sluggish. Thinking is still an effort even after some yoga, meditation, and a lovely shower. My headspace feels as if filled with some immovable goo or epoxy; it is a less than ideal state of consciousness, generally. I pause and pull myself more fully upright, correcting posture that would otherwise make me quite uncomfortable in a very short time. I notice my left hand sort of curled in on itself, resting on my lap in that moment; I am fatigued to the point that some of the indicators of my brain injury are more pronounced than usual. I stand up and stretch, feeling joints crack and pop and shift. I frown for a moment, thinking about work as a massive unscripted undertaking in which enormous quantities of random busy-ness (lol) must be processed under the watchful eye of a ticking clock. I remind myself this is a new week, a new experience, and that last week’s intensity is behind me. My perspective shifts and shifts again as I wake more fully.

I take a deep breath and another. I sip my coffee and wait for my brain to catch up with my insistence on starting the day. I should be good for one or two more of these short nights before spelling errors and temper tantrums catch up with me…

Today I begin again feeling pretty reliant on good practices, reliable habits, planned tasks, and routine. I’m okay right now, just tired. Today is a good day to take care of the woman in the mirror – and to extend similar consideration to all the other working zombies out there, wrung out and over-extended by the demands of adulting for another day. We are each having our own experience. We are all in this together. If we’re kind to each other, we can change the world… even on less than 5 hours of sleep. 😀

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5
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