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This One’s for a Friend

September 29, 2016 //
3

This morning I woke up thinking about a far away friend going through a bad bit. She spoke of fear,and she spoke of feeling mistreated, and she spoke of love, and when she spoke her narrative reminded me of dark times of my own, in past relationships. She’s well-loved, and has many friends. I know there are days she doubts it. I hear her heartbreak, now, reflected in many inconsequential things. I remember mine.

Attachment is a tangled bit of nastiness. I held on, fearful, for so many years in two very long (bad) relationships, and later, a one nearly as vile as the first, that I had the limited strength and fragile-best-effort wisdom to walk away from before I’d exhausted 3 years. (I pause to acknowledge the progress implied there, without being overly hard on myself about the slow learning curve.) I’m very human, love matters so much – and it’s peculiarly difficult to sort out the professed-love-that-isn’t-love-at-all from Love.

I held on because I was afraid. I was afraid to “lose everything” – without actually defining with clarity what it was I thought I was actually holding onto. I apologized when I was victimized, hurt, injured, mistreated, manipulated, and “managed” through cruelty and the withholding of affection. I turned my anger on myself, believing that I had in some fashion “deserved” this treatment – I mean, hey, hadn’t I… something? Didn’t I do… something? No, it wasn’t ever about me, but it took a really long time to figure that out. I needed help with that, too. It was a grim and lonely journey through a lot of chaos and damage.

Rare is that good friend who will look another in the eye and gently say “please take care of yourself, I’m worried about your safety” and “no, actually, I don’t think you deserved that, and I don’t think it’s a given that because your partner says they love you that this gives them a free pass to be cruel, demanding, irrational, violent, mean, confrontational, deceitful, hateful, exploitative…” (or any of the many dozens of other ways human primates can be cruel to one another). Sometimes it’s hard to find the words. Other times we wonder “is it our place”? (It is.) Perhaps we’re not sure about the circumstances, so choose to “stay out of it” rather than be mistaken. Maybe we don’t think it’s “that bad”, or it mirrors our own circumstances and forces us to look to closely into the mirror. It matters that we give voice to our concerns, though; our hurting friends, frightened friends, isolated friends, hell – all our friends need our voices in their moment of darkness, need to know we care, and that they matter – to someone.

You matter. I hope you are reading this over your coffee, or your tea, and that you take just one moment to set aside the hurting and the fear, and accept this one thing, right now; this too will pass. It’s okay to let go of the attachment, and look your worst care scenario right in the face; your thoughts have no substance that you don’t give them. They are free for the taking, to enjoy when they delight us, to educate us about our suffering when they are less delightful. Let your fears unfold their educational narrative in your thoughts, and breathe. Trust your good heart. Take care of you – because you matter. If things are okay right now, take time to just sink into that moment, and enjoy being okay right now. Breathe. Relax. Sip your coffee (tea?). Take a moment for you. This moment. Now. The moment you’ve got – the only moment you’ve really got. Be present for it. (The way out is through.) 🙂

Thank you being a friend. Thank you for listening when I’ve needed to talk. Thank you for sharing your own heartfelt words in a moment of fear and pain, and connecting across miles and years through our common experience as human beings. Emotion and reason. It’s not either or, and can’t be. 😉 I hear you. Other friends hear you. You are heard. You are loved. ❤

One new day, approximately infinite possibilities.

One new day, approximately infinite possibilities.

Today is a good day to begin again. Today is a good day for a journey – a solo hike through life, if you will. There is no map. You’ll be your own cartographer. There will be obstacles, challenges, and life’s curriculum is a stern teacher on some icy mornings of the heart. You’ll probably make some bad choices along the way, or get caught out in emotional inclement weather without an umbrella. There may feel like there are more bad times than good – even when data, real data, would suggest it could be otherwise. It’s a worthy journey, nonetheless, and well… frankly… you have the choice to take it willfully or to drift, but you must make the journey to the conclusion that it offers, or choose another – but the journey is itself is not optional. (You do get to choose your gear.) Ready? It’s time to walk on, Friend. ❤

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Odds and Evens

September 27, 2016 //
0

Full house this morning. My traveling partner and his son still sleeping, the apartment feels very quiet. I’ll probably be gone for the day long before they wake. I made it through the work day fairly comfortably, yesterday. I face today feeling confident I’ll manage, in spite of continued cold symptoms, and generally feeling somewhat miserable with the commonplace stuffy head nonsense slowly migrating into my chest for future misery with the congested chest nonsense next week. Maybe it won’t go that way… experience suggests otherwise. Do I have a preference? Is that even a question that makes any sense?

I breathe deeply – and set off a coughing fit. The coughing fit somehow results in looking into the kitchen light – long enough to start me sneezing, immediately after finishing with the coughing. I break out in a sweat, as though it amounts to real exertion. My fitness tracker disagrees, insisting I am “inactive”. I sneer at it dismissively, playfully retorting “you don’t know me” aloud, quietly. I smile that I’m “keeping my voice low” to prevent waking people; I ran the burr grinder for my coffee, have had multiple fits of coughing or sneezing, and closed the bathroom door on my hand earlier, resulting in quite an audible yelp of pain. So. I’m pretty sure sassing my fitness tracker isn’t going to be the thing that woke the household. 🙂 Funny human primates. Even on small courtesies we lack perspective.

Life looks different this morning than it did two weeks ago. I’ve lost 40 hours of my time each week, and gained valued resources in the exchange of life-force for currency. My traveling partner and I talk “next steps”, and about the future together. His restless heart yearns to move about his universe, exploring, traveling, seeing sights, and tasting adventure. Mine yearns for a safe haven after a lifetime of stormy seas and rootless wandering. Sometimes it sounds a poor fit, the two of us together, and this morning I savor how very well it suits me, to be here, safe, wrapped in contentment, a welcoming harbor for a traveler’s homecoming. This works for us. Later there will be stories shared, hugs, kisses (well… once I’m over this cold), and time well-spent, because we spent it together. Enough? More than enough.

In what direction will the journey unfold, now? What next steps can I see? Are there others, worthy useful others, I may be inclined to overlook? Do I want what my lover wants? Where our desires differ… who decides? Life is a solo hike; sometimes we share the journey alongside another, but it’s our hike to make, bearing the weight of our own burdens, and the consequences of our own choices. I am my own cartographer. Will I “pack light” and move quickly through life committed to a plan, without pausing to enjoy it? The map is not the world. The plan is not the experience. Will I struggle under the weight of my baggage, mile by mile, exhausted and cranky, but well-equipped for the unlikely odd circumstance? We are each having our own experience. How do I share life’s journey with skill, however briefly?

I sip my coffee, losing interest in the metaphor in favor of some distraction, already forgotten.

Where will the journey take me?

Where will the journey take me?

…And still the household sleeps. I look at my list for the day and realize I’ve overlooked meditation. Practices work best with verbs involved. It’s time to set aside the written word for a while. Today is a good day for practicing practices, and for good self-care. Today is a good day to invest in wellness. Today is a good day to slow down, and enjoy the journey. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Beyond the Obvious

September 24, 2016 //
0

Morning came early today. 4:00 am on a Saturday seems earlier than necessary. I started the day with meditation, then yoga, quietly piecing together my self-care from the tattered remains of routines torn down by more spontaneous others. My traveling partner sleeps in his bedroom. His visiting son occupies another. I am awake, quietly, with my coffee, my laptop balanced in my lap, on a cushion.

The evening ended oddly. A wrong note in a beautiful symphony. A terse “you’re just wrong” interrupting an explanation, and an abrupt good-night hug and the evening was over. Human primates, still primates. In the moment, it felt dismissive and rude to be treated with disrespect, however inconsequential the detail. This morning I’m inclined to let it go; my traveling partner is as human as anyone. It was a moment, and the moment has passed. That it lingers in my recollection is more a matter of needing to take care to ensure that my hurt feelings don’t fester, and that I take time to acknowledge them, myself, and treat myself with respect and kindness. Emotional self-sufficiency for the win. 🙂

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

The kindest people are capable of being unkind. The most peaceful people have the potential to be provoked into a moment of violence. The loftiest of goals is only a daydream, without actions. Our most heartfelt beliefs have no substance that we don’t give them ourselves; reality does not care what we believe. The people who profess their love for us are also most likely to hurt us, most often and most deeply. We are most easily hurt by those who matter most to us. I sip my coffee and consider these assumptions. They are part of who I am. I accept them, generally, as fact. Are they? Experience suggests they are, and I’ve learned hard lessons that tend to reinforce these ideas as true in my own life. Still… I don’t know that these are factual statements, only that they are statements that tend to express some experience I have had, myself, as clearly as I am able to express it.

Learning to comfortably accept that we are each having our own experience has also been a journey to understanding that our ability to empathize, to understand, to “relate” to each other builds on a peculiar thing; the tendency to assume shared qualities of mind, of thinking, of values, and of experience in those with whom we share life, which is in no way actually assured. We really are each having our own experience. There is no reason to assume you know what I know, that you have lived what I have lived. We are tempted into it by the vast quantity of shared and common experiences we do have… but there is so much more to each of who we are than what we tend to assume about each other, or perhaps even ourselves. There’s a limited amount of “we”, really, and it isn’t always quite where I think it is, myself. Oddly, we are also so much more similar than we tend to think of ourselves… it’s… complicated.

In context, the larger context of a lifetime, a moment of impatience or rudeness is minutiae, hardly worth a second thought. 🙂

It's hard to unsay the words.

It’s hard to unsay the words.

The sky is just beginning to lighten. Occasionally I hear stirring in another room. A cough. A shuffle. A bump. Living creatures, living. Outside, too, life; ducks on the marsh call back and forth, disturbed by passing runners, and songbirds are commencing their morning announcements. Life. I sip my coffee and wonder what the day holds.

This here, this now, this is enough.

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

A Season of Change

September 18, 2016 //
0

Tomorrow I go back to work. That isn’t today. Today, however, is a good day to prepare, to make myself ready, to review plans and expectations, to jot down questions, to plot a new commute with care, and plan out new routines that take into account my return to the workforce, as well as the likelihood that I’ll be seeing a great deal more of my traveling partner as the weather turns from festival summer to fireside fall.

The end of a chilly rainy autumn day.

Yesterday ended well, although chilly.

Who am I? It seems a day for such questions. Rainy. Mild. More yellow and amber tones in the leaves of the trees on the far side of the park than there were yesterday. Evidence of time passing, and of seasons changing. I feel transformed, myself, and able to face the prospect of working with quite a bit more contentment, and in much less day-to-day pain, even with the chill of autumn approaching. Has it really meant so much to take this time to care for myself, to live on my own terms, to follow my own agenda? Just six months? Worth it. Totally worth it. I’ll even be taking understandings gained and this perspective on the healing power of leisure into the workplace with me; I’ve learned a lot that has value to long-term workforce management strategies. Am I this person, this analyst-manager, this workforce management professional, this corporate employee? Is this who I am? No. Not really. I am not my work.

I look around the studio, very tidy – even projects in progress are cleaned up, for now, and put neatly aside. I’ll have a guest for some days, soon. Is this who I am? Hostess? Family member, local matriarch, devoted servant of home and hearth? Or am I the artist who has so accommodatingly set everything aside to welcome friends in need, lovers in distress, a traveler returning home, or family visiting from afar? Am I the frustrated citizen, attempting to dot i’s, cross t’s, and jump through hoops of paperwork on fire to comply with some requirement or another? Am I the disabled veteran, committed to my wellness, frustrated by “the system”, still doing what I can to meet my own needs over time, through diet, exercise, and careful management of my health? Am I the woman on the meditation cushion in the window, content, calm, relaxed? (Occasionally distracted with childlike delight to see a squirrel dart past, or a woodpecker stop at the suet feeder, sending both bird and feeder spinning crazily, to my great amusement.)

Who am I? Am I all these – or none? When I cling to some singular potentially defining quality, like my appearance, or an attitude, or a characteristic, or some detail singled out, change becomes such a frightening destructive force, with the potential to rob me of who I am. “Who am I?” is a question that quite honestly used to terrify me – not because I didn’t have a sense of self, but because I didn’t know what “the right answer” was, and that, by itself, was quite terrifying. Follow that with finding myself unclear on precisely what is required to prove the answer. Yep. Terrifying to feel so… unidentified.

There is no “right” answer. There may be quite a few… not “wrong” exactly… “incorrect”? Inaccurate. There may be quite a few inaccurate answers. I take time to consider the difference between “accurate” and “honest”. Truthful fits in there, somewhere, too. I’m not sure that accuracy in the details that describe this being of light wrapped in this fragile vessel made of meat actually answers the question “who am I?” at all well.

It’s a pleasant enough autumn morning, on the edge of a major life change. It seems a good time to give a moment of thought and consideration to the woman in the mirror. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or deep, or complicated; I’ll pick out work clothes for tomorrow at some point later, and likely find myself contemplating the woman in the mirror, who she has become, where she is headed, and how she hopes to share herself in this new context. That’s enough for now. 🙂

A cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. A good day to walk on; the journey isn't about the destination.

Today begins well, a cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. The season is changing.

Today is a good day to consider the journey. Today is a good day to walk on. Change is. Perhaps it’s just the season for it? 🙂

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

Practicing on Paper

September 16, 2016 //
0

No witty words today. No observations of particular note. No emotional salve. No imagery. Today, I practice. I haven’t yet found my social security card, which I didn’t realize I’d misplaced until I happened on it some weeks ago. It was conveniently already in a place “that makes sense”, where I “couldn’t possibly lose it”, and which I had already forgotten, previously. It wasn’t my best decision-making to leave it in that location trusting that I wouldn’t forget it, yet again.

It's just a bit of paper.

Well, damn… Where did I put that?

This morning I am made entirely of human, and the practicing with be all of those that help me ‘keep myself together’ in the face of potentially an entire day of small frustrations while I hunt down this worthless 2″ x 3″ piece of paper no one gives two shits about until it’s time to fill out an I-9 for employment. I’m somewhat amused to live in a state without reciprocity between the DMV and Social Security Administration, because I’d have been able to order a replacement online to be mailed to me if they did, and I’m mostly pretty done with being angry about it; amusement is what’s left over.  Suffice it to say my in-person visit with the SSA was not ideally successful; I feel victorious over my issues to struggle with public tears on the phone with my traveling partner and nothing worse.

It's just a piece of paper. It is not "who I am".

It’s just a piece of paper. It is not “who I am”.

So. The practicing. Today I’ll both look for the card (again), and maintain positive self-soothing practices hoping to keep my experience of frustration very minimal. That sounds so… easy…

I can't help think there's got to be a better way... it's the number that matters.

I think there’s got to be a better way… it’s the number that matters. (Hello? 21st century? Can we get an upgrade here, please?)

“Easy” doesn’t describe my experience of frustration very often. Frustration is my kryptonite. My results may vary. There are a quantity of verbs involved. Taking care of the woman in the mirror such that she is efficient, focused, committed – but not a frantic madwoman tearing the house apart enraged or hysterical – is one of the more major challenges I deal with when faced with frustration. That’d be quite the tight-rope act 3-4 years ago, or more. Today it feels like an exam. A test. Well… sure, okay. I’m being tested. Good test results may rely on good general self-care… it’s at least somewhere to start. So. Coffee. Yoga. Meditation. A nutritious balanced breakfast between 200-350 calories. Exercise. And the cherry on top; time spent considering how very often I do find things, lost things, misplaced things, things that have been moved in a thoughtless moment. I find things. It’s here somewhere. 🙂

Helpfully, it's quite unique in appearance.

Helpfully, it’s quite unique in appearance.

Sometimes the practices I need most turn out to have benefits I didn’t consider before. For me, the opposite of frustration is not “gratification”, it is “emotional ease”. The last time I misplaced something dear to me, that remained lost, unfound, perhaps “gone forever”, I lost myself in hysterics for hours and felt low and rather lost, myself, for many days. I grieved. It seems excessive, generally, for lost stuff. Today is a good day to treat myself better than that. 🙂

It's just a bit of paper.

It’s just a bit of paper.

Somewhere in my mind’s eye, I imagine an orderly school room of children, a teach or test proctor at the front… “Pencils up! And begin.” Today is a good day to begin again. It’s enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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