I’m sipping my morning coffee on a Friday off, and avoiding the news. I’ve got some chill lo-fi playing in the background, and my headphones on to further distance myself from the world. My Traveling Partner didn’t sleep well, and woke feeling cross with the world, so I’m distancing myself from him, too (and loving him deeply nonetheless). I’m thinking about how to best be (and become) my “best self” in spite of whatever the fuck the rest of humanity has decided to do (it doesn’t look good). How do I “do better” even though “the world” appears to be continuing to test the limits of doing worse? There are some puzzle pieces I don’t really understand how to fit together in this puzzle…
How do I persist in being authentically kind and sincerely agreeable and good-natured in the face of the potential that I may be perceived as “a doormat” – or an easy mark?
How do I set and manage reasonable boundaries – even within my closest and most intimate relationships – without causing friction or hurt feelings?
How do I speak my mind, share my truth, and discuss my own lived experience without sounding as if I am being contrary or “contradicting” someone else when they share their perception of who I am, what I think, or what I’ve experienced – and are incorrect, based on my perception and understanding of myself?
How do I enjoy my moments of joy without reservation or guilt or anxiety when someone I care for is having a shit time of things?
How do I just let go and live my life without spending time “dealing with” or struggling in the context of the expectations of others?
How do I observe the experience of others, notice their feelings, hear their words, and share space with them as beings in a considerate and respectful way without undermining my sense of self and my agency?
How do I ensure that I’m “visible” – truly being seen as the person I am, rather than some mental construct in the mind of the person I’m talking to, that has little relationship to who I am or what I think?
Just questions over coffee. The answers may be obvious to some of you; quite possibly you’ve already pieced this puzzle together. If so, I’m delighted! I know having a sense of these things as “answered questions” has the potential to make this human experience much more comfortable. I hope to get there one day, myself. 😀 In the meantime, I ask the questions, reflect on those, and perhaps one day I’ll answer them, too.
My coffee has cooled but it’s still quite satisfying, and at least for now there are still coffee beans available in the world to purchase for future such cups over which to reflect. 🙂 That’s something.
I’m in pain today. Just physical pain; it’s Autumn. I love this season, but it is a season of pain. With the rain and cooler nights comes the pain of my osteoarthritis, flaring up as the weather changes. I do my best not to take it personally (it isn’t personal), and to account for it when I take note of my mood. There’s no doubt it affects my relationships, my abilities, my “sense of things”, but I really try to limit how much my pain calls the shots in my everyday life. There’s so much living yet to do!
“Baby Love” still blooming. It’s a good day to stop to look at flowers.
…I look at the time and take another round of medication. Fuck aging. I mean… it’s tedious to take pills for pain, pills for my thyroid, pills for anxiety, pills for blood pressure, pills for a variety of aging-related health concerns… on the other hand, at least I’m getting to experience these years, and this life, and this love… I take a moment to fill up on a feeling of gratitude and appreciation. (Aging sucks, but the currently available alternative is worse. lol)
Good cup of coffee… time to begin again. 😀 It’s not like I’m going to change the world today, but I can at least do my part to make this small corner of it quite pleasant.
No title. No particular theme. I’m sipping a glass of water on a warmish summer-y evening in September. I spent most of the afternoon with my Traveling Partner, putting away some of the camping gear, pulling out other stuff, and getting my gear sorted for my camping trip next weekend. It was fun and time well-spent, together. I’m tired, now. My mind is sort of just floating through my thoughts, meandering among ideas and recollections, without any focus. I feel light-hearted, relaxed, and easy. It’s a pleasant moment. I am not quite waiting, in this moment betwixt other moments, while my Traveling Partner showers. Our plan, presently, sort of, is to go enjoy “breakfast for dinner” at a local chain breakfast place. Is that weird? I don’t know. I don’t care if it is. It’s something I enjoy.
…We may not even go, it’s that sort of very flexible afternoon, heading into evening. Could be that by the time showers are had, and clothes are changed, we’ll rather stay in and figure out something else. (I mean, I could do all the work to make breakfast for dinner at home, but doing that much work… nah. I don’t feel like doing that.)
…If we do go out, I should put on a different shirt… my worn(out) Wonder Woman tank top is not quite threadbare, but definitely lacking any newness whatever, and it’s pretty shabby. “Home clothes” for lounging and lazing, fine, but going out to dinner – even to enjoy breakfast foods – I would rather put on something a bit more “presentable”. I hear my partner step out of the shower. It’s time to begin again. 😀
I am sipping my coffee between calls with recruiters interested in me for one role or another. I am feeling relaxed, hopeful, and positive, but with a nagging hint of lingering anger at my former manager (over the lay-off itself and the bullshit she attempted to use to give that any sort of acceptable context that could make her “not the bad guy here”).
I’d like to let go of that anger; it’s not productive or helpful.
Over the past 11 days, I must have composed dozens of emails in my head, seeking to “have my say” or in some way exact a feeling of “closure” about being laid off. Usually this occurs in some quiet moment when I could definitely be spending my time more joyfully, but somehow find myself picking at this minor hurt nonetheless. Honestly, over a lifetime I’vefor sure survived far worse. Being laid off, in general, and this manager specifically don’t deserve another moment of my attention at this point, and certainly don’t rate being irked to the point of unhappiness at all. Yes, it was a good job, with a good company that has a good culture… but… I continue to feel more relieved than dismayed; my manager was a fucking nightmare to work with (in spite of being a generally pleasant person to interact with socially) and in less than six months it was already coloring the experience. “Unfit to lead” puts it mildly. Tales for another time, perhaps.
I sip my coffee and breathe, exhale, and relax. I don’t work for her anymore. 😀
When I find myself struggling to let go of some circumstance, event, or conversation (it’s a very human thing), it’s often the result of feeling as if something “important” has been left unsaid, or some task left uncompleted. I’m looking for “closure”.
It’s pretty human to seek closure when something falls apart. Often that’s our very human ego seeking to make ourselves properly the good guy in our own narrative, other times we’re seeking a missing apology or for someone who hurt us to “make it right” – and if that’s not going to be available, to at least exact some explicit acknowledgement of the harm done. Let’s get super real about that; we don’t always get to have closure, at all, especially if we’re insistent on the person who actually wronged us being an active participant in getting that closure. (People don’t like being accountable for the wrongs they do and the harm they cause.) Sometimes it’s helpful to have the conversation, make the attempt, and see what comes of it… other times not so much. Sometimes seeking closure just tangles us up with whatever caused our trauma in the first place, and does more damage without real benefit. Why do that?
What do to about wanting closure…?
I sip my coffee (iced this morning, mostly gone at this point and quite watered down by melted ice). I notice the small puddle of condensation that has formed on the desk around the bottom of the cup, and mop it up with a couple tissues. “Cleaning up my mess” feels like a relevant metaphor…
What would “closure” get me, in these circumstances? What am I really looking for that it feels like I’m going without? Am I wanting a “last word”? Am I hoping to change that manager’s thinking in some way? Am I feeling that human urge to “be right” – and be recognized as such? Am I just wanting to say “I saw what you did there, you didn’t get away with anything.” or “That was a dick move.”? What would the point be? What am I hoping to gain? Am I just having a private tantrum or working through the emotions of hurt and grief? I’m not sure, but I definitely won’t be attempting to act on my feelings until I answer these questions for myself in a way that feels clear and settled. (I’m not a fan of hasty decision-making, lashing out, or burning bridges, and avoid doing those things where I can.) So… in my head, I write the email sharing my thoughts – each time recognizing where my words fail me, or identifying some internal need I can entirely meet for myself without ever hitting send on an email I might later regret. The mental exercise has more value than sending the email. What I think I want to say has already changed a number of times, in some cases because my thinking has already “matured”, or new information has come to light. Sometimes I just find “better words” or a clearer way to communicate my point(s), which is a very useful means of understanding myself more deeply.
…Sometimes, I just want to hurt her because she hurt me. That’s also very human, but it’s a lot more “tit-for-tat” and petty than I prefer to be, personally. I choose a different path.
…Perspective is helpful, and I often gain perspective through self-reflection…
Other circumstances, other needs for closure; for many years my yearning for “closure” (and some kind of apology) kept me distant from my father. Many years. Decades. I can’t say I regret the distance, I got quite a lot of healing from that… but I was definitely taken by surprise when closure developed on its own, through circumstances I didn’t anticipate. I wasn’t just surprised to get closure – I was surprised that I still felt a need for it after so many years. Stranger still, now and then I find myself still yearning for closure as if I’d never had any… trauma leaves lasting damage and closure doesn’t work the way we’d like it to; it’s not magic, it doesn’t “fix everything”, and it doesn’t erase past events. It’s worth understanding (and accepting) that.
…But what to do about wanting closure…?
It’s actually possible (not easy, just possible) to give ourselves closure, absent any involvement by the person(s) who hurt us. No kidding. It’s even quite effective. (Closure – and its partner “forgiveness” – isn’t about that other person at all; it’s about us, ourselves, and how we feel.) There are verbs involved, and yeah, your results may vary, but… it’s do-able. It’s also a practice; it’s not a one-off task that one can check off a to-do list once completed. (Note: this is my practice for achieving some closure when none is offered or readily available, and should not be considered the opinion of an expert, or any sort of guarantee of success – no science behind it, no peer-review, just one woman’s approach to getting closure. It’s worked pretty well for me.)
There are some steps. (These tend to “make it look easy” due to over-simplification, but should give you an idea of how I approach it.)
Understand the actual hurt I’m feeling (try to get the heart of it, in the simplest possible terms)
Sort out what I want that I think will ease that hurt in some way (if anything; keep it real)
Practice non-attachment, compassion, and self-compassion
Look for perspective and alternate understandings of the circumstances that may provide more context (without gaslighting myself, but mindful that I can be mistaken, or lacking “all the information”)
Role play the conversation as realistically as feasible (or write the letter or email – do not send!) – do it more than once, as often as needed, until it feels “said”. (Don’t get mired in this step!)
Reflect on how the event that hurt me has affected me (and why), and what I can learn from it
Have I grown from this hurt? How? Can I grow further? How?
Give myself credit for enduring/surviving/getting over it – and for any subsequent growth or success that may have come from it.
Let it go. Let them go. Walk on.
See number 3, and keep practicing.
It’s not a perfect process, but it’s a useful starting point. See, the thing about closure is that it isn’t really something someone else gives us – it’s something we create, or accept, for ourselves. We have the control. We have the power. We have the words.
I’m working on my second coffee, sipping on it even though it has gone cold. I’ve got a wicked headache today. Worse than usual, and tightly focused in a very specific location. It’s annoying. My Traveling Partner and his son are hanging out, watching videos, talking about life.
At some point, the ambient level of anxiety in the room (and, honestly, I really object to even having that be “a thing” at all) begins to increase. My Traveling Partner’s comments become more stressed moment-by-moment, as though he is on the edge of having an argument with someone, though there is nothing to argue with; he’s making sound and reasonable points relevant to the content we’re watching. His son is quiet… that kind of quiet that suggests a very busy mind held back by firm hands. He seems… “glum” and also… intent, focused on something going on in his inner world, and perhaps only half listening. My partner exclaims something about his anxiety, and the video itself potentially driving that. He turns it off. His son speaks up in the affirmative – him, too. For once, none of this is about me, or my issues, or my anxiety – but I see it, and I “get it”. Realizing the enormous potential for this whole mess to worsen notably if my own anxiety were also to be triggered (which it easily could be by my partner’s expressed stress), I take my coffee into the studio to give room for them to sort shit out, and avoid being triggered myself. Nothing confrontational, just taking care of myself, and doing what I can to support a healthy environment by not adding to the mess.
So here I am. This quiet somewhat chilly room. The tap-a-tap-a-tap of fingers on the keyboard. This cold cup of coffee. This headache.
I have an anxiety disorder. Having a moment, episode, or experience of anxiety doesn’t make someone “disordered” – just human. My own anxiety rises to the level of “disordered” because of the potential for extremes in that emotional experience, the difficulty I have managing or resolving it, and the ridiculous way it can linger unresolved just making shit worse for days or weeks or months, even wrecking relationships, and jobs. It’s pretty serious. I’ve also taken many years of therapy to work on it, and take medication to help manage the worst of it day-to-day.
I’ve learned to accept the physical chemistry of anxiety as a very separate thing from any lived event that may trigger an emotional experience of anxiety; the chemistry and the emotional experience often need to be managed or supported quite differently. It took fucking years to get a grip on how best to handle my own anxiety, and I’ve got some good tools in my toolkit these days…but they aren’t “one size fits all”. (Hell, they don’t even always work for me!) As much as I’d love to say “just do this thing and it’ll all be fine”, I’m very much aware that what works for me (and my results vary) may not work for you at all. I share the journey, and the practices, because something may be helpful, even if only once in a serendipitous moment of inspiration. I hope any of it offers you healthy perspective, or even potentially an observation or practice that you can use to make sense of your own bullshit and baggage in a way that allows you to move forward on your journey to become the person you most want to be.
…Why do I even care, at all…?
Honestly? Layers and feedback loops. If I’m anxious around other people who struggle with anxiety, it seems likely that the potential for shared anxiety to creep in and escalate will increase. My anxiety feeding someone else’s anxiety, and increasing anxiety someone else is feeding potentially triggering (or exacerbating) mine sounds like (is) a really terrible experience that can lead to confusing or problematic interactions. Then too, just dealing with my own anxiety while aware of my partner’s, his son’s, the world’s… the layers of anxiety just make for a shitty emotional experience characterized by some very uncomfortable sensations and thought spirals. No thank you. So. I try to be helpful and share what works for me because anxiety is a wholly shitty experience for everyone.
So, I think it over. Talk to my partner. Take a kind and helpful approach as much as possible with everyone here in this moment. Share my thoughts and experiences, make a potentially (I hope) useful suggestion or two, and hope for the best – while also working my ass off to avoid taking any scrap of this “personally”, because it just isn’t. It’s simply very human.
“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011
Fuck, being a human primate can be ridiculously complicated and fraught with misunderstanding, conflict, distraction, and absolutely pointless emotional garbage, sometimes. Just saying, I am not enjoying my Sunday experience, today. I seem to be endlessly at odds with my Traveling Partner, which completely sucks (and not in any of the good ways). I am in pain, which is more suckage layered on top of other suckage, and the end result? Unusual. (Maybe that’s progress?)
I am sitting in the “food court” seating of my local grocery store, thinking thoughts, drinking an electrolyte beverage, and… writing. Using my cell phone instead of my computer at home. My Traveling Partner is trying to get some rest after our unpleasant moment(s) (which were peculiarly interspersed with a couple very nice meals, and some fun hang out time). I can’t seem to find a really good way to create (or maintain) a reliably quiet environment for him to nap, typically. So, yeah, I got the fuck out of the house, without really having a plan… but I did have a couple errands and a short grocery list.
I ran out of errands and shopping in about an hour. That’s shit for nap-worthy time, so I figured I’d just sit down somewhere and write. I don’t have to be at home to put words to page, so… yeah. Tick a self-care box, however awkwardly.
That’s sort of where shit went wrong this morning… My Traveling Partner was feeling restless and wanting to go for a drive – we’d had so much fun doing that yesterday! He invited me to go for another drive. I get it. It did sound fun, and we did have a great time yesterday… only… there were (and are) other things I very much wanted to do today, and I said so. Somehow it managed to become an unpleasant interaction; the more I tried to “explain” with some sort of reason not to go, the more annoyed he got. I felt like I was being criticized for wanting to do things other than “whatever he wants to do”. I don’t think that’s how he intended it (or how it actually was), any more than I was intending to reject him as a person (though it sure seemed at some points that he was taking it that way).
Most troubling for me is that I came away from the discussion feeling perhaps I am “too much to handle”, or that I have no legitimate potential to be a better partner (than I am)… or a partner at all…
He went for a drive, by himself. I had a couple hours to myself. When he returned home things were strained and frosty for a while. I made lunch. We ate. Things seemed to be improving… It’s rarely that easy, eh? So… here I am. Writing a blog post at the grocery store. lol New experience. I wonder what I can learn from this?
Yesterday, though? Amazing. Entirely different experience. What an incredibly lovely day together. We went for a drive out towards one of the interesting camping destinations we had discussed (but which my partner couldn’t reach due to snow just a few days ago). We figured most of the snow would be gone after a few days of heat. (Foreshadowing; we were wrong!)
It was a gorgeous day to go for a drive. A great day to share an adventure with this human being I love so deeply! As we headed further into the forest, we saw a couple unexpected camouflage-wearing guys, just walking down the road… no gear. My partner slowed down and we stopped to ask if they were okay? Nope. They were stuck in a snow bank up the road, and had been walking down the mountain hoping to catch a cell signal. (Good luck with that, there!) My partner offered to give them a ride back to their truck and pull them out, if we could. We could. We did. It was amazing to feel so prepared! Being able to give fellow travelers a hand feels great. It was even fun.
I am impressed and proud of my Traveling Partner and his skill and general readiness. I am super excited to get out there with him again, more, and further. Nothing about today’s stress changes yesterday’s joy, delight, and wonder. I make time to reflect on that and cherish him from afar.
It’s hard to get “everything” “right all the time”, and however much I may feel like this is what is required or expected of me, it’s not a reasonable expectation. What is reasonable is that I will make room to listen, make a point of hearing my partner, communicating that he is heard, continuing to do my best, and keep practicing.
I know my results will vary. I know frustration and disappointment suck. Still, my best effort has to be enough (for me), even when it also “isn’t enough” (for someone else). Intent matters. Will matters. Sometimes I am going to fail. That’s just real. When I do? I will begin again.
Evening Light 