This lovely chill interlude brought to you by my delightful Traveling Partner who has had about enough of my continuous presence after being cooped up together over a long snowed-in weekend. lol
I’ve got a lovely cup of tea here, no caffeine, just lemon balm. Yum. Next Spring I’ll have my own from the garden. 😀 That sounds nice. Hot tea after a long hot shower. Soothing. Hot tea after a long hot shower on an icy winter day. Comforting.
…Comforting hot tea after a long hot shower on an icy winter day of mostly working from home, while also juggling housekeeping tasks, errands, trying not to work from home (the roads are too icy and not safe to drive into the city, but I did try to get the hell out of the house, unsuccessfully), and caring for my Traveling Partner while he is injured…? Delicious. I just also really really needed an actual proper break for some “me time”. Solitary. Headphones on (without music). Just me, my thoughts, this cup of tea, and a few minutes alone and quiet. Relaxed.
I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I feel the sensation of ease move through my body as the work day gets further and further from “now”. It’s so nice to just sit here quietly. No agenda. Nothing going on. No conversation. No tasks or chores or errands or doing. The verb, in this instance, is “chilling”. Relaxing. Breathing. Any of those will do, nothing fancy or elaborate or requiring a lot of energy. Just this quiet now.
…I know it won’t last, but I am embracing it and savoring it while it does…
I sip my tea thoughtfully.
My Traveling Partner said he hasn’t been able to relax all day because I “seem so stressed”. Yeah, I don’t doubt my energy was dialed way up – all the way to 11, perhaps? I got off to a weird start, by trying to work in a room other than the studio, further from the bedroom, hoping to let my partner sleep in awhile. Then, once he was up, I followed my plan to work from the local library, which I easily got to over roads far icier than I realized, and once there I found myself wondering if I’d be able to also make it home (ice storm warning for mere hours later). Instead, after a brief consult with my Traveling Partner, who wanted me safe more than he wanted me gone, I headed home, stopping by the store for additional provisions on the way.
I got home, unpacked, and got to work… and got called that I’d left my purse at the damned store. Back out in it, and picked up burgers for lunch uncertain when that would be possible again, and on back home to enjoy lunch with my partner, then… back to work. Again.
My work day was fractured into tiny (but still productive) pieces. I hit that level of productivity by just banging that shit out, firing on all cylinders, doing the things! I probably did “seem stressed”. I wasn’t feeling any sort of anxiety that was obvious to me, or any amount of perceptible (to me) negative stress, but the only way to get through the work that needed doing today was to dig deep, and work fast and efficiently, at what would admittedly be an “unsustainable” pace. No slack. No real breaks other than those that took me from my office chair to do errands, housekeeping, or to care for my partner. Nothing much for me, at all, except a latte from a drive through cafe that went cold before I could drink it because my day was crafted of pure chaos.
…I’m glad it is behind me, and I’m enjoying this quiet moment with this cup of tea. It’s enough. I needed this so much. 😀 I tell myself there is no way my Traveling Partner can “sense” this state of relaxation settling over me from another room, but… it often seems that he totally can. I hope it helps him enjoy his evening more than he enjoyed his morning. 😀
Knowing I’ll likely need to work from home for the rest of this week, due to the freezing weather, ice storms, and accumulated snow that has since frozen solid on the roads, I looked over my work calendar and coordinated with my team to move any morning meetings to later hours of the day, hoping to preserve enough quiet time for my partner to sleep. Maybe it works. Maybe it’s enough. Maybe it doesn’t help at all. I’ve at least managed to clear my calendar of meetings for two days – that’s got to be good for something. 😀
I sip my tea and listen to my tinnitus ringing in my ears. It’s time to begin again. 😀
Pro-tip: don’t add to your physical pain with your bullshit and baggage. I mean, if you can avoid it, it’s a good choice. This morning, my Traveling Partner offered me a master class in how to refrain from adding additional bullshit to a pain-filled morning. Reflecting on it, I’m pretty impressed.
I woke from a fairly shitty night’s sleep in a lot of pain. He was already up, and also in pain. I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation. That was clearly also the case with him. I got up. I dressed. I got ready to leave (early) for work. We exchanged few words, and a brief kiss, and I was on my way. A short while later, he sent me a message checking in on me, wishing me well, and making a point to alert me he was in pain, and doing his best. I felt pretty cared for, honestly. Neither of us was feeling our best, and the morning got off to a pretty good start without either of us “starting shit” or creating chaos or unpleasantness out of our shitty moment individually, in spite of that.
Sometimes adulting is hard. It’s super easy to take dumb shit personally, or to lash out at someone else over a purely subjective bit of unpleasantness going on for us that doesn’t have to affect anyone else at all, if only we acted with sufficient care. I sit here sipping my coffee, appreciating my Traveling Partner for the effort he makes every day to show me the love he feels… even when he’s “not feeling it”, because all he really feels is physical pain. For sure, he’s as human as anyone. We both are. It’s not always a perfect effort for either of us, and sometimes things go awry in a vexing way, but… not this morning. I enjoyed an easy commute, partly because my heart felt light and I felt loved in spite of being in pain. Hopefully, he does, too. The day begins well.
I got to the office, made coffee, and tackled the payday stuff with a smile. I just went from being a contractor, to being full-time (with the same company) and I’m enjoying the feeling of security, and a sense of being “back on track”. I sit with that awhile, feeling grateful for the “here and now” and grateful for a good partnership to rely on in tough times. It’s enough. More than enough – it’s pretty exceptional (based on my own limited experience).
I sit quietly for a few minutes. It’s awhile yet before daybreak. Still quite early. There’s time to reflect, to meditate, to sip coffee, and watch the night slowly become day. There’s time to begin again. 🙂
I sat down with my coffee to write a few words, after a restless, interrupted night’s sleep (I woke several times, though I only got up twice, quite briefly), and a somewhat tense commute. Humans being human. I started with “No Good-Guys” as my working title, because I started my day already disappointed in humanity. Mine. Everyone else’s. Just… yeah. All kinds of annoyance with the fundamentals of people doing the things people do. I mean, ffs, even children don’t get a pass (a six year old shoots a teacher?! a 10-year old shoots a friend over a bicycle race?? what the hell?) – the world feels very messy, chaotic, and whether I view the world through the lens of the media reporting, or simply my own day-to-day experience of self and others… it’s not looking good. I’m disappointed and vexed by both the circumstances that find me feeling this way, and the feeling itself.
…Emotions are not reality, I remind myself, the map is not the world…
I breathe, exhale, relax – and sip my coffee. What can I do better, myself? Probably a fucking lot. I could do more to communicate more clearly and more gently. I could work harder/more attentively at being a good listener. Good places to start. Probably for 100% of everyone out there, it would at least be a worthy starting point.
I sigh out loud. It breaks the stillness in this quiet morning place. I haven’t lost my interest in living – that’s something, anyway. I sit with my thoughts awhile. I think mostly about love, and how irksome it is that loving well and deeply over time isn’t easier than it seems to be (at least for me, with my hearty helping of chaos and damage, and a lifetime of baggage to deal with). The work involved in being the human being I most want to be, reliably, consistently, skillfully… fucking hell, it’s a lot of work. Sisyphean just about covers it. Every step forward on this path seems followed by some irritating detour or setback, and I find myself harshly judgmental of my efforts and deeply critical of my failures. I could do better there, too.
In a moment of harsh words, my Traveling Partner asked me to “set a better example”, to “model the behavior” I’m asking for, and to “show what that looks like”… which, strangely, caught me by surprise with A) its utter reasonableness and B) how truly difficult that looked in my head when I gave it a moment of thought, later. Yeesh. Fucking human primates – we think we know what we want, but again and again we set ourselves up for failure. We’re not actually all that good at being wise, or being kind, or being consistent, or being nurturing, or being positive, or being supportive, or being open, or… I guess what I’m saying is that this is a difficult journey in spots.
…I find myself asking “am I the bad guy?”, and having to admit that at least sometimes, yeah, I totally am. Well, shit. Okay, then. I guess I’ve got to work on that…
My coffee manages to go cold between the start and end of this fairly brief bit of writing, today. It’s a reflection of how often I stopped to ponder some point at length, and how deeply I am thinking some of this over, although I don’t think I’m really “getting anywhere” – at least not yet. There are more thoughts to think, more practices to practice, more work to be done – the journey is long, and there is no map. I guess I’ve just got to begin again.
This journey that is “being human” is pretty strange. The path veers and is not always easy to see, regularly obscured by doubt, frustration, or buried ancient fear. Still, this is the life we’re given and the time in which to become. I sip my coffee thinking my thoughts. If I wander as I wonder, please forgive me; I’m very tired, and I’ve got a headache. I’ll do my best to get to my point… if I can. If I have one.
I think the point I’d hoped to make is that my (our?) sometimes frustrated sensation of “never enough” has at least an element of truth to it; we are ceaselessly becoming. We have opportunities to grow, to advance, to change, to do more/better over time than we were once able to do. It’s pretty easy to acknowledge our (my?) plentiful imperfections, and to recognize that we grow and change, but… there’s that irksome sensation of inadequacy, of “never enough” that vexes the soul now and then. Frustration. Disappointment. Sometimes it feels like a win to remind myself that I am worthy, that I am enough… but… from another vantage point, if that were truly the case, why would I constantly be seeking to grow and to become the person I most want to be? I sip my coffee and think that over for awhile.
…I’m so tired…
My hair is soft, resting in loose waves along my neck. I push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, and run my fingers through the softness of my hair. It feels nice. I sigh out loud in this quiet space and feel the seeming vastness of the solitude, broken by the glow of the monitors in front of me, hinting at life beyond this moment. The big office windows display the park below me, still dressed up in holiday lights. They contrast merrily with the pre-dawn darkness. It’ll be awhile before daybreak arrives. It’s early. I sip my coffee and watch the occasional car make the turns around the park. It takes up one city block, with parking on all sides. At this early hour, there’s not much going on down there, and not much to see. the condo tower on the opposite side of the park has more lights on than usual, and many of those have holiday lights. Pretty. I sit and think, and sip coffee, and breathe. This moment, here? It’s enough. I enjoy it for awhile.
I woke “too early” this morning, and I’ve not had enough sleep, and the sleep I did get was restless and interrupted. My tracker seems to think I managed to get almost 5 hours of sleep, but it was broken up into unsatisfyingly short fragments of the night, the longest of those being just about 3 hours. I’m not in a bad mood, though, and today is off to a better start than yesterday. I keep drinking this coffee. I grab a bottle of water from the beverage cooler and start drinking that, too. I smile to myself, remembering that this new day is filled with all the promise of every new day; it is new. A chance to do more/better, to do differently, to make what matters most the real priority – and to sort out what that is, to me, today.
…A chance to be the person I most want to be…
Yesterday evening my Traveling Partner got super annoyed with me over me being a bad listener. (I’m not going to argue that point, frankly I struggle with interrupting people on this whole other level that goes well beyond “poor listening”, and I continue to work on it – it’s a brain injury thing, nonetheless there is value in doing better.) He was feeling mad and hurt and not heard. I think we mostly worked through that. Along the way he shared two videos with me about listening, both are quite good so I’ll share them here, too (and a couple others I have bookmarked). I think we could all stand to improve on how well we listen, you know?
I keep working on being a good listener. Having a brain injury is a pretty notable stumbling block on this path, but no one said the path would be well-paved, and brightly illuminated, eh? Generally speaking, working on something is easier if you at least know it’s a problem… but… in this instance, I’ve known for ages, and I still struggle. I keep at it. Small incremental changes over time are worth the effort.
I guess that’s the point; there are verbs involved. Results will vary. The value in any given practice is in those small incremental changes, which do add up. There is no “perfection”. Achieve one goal, and there’s another just on the horizon. Another step on the path. More to practice. That “never enough” feeling is annoying, to be sure, and it’s a sign of frustration, and perhaps fatigue. There’s more to self-care than diet and fitness and a good night’s sleep (Although, right about now, a really good night’s sleep would be a win). Learning to be a good listener is an important social skill, worthy of practice. Balancing “all the things” is what eases that “never enough” feeling… because the hours of the day are finite. Life is finite. It’s important to make room for self-care alongside the being and the becoming.
I sip my coffee and yawn. I’ve lost the thread of my thoughts… and it’s already time to begin again.
Here it is the first day of a new year. I’m sipping my second coffee, which is quite good (primarily because I enjoy coffee – not everyone would feel similarly, and I recognize that it is an “acquired taste”). I am thinking over the year ahead and specifically, giving thought to “doing more better” and making progress on personal goals. I’m not inclined to making “resolutions”, but I have ideas of what matters most to me, what sorts of things will help me thrive and achieve and maintain better wellness, and even what sorts of things I’d just frankly really like to do, see, or enjoy in my life. It’s a finite thing, this mortal life, and it makes sense to take steps to “make it my own”, or “leave my mark”, or simply thoroughly enjoy a life well-lived. So, yeah… thinking about it.
The obvious stuff is… obvious. Tidying up the chaos that has accumulated during the busy holidays while also carrying for my injured Traveling Partner makes a lot of sense. Very practical. Healthy – the real-world chaos in my living environment tends to rather directly reflect the likely chaos in my own inner world as well. With that in mind, it seems to easy to grab a quick win, here, by finally unpacking (no kidding, and omg) from my coastal getaway earlier in December, and picking things up in my studio, which was left in chaos after I spent a weekend making holiday cards. Very practical. Very much within the reach of my abilities and my energy (I think).
A subtler detail like “finding a home” for the Tachikoma model my Traveling Partner gifted me, and which I built over the holidays, would be a pleasing “small win” to begin a new year… it’s not a tiny model, and I’d like to put it somewhere that I can see it often and enjoy it, and contemplate next steps for giving it some “aging” details and “realism”. (It’s amazing how much real delight this project has already given me.) Funny thing, though, it’s the sort of placement of an object that relies heavily on tidying up other chaos, first, or the placed object quickly topples from it’s beloved status to become just more clutter. So… I’m back to the necessary tidying up, which clearly has to come first.
…I sip my coffee and consider the matter from the perspective of an analogy for greater things, and a metaphor of life’s interplay of complex and simple. We walk our own path. We make our own choices. The “map” does matter…but we’re drafting that map while we explore this life, so… it’s not very handy as maps go, for making decisions about the next steps. It mostly just tells us where we’ve been.
…Speaking of “where I’ve been”, I really should update my Life in Weeks chart…
I look around this rather cluttered room. I’m glad now that I didn’t take a walk this morning. Although it would have been lovely to see the mists on the marsh, and hear the cries of the flocks of birds taking flight as the sun rises, it would fill me with optimism and contentment, too satisfied, too soon, for taking on the matter of “what next, 2024?”. My Traveling Partner encouraged me to stay home. We shared a few moments over coffee, before I began yawning. He encouraged me to go back to bed with a laugh, and I did so, thinking I’d be unlikely to sleep in spite of my general fatigue lately. How wrong I was! I woke more than two hours later, feeling substantially refreshed and much more rested. He was still asleep, himself, having also gone back to bed. I happily picked up the book I’m reading, and sat sipping what remained of my first cup of coffee, contentedly reading, losing myself in some other world, some other time. I do love reading… always have.
This brings me to another thing I’m looking ahead to; more reading. The convenience and easy availability of video content of all sorts (short and long formats) isn’t at all the same as reading a book. It just “hits different”. Videos, whether documentaries or fictions or news, are a bit more like grabbing a quick meal at a fast food place than they are like sitting down to a “real meal” at home (which, for me, is the “book” analog). The short format YouTube videos I definitely enjoy are very much akin to pulling through the drive through to grab a large order of fries and a coke; delicious, but there’s nothing at all nutritious about it, and as satisfying as it may seem in the moment, it leaves me wanting, and is probably actually bad for me. lol My Traveling Partner and I, seeking more/better, are talking about returning to “durable media” for things like movies and music, and canceling most streaming services. We don’t care for the strange empty experience of “doom-scrolling” or flipping endlessly through feeds that lack content we really want to consume, and the recent announcement from Amazon that they’ll be bringing ads to paid premium streaming customers is just… unacceptable. They’re definitely not going to continue getting our money. lol Streaming was definitely a lovely convenience, but I don’t at all like what the providers of such services have done with it. So… why take part?
The choices aren’t always “easy”. Giving up social media years ago? Hard. Have I regretted it? Not at all. It’s been very good for me, though it’s been an uncomfortable fit for some relationships with distant folks. Our choices and actions come at a cost. That’s just real. I make a point of mentioning it because although the cost is often “worth it” that doesn’t necessary mean it is an easy price to pay. (I think about my busted up back, which was the price I paid to survive my first marriage… a high price to be sure, but very much worth it.)
So… tidying up. Good one. Read more books. Yep, I’ve even got a list.
Other things that I see as having potential to make 2024 a better year (for me)? More miles on my boots day-to-day – fewer short walks, more longer ones. I managed to hit 500 miles in 2023 (that was my goal). Maybe in 2024 I can reach 750? I’ll try. That will mean making a point to be on the trail no less than an hour every time I go for a walk, if I walk every single day (because I also need time to take pictures!)… surely I’m worth an hour of my own time? 😀 I know that I am. So…
Tidying up. Read more books. Walk more miles…
I think I’d also like to make a very practical point of taking better care of myself, generally. I mean, cooking more healthier meals at home, and eating less fast food. I also mean staying more committed and true to my mediation practice, and not allowing myself to take shortcuts that undermine my emotional resilience, leaving me fragile and easily provoked by the world’s madness. Staying on top of my physical health, too, would do me a lot of good – it’s hard sometimes; I’m frustrated before I ever see a doctor, anticipating being blown off or gas-lighted, because I have been so many times before. But… this fragile meat suit needs care, and failing to care for it will legitimately have the potential to shorten my life, a life I am enjoying, and wish to continue to enjoy. So.
Tidying up. Read more books. Walk more miles. Eat healthier food more often. Meditate more consistently. Follow up with my doctor properly about shit that persists in being a problem. Damn. That’s a good looking year ahead of me, if I stick with it. 🙂
This is not about resolutions, though. If I try to make it so, I’m pretty much committing to failure I think. lol That seems the way of it. Instead, my approach will be to stay aware of what I want out of my life, and what it takes to have that, and what verbs are involved. Do those verbs. Repeat. Being committed to doing those things to enjoy those outcomes is, in a sense, it’s own goal. Setting myself up for failure and lobbing a bunch of self-criticism and negative self-talk at myself won’t actually be helpful… so I think I’ll skip doing those things. lol
…I guess I’ll add that I’d like to do more camping and hiking – more time spent constructively alone, instead of beefing silently about how hard it is to “hear myself think” or get a few minutes to myself. Create the world I want to be part of, even on this small scale. Care for myself.
…Crap! I really need to make more shower steamers, too… I’ve run out…
Seems like maybe a lot to commit to… doesn’t it? I’ll point out that it is all – every bit of it – stuff I really enjoy and like to do (yes, even the tidying up, though that’s more complicated than pure enjoyment and delight). Taking pleasure in the doing seems a likely way to put myself on the path to success with these things, I think. We’ll have to compare notes at the end of 2024 (I make a reminder on my calendar to check in with myself… did I “get there”?).
It’s the first day of a new year… and already time to begin again. 😀
It’s your path. Walk it because you want to. The journey is the destiation.
Evening Light 