Archives for category: Turning 50
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Icy Morning, Sunny Day

February 8, 2013 //
1

Wow. Three good days in a row, I mean really first rate good days from end to end… well… today is no where near ‘end’ yet, but the day is good and it is actually hard to imagine the downfall of a day like this one. Even a moment of rather less-than-bliss that I’d have expected to be damned blissful hasn’t been enough to sour the day overall. That’s probably pretty reasonable, since it is not yet noon, and I like to hope that it takes more than a moment to blow a day…although, there are certainly some moments that could, this was not one of those.

It isn’t a work day for me, and my loose agenda of ‘things I’d probably like to do at some point, why not now?’ doesn’t seem to be spurring me to any sort of obvious action so far. Hell, I’ve already managed a nap – after 8 shots of espresso!

It’s a lovely sunny day and there is music in my heart.  It’s important not to underestimate Love.  Right now, today, I feel good…and I feel like I am…getting somewhere with me. There’s work to do, but there’s also time to do it.  I feel inspired…

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

The Least Eventful Blogpost Ever?

February 7, 2013 //
4

Oh, seriously, I could come up with some words, on topics… they could be important…to someone. I have thoughts. Musings. I wonder stuff. I ponder. I contemplate. I query. I even recall having something on the order of a good bit of writing sort of mapped out in my thoughts as I walked to the office this morning; gone now.  It’s a nice day, too, overcast and wintry looking; feeling mild and a little damp, and promising more rain to come. I could be inspired to paint or write or…

I meditated this morning, after feeding pets and tidying up a bit. Shared a latte and some quiet moments with a partner a bit later, while another slept (we are each on slightly different schedules with our lives). Today is chill and good almost to the point of encouraging me to think, for a moment, there is really nothing at all amiss with life, love, my wiring… I allow myself the luxury of the moment in a more honest way today; recognizing there is work to be done, improvements in self and habit to be made, and things to ‘deal with’ more appropriately than I have… but I have ‘right now’, and it feels good, so I’m feeling that. This, too, is my experience. My now. My life. In this moment, I am and it is enough.

My thoughts are suddenly crowded with ‘things to do’ that are on my list – both mental and written. It seems like a very long list.  I give myself a needed moment of compassion and recognition (new for me) and remind myself that I make lists because I so easily forget small important details and that life generally moves along pretty simply with the occasional glance at a list and a quick update.  I feel less driven and anxious.  Treating myself well, too, not just other people, is a big part of having a good experience. Lesson learned. Today I am enjoying my experience.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

So, Let Me Say This, About That…

February 4, 2013 //
2

I had an eventful weekend.

My Friday was pretty emotionally intense, and wonderfully promising. It was also a sort of ‘pampering me’ day, as it turned out; I got a great haircut and style from a new stylist at a cool shop, and a little more ‘me time’ on the personal aesthetic front later in the day. I wish I could also say that those elements of my weekend nurtured and restored my soul, but that’s not what it was.

My Saturday was strange, moody and productive, sort of detached. I worked at this and that to ease my anxiety and my emotional fatigue; pruned the roses, baked some shortbread. It was a decent day – it had, in fact, all the elements of an actually good day, but I felt like I was ‘going through the motions’ most of the day, and the challenges offered by every day life and the ebb and flow of other people’s experiences and emotions pulled at my heart. Evening was good in spite of the effort the day itself required, and the day ended well, really well. So… ‘no complaints’?

Sunday was hard to call, initially… was it a good day? A bad day? A difficult day? I was moody, tense, anxious, and working my ass off to shrug it off and avoid negatively coloring the weekend for my partners; it was their anniversary. I could not allow myself to blow that, and I probably put a lot of extra pressure on myself over it that I could have done without. This ‘human being’ thing is a more difficult puzzle than it appears from the vantage point of youthful daydreams.  As it turned out, though, Sunday was… amazing.  I did a few chores and ran some errands in the morning, kissed my partners and headed out into the world, and… wow. The World was right there waiting for me.

I had a pretty powerful moment in the Portland Art Museum, which has quite a good modern art collection for a relatively small city museum. I added the museum to my agenda as an afterthought, actually, and arrived only a couple hours before they closed. None of that matters.  What matters is running into old friends, and what matters is this.  Right? Maybe that’s not obvious… It’s “Untitled”, 1987, Peter Schuyff.  Seeing it yesterday was an experience. I saw a lot of paintings, and sculpture, and glass work that I enjoyed a lot. “Untitled” really got me on a different level. I sat in front of it, just looking and feeling it – letting my body feel how I would position the canvas, set up the layout, work the piece to get those effects – and as I relaxed into the moment and felt that painting ‘become’ part of my thinking and understanding, it became more real and more whole and I saw more and more of it. I felt – taken beyond myself, somehow revealing an inner core ‘strength of being’ I have been unable to feel for a while. I understood what I saw, and I experienced a feeling of confidence and certainty and a secure sense of self that couldn’t be shaken by some moment of pain, however ancient, however evil. No harm could come to me through the strength I had revealed to myself, from within my own being. I am still pretty wowed. It was quite…  something, and I needed it. Like slaking a days old thirst in the heat of the desert with cold clear spring water, like the ‘a-ha!’ moment at the front of the classroom, like the last punctuation mark on a moment of literary wonder… that moment in time, with that painting, meant more to me than words can capture here. I hope to keep it, as safe and precious as a lover’s photo in a locket, and look at it often and feel my soul restored again and again. Art has power so far beyond mere words.

My elation lasted much of the evening, and lingered in my thoughts when I dropped off to sleep, satisfied with the day, and the weekend.  I was still smiling and thinking thoughts of Art and feeling inspired to paint, and more than just pain and woe, too… and the smile deepened and remained my companion throughout the morning, after spending a few minutes on Love, and coffee. The things that matter don’t have to be things other people find valuable or important, I guess I just have to know what they are, for myself, to keep them high on my list of priorities.  So far a good week.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, Words

Madness, Menopause, Magnesium

January 28, 2013 //
2

I’ve been told by more than one professional of one sort or another that I would “probably calm down after menopause”.  Glossing over how that observation always seemed to trivialize my experience, diminish me as a free will adult, and offer little present-day hope, it was also something I’ve held onto for a long time… it will be all be better…eventually… like magic… without effort.  Just a simple biological, chemical change in my reproductive functionality and I will be well and whole and somehow saner and more balanced.  Let’s be real – that sounds too good to be true, and even if it is true, wouldn’t it be a ludicrous failure to manage my affairs in an adult way to simply sit around throwing random tantrums and waiting for menopause? My hormones and I have put my loved ones through hell, more than once.  I’ve even dared to say, out loud, that I am ‘not high maintenance’ and even ‘not especially moody’. Wow.

I am… high maintenance, and then some. In spite of myself.  I’m moody, too – especially moody, and rather often.  I have indulged in tantrums that go so far beyond what could be considered acceptable from an adult I’m lucky I still get invited to parties by proper grown ups.  I can do better than this – can’t I?  I’ve read my share of ‘self help’ books, and mostly they haven’t done much in the way of help, because… ready for it? They’re just books. In spite of the lack of action on their part, and mine, a few outstanding books have stood out… and I go back to them again and again, to learn more than the words on the pages. Brain injury, PTSD, the slow march toward menopause… I still choose my actions, don’t I? Well, I guess I don’t always – but it sounds like a good starting point. (Do I get a ‘starting point’ at 49? Extraordinary!)

So, thoughtful, mindful, well-chosen action, considerate of my loved ones and associates and fellow-man – and doing my best to ‘take care of me’, too… it seems a good approach. It’s easy on paper – that’s what makes the ‘self help’ industry thrive. The ideas are so simple, so effective – and like fad diets, they probably all work.  If I do them.  That reminds me, a healthy diet, a good fitness plan, managed and adequate rest, harmonious healthy relationships all add up to thriving, don’t they? Does it even take money? Is a book even necessary? (Not always; this weekend I enjoyed the opportunity to share how helpful regular baths in Epsom salts have been for stabilizing my mood and helping me sleep. A man in line with me at the store could not resist asking what I needed all the Epsom salts for, and it was clearly on the order of a lifeline to hear something as simple and inexpensive as Epsom salts have given me so much relief; it was clear from our exchange that both he and his wife are suffering through her change.)

I did my best this weekend to choose my words and actions well, to nurture my loved ones and not take their experiences personally, to take care of my own basic needs, and where I could to assist my loved ones in meeting theirs, too. It was a pretty great weekend.  I suspect it makes for a dull blog post, but I feel pretty good today.

Happy Monday! Being nicer today feels easy…

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Categories Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

Connectivity

January 24, 2013 //
4

Even in the digital age, we are each having our own experience.

I know I’m having my own experience, because so much of it is entirely unshared, and in some cases perhaps even un-shareable. By the end of 2012 I was well on my way to a full collapse of my understanding of myself, emotionally, intellectually, philosophically, even historically.  Choices that once seemed obvious, had become questionable beyond the point of my own ability to consider the questions with clarity, my anxiety had become unmanageable, an event in the news hit my consciousness and destroyed a big piece of my everyday understanding of my sexuality, my hormones march ever onward toward menopause, and new information about my own experience came to light, leaving me confused and introspective as I entered the new year. What a new year it has been, so far… If the value of time and events is measured in their intensity, impact, and significance, then 2013 may well prove to be one of the most important years of my life…my life. My experience. I rather doubt that most people around me have any real awareness of my internal turmoil, even my partners. They are also having their own experiences.

I find it complicated when I work on my priorities, my goals, or try to identify my needs and wants in a clear and simple way because, although I am having my own experience, I am at least somewhat aware that my experience has elements shared with others. Our perspectives may differ, probably do differ, but those common elements become the foundation stones of shared understanding, conversation, emotional bonding, and a feeling of being connected. I like feeling connected, but it doesn’t always come easily to me. Lately, I often have difficulties feeling connected, even in very close relationships. The easy course of action is to attribute the difficulty to the challenge of the moment, whatever that may be, but when I’m honest with myself it is bigger than that, and needs my attention.

49 seems like an appropriate age for an identity crisis, I guess… but how does one connect with someone who isn’t sure who they are? I find myself wondering – acknowledging? – that it must be very hard on people who love me, and I manage a moment of sympathy and concern, before my mental nail-biting returns to figuring out the puzzle that is me. I struggle with figuring out what needs to be shared, what would be ‘over sharing’.  My friends, partners, or lovers are not my therapist, or parents, or authority figures, and respecting their boundaries, and our relationships, really requires that I not handle my issues in a way that nudges them into one of those roles… but I am also aware that the mental health industry might actually collapse if people really share their experience more openly with people who matter to them, there would be that much less demand for those services.  Connectivity and emotional support actually matter that much to day in and day out quality of life. (If it seems I’m being over-obvious, I’ll take a moment to admit that I didn’t understand that until relatively recently in my life.)  I want to cultivate a strong connection with people I care about; I don’t always know how.  It’ll sound strange to say, perhaps I’m phrasing it badly, but I’m not sure I know how to ‘make a strong connection with myself’ right now – that can’t make it easier to connect with others.

So…I am having my own experience, and you are having yours. Maybe trying to share mine isn’t the best route to take to feel connected right now… I think today I will explore trying to let go of how badly I need to be heard, and just listen. I may learn something about feeling connected.

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50
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