We become what we practice. Prove me wrong. When I practice being calm, I become a calmer person. When I practice listening I become a better listener. When I practice kindness, I become more inclined to be kind, generally.
…If I practice being angry, I become more easily angered, more often, and more likely to react with anger to circumstances and people that may not warrant such a reaction at all…
When I practice perspective and consideration, my perspective on life deepens, and I become more considerate.
The next conversation you have with someone may determine whether you continue to have the relationship you do. Good or bad. More connected or more distant. The words you choose and the emotions you embody become reality. A real experience being experienced. A memory being made.
Who are you? Who is that other person to you? If you live as the person you most want to be, how will you behave? What are you choosing to practice?
The way ahead is not always clear. It’s still your path, and you choose your direction and your steps.
You have choices. Choose wisely.
I reached the trailhead before daybreak, park gate still closed. I’m okay with that. I find the quiet solitary time necessary to my well-being and sometimes hard to snatch from a busy day. I enjoy every quiet moment that I happen upon. I sit awhile and reflect before I ever reach for my device, listening to the sound of traffic on the highway, and the ringing in my ears that never ceases and rarely diminishes.
A morning well-suited to solitary reflection.
The gate opens with a sort of screeching creaking sound. This morning my plan is to walk the entire loop trail around the marsh, (3 miles), then cut over to the river trail, and walk that out and back (1 mile each way) for a 5 mile walk. Goals. I change into my boots, remembering to grab my water bottle, my cane, my lightweight collapsible 3-legged camp stool, and a beautiful tangerine for later. The sky begins to lighten, and the fog begins to lift. Nice day for a walk with my thoughts.
I stand ready at the beginning of the marsh trail, listening for a moment, before I begin. I breathe the meadow-sweet air at the edge of the marsh. I feel vaguely sleepy under the cloudy gray sky. I sigh to myself as I step forward; no beautiful sunrise this morning and it looks like rain. As an afterthought, I grab my lightweight rain poncho and stuff it in my back pocket, “just in case”, and head down the trail.
Weed or wildflower? It’s largely a matter of context and perspective.
Sometime later, I stop at my decision-making point, where the marsh trail and river trail intersect. Walk on? Three miles or five? I unfold my little camp stool and take a seat to rest a moment. The air is cool and fresh and scented with something that seems at once both floral and spicy. I breathe, exhale, and relax. This moment is mine to enjoy however I wish. I choose gratitude, contentment, and joy, sitting here with my solitary thoughts.
…It really doesn’t have to be more complicated. Choose. Practice. We become what we practice…
I can’t tell you how to live your life. I’m just pointing out that you have (and make) choices. If your emotional experience of life is characterized by anger, frustration, and disappointment, which definitely sucks, you have the opportunity every day to choose (and practice) something very different. Life isn’t something inflicted upon you; you are living your experience. You choose your words, your actions, and to a large degree even your thoughts. If you don’t enjoy life as you live it now, choose to live it differently. The choices (and consequences of those choices) are yours.
… Sometimes growth and progress are uncomfortable. Sometimes we have to work harder, and go farther. Sometimes we have to chuck out what hasn’t worked and begin all over again. I look down the trail ahead of me. Five miles. I choose to walk on, and go further. I collapse my folding stool and sling it over my shoulder. It’s time to begin again.
Yesterday was… awful. Mostly. Humans being human. I was certainly not at my best. The day seemed too long, my efforts too futile, and the promises of the future too limited. Chaos and damage; once I was triggered in the early morning, my anxiety flared up on this whole almost-forgotten level and continue to struggle with it even now.
My sleep last night was disturbed by mocking nightmares of imminent demise and ruin. I woke abruptly, too early, feeling the full measure of my “baggage” like a weight around my neck. I had trouble catching my breath, so I got up quickly and quietly and slipped out into the pre-dawn darkness to “walk it off” at daybreak.
A glimpse of the full moon, an unexpected delight.
As I waited for enough light to comfortably walk the trail, I took time to meditate. I had hoped it would do more to ease my anxiety than it did. I sit with my thoughts. I breathe, exhale, relax, and take inventory of my physical wellness. Pain? Yeah. Definitely. I take my medication and hope for relief. Rested? Sure, mostly. I’ve added calendar reminders for self-care breaks and healthy calories; I’ve been letting my self-care suffer trying to stay caught up on all the caregiving stuff – and I’m just going to say it; I’m in no way actually up to the task of providing round-the-clock caregiving to another human being (even one that I love dearly). I’ve got limitations that make that a pretty poor choice, but didn’t understand them in this context until I rather stupidly committed to providing the caregiving. My Traveling Partner needed more from me than I could realistically provide with skill. It’s been a shit show and very difficult few days for me, and more so for my partner. Stupid mistakes, and an astonishing level of inconsiderate bullshit that I honestly didn’t expect from myself.
My back aches and I feel vaguely ill, but my head isn’t stuffy anymore and I can breathe. I’ve got the usual headache and a workday ahead. I feel frustrated and annoyed in advance of any reason for it.
The chaos in the household has been disruptive for everyone. I’m inclined to bear the blame for all of it, because that’s what I tend to do. The truer truth is that there are three human beings in this together, each with their own baggage, their own bullshit, their own challenges and goals and dreams – their own values – and their own very real struggles, right fucking now. It’s hard to forge a comfortably calm genial environment together in less than 6 weeks, and do it in a time period that includes a major move, an incredibly advanced spinal surgery, and changes to medications of one kind or another for everyone involved. I don’t even know why we expected it to be any easier in the first place. (Did we?)
Daybreak comes
It’s a new day. A chance to begin again, if I take it. A new shared experience, if I am willing to be open, vulnerable, considerate, patient, kind, and able to listen with care and compassion. I wish I wasn’t having to fight my anxiety. Wishful thinking won’t change the world. Better to take time to reflect rationally on what I need and expect from the Anxious Adventurer, and on what I can realistically provide to support my Traveling Partner with skill and kindness, and then deal with those realities appropriately.
… I’ve managed to be a complete dick to everyone around me for days, and do so thinking I was behaving quite differently…
I notice the time. Although I am “officially” no longer responsible for my Traveling Partner’s medications (mostly because I have made too many mistakes, which can’t be a thing with meds, but also because he doesn’t need that with the same level of oversight now), I still find myself on alert; it’s time. My anxiety goes through the roof; change is hard. I breathe through it. Exhale, understanding that this level of anxiety over that task should have been a clear indication that I’m possibly not the right person for that task. I walk tensely, picking at my cuticles until I notice that I’m doing it. I stop the picking and keep walking, and breathing. Fuck anxiety.
I walk on, trusting my partner. He’s reminded me multiple times to refrain from jumping in and taking over or trying to do things for him without asking what he needs. (Fucking basic; “nothing about me, without me”, you’d think I’d have that down.)
The sunrise is pretty, beginning with hints of luminous pink. I walk, feeling the chill of autumn ahead. I should have worn a fleece, but didn’t think to grab it as I left, still fighting the residue of my nightmares.
… Some days I feel like I am barely an actual adult…
I walk and breathe and reflect. I pause my halfway point to write. So much to do today. Work. Getting my partner to and from an appointment. Getting prescriptions reordered. Picking those up. I start to feel overwhelmed in advance, but it’s just the anxiety talking. I let it go. I’ll just keep practicing.
I’m drinking my coffee and catching up on work. It feels an eternity since I’ve logged into work tools, but it’s been more or less a long weekend, just busy and about as far removed from my professional work as it could possibly be. Feels strange, and oddly comforting to be back to work.
My headache woke with me, and it is ferocious this morning. My sleep was interrupted at scheduled intervals through the night to provide my Traveling Partner with care as he recovers from his surgery. The surgery went well. So far the recovery is going well, too, it seems. It’s complicated by volatile emotions on all sides, and the quantity of potentially mind-altering prescription drugs involved doesn’t make that “easier”, at all. Whether tempers or tears, when feelings flare up and escalate, I keep finding my way (unsteadily, awkwardly, doggedly) back to some sort of calm – which feels like progress. I don’t think I could have managed this as well as I am ten years ago. I bet I could manage it better another 10 years from now. Progress. Incremental change over time. We become what we practice.
…I’ll say that one again, because it’s super super important; we become what we practice. If your default is tears, tantrums, and drama, I promise you’ll get very skilled at those behaviors, and those will be the increasingly common outcomes. If you practice calm, you become calm. It’s that simple. (Which is not to say that it is “easy” – it’s isn’t easy at all, and it requires a lot of practice, and persistence.) For me, the hardest part is breaking old habitual behaviors and reactions. I’ve become pretty hard to provoke in the context of my professional life, which is great. I’m often still quite vulnerable to provocation in the context of intimate relationships. (That’s probably pretty commonplace.) Lately, all of it is further complicated by this fucking headache that follows me everywhere.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve taken my meds, had a big glass of water, and I’ve got this excellent cup of coffee. No walk today, which feels weird, but I need to be here at specific times to care for my Traveling Partner. I’m tired – it’s something to be mindful of, because it holds the risk of volatility as my fatigue deepens later in the day. Maybe I’ll get a walk in later? I notice that my thoughts are less than ideally well organized. I’m distracted by my headache, and by my awareness that my partner is in the other room; I’m alert for the sound of his voice expressing a need or a want, or some opportunity to provide him with support. Competing priorities on top of this headache and my fatigue…I could be a mess right now, but I think I’m mostly okay, which is nice to be able to count on, today.
Don’t forget to slow down and enjoy the journey.
Sometimes it feels like the journey from hell to some better place is endless…but…so much of this human experience is relative. I think back on other experiences, other days, other moments. I reflect on the Parable of the Mire. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was truly mired, myself. It has been a long journey – a worthy journey. A “heroes journey”, in a sense. I mean…I am having my own experience, and this is my journey, my tale, my adventure. I have another sip of coffee and think another thought. I reflect on the “wrong notes” and recent missteps, and what I could have done differently. I rehearse “better” (more desirable) behavior in my head, playing out dialogue that went wrong with different words, different reactions, “practicing” different “scripts” for better results more closely aligned with my values, hoping to do a better job of being the woman I most want to be “next time” (there’s always a next time). I remind myself that it isn’t all about me, and that I can’t control the behavior or reactions of others. I think about the importance of non-attachment, and the risk of becoming “fused” with someone else’s emotional experience, and how best to avoid that risk.
…We become what we practice…
…Fuck, I hope the typing doesn’t prevent my partner getting the rest he needs (it’s a pretty quiet keyboard, though)…
I take a moment to think about recent successes. Small things like my Traveling Partner thanking me for good caregiving matter a lot, and they add up over time. I think, too, about progress toward personal goals, like losing some weight (20lbs or so now), and clearing my task list. I give myself some time to sit with successes, joys, and pleasant recollections. (A useful practice for building a more positive general experience and attitude toward life.)
I put my focus back on work. It’s time to begin again.
I’m sipping my coffee, thinking about people and our propensity for insisting on certainty and “knowing”. For every knowledgeable studious article written by a subject matter expert, there’s a comment section full of random voices that strike a strident and insistent tone while insisting they know more/better, objecting to some researched detail or conclusion. It’s super annoying. I raise my coffee in a vague gesture of respect towards the rising sun, thankful that Dunning and Krueger gave the phenomenon a name. Too bad about all those bullshit thinking errors, Humanity. Do better. Try… listening. Try learning. Try demonstrating some understanding that your individual perspective is quite limited and you don’t know everything.
… We’re each having our own experience…
It’s rarely possible to truly understand what someone else is going through. Even when we share information with each other, there’s a likelihood that something may be lost in the process. We don’t truly share our understanding of the meanings of words. Hell, maybe even the way we see the world around us varies with our individual perspective and vision? Certainly we make a ton of shit up as we go along, eh?
It’s a pretty morning. I slept well and deeply. My Traveling Partner restored my sunrise alarm (a silent alarm that simply brings up the lights gradually to wake me). It was nice to fall asleep knowing I would wake up gently. No noise. I slipped out without waking the household and headed to the trailhead. I’m sitting at my halfway point thinking about life, love, perspective, knowledge, and… people. We’re strange fucking creatures, emotional, petty, and often fairly fucking stupid… but not without our charms, I suppose.
… I think about my Traveling Partner, and the enduring love we share…
I decided to go into the office today. No particular reason, I guess, I just don’t feel like dealing with chaos and with my Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer both home today, I anticipated projects getting done and a high potential for frequent interruptions. Decided not to fight it, just be elsewhere so I can focus and work quietly.
My health and fitness journey continues to progress. Being “on the shot” has allowed me to drop several other medications as my health improves, which is excellent. Today I restart physical therapy. Strength training is an important next step for rebuilding muscle mass and improving strength and tone, but I need a bit of help where I am, presently. Seems sensible to take advantage of the availability of a good PT provider to get started down this path. I’ve dropped a bit more than 20lbs so far, but I don’t want to end up “skinny fat” in a sagging shapeless meat suit. 😂 Time to get to work seriously.
I see my therapist tomorrow. Needful, with the stress of my Traveling Partner’s imminent surgery just ahead and the chaos of the Anxious Adventurer moving in. I’m taking my self-care quite seriously, even putting time on my calendar to make my intentions explicit. Reminders are helpful.
… Another day, another opportunity to begin again…
My coffee is hot this morning, after weeks of taking it iced first thing in the morning. It’s just that I woke so very early that there was no coffee to be had on the route to work, and honestly it just didn’t really matter. I’ve been growing less dependent on having it with any “first thing in the morning” urgency, which is a nice bit of freedom. I brewed a cup of coffee when I got to the office, after a very relaxed drive (no traffic at all), and made myself a breakfast salad of fresh greens with a handful of cashews, and some lovely plump blueberries quite cold from the fridge. The combination of timing and circumstances has started the morning quite well. I heard from my Traveling Partner on my way into the city; he’s up early too, looks like.
The weekend was a lovely one. I got quite a lot done. My Traveling Partner and I shared an unfortunate bit of stress on Saturday, late in the morning; I’d managed to overlook taking medication that does affect my emotional volatility (or potential for it) if I don’t take it, and there we were dealing with my bullshit unexpectedly. I feel fortunate that I did notice relatively quickly, and grateful that he understood. He gets it. We successfully moved on from that moment, and the weekend was otherwise quite nice.
I got a few things done in preparation for my camping trip… just 5 days away now (okay, 6 if I count today). I do worry just a bit about how easily my partner can handle things and take care of himself while I’m gone. He’s recovering from his injury, and that’s been a slow process. He manages most stuff pretty well without much difficulty, but still appreciates help with a lot of things. I sip my coffee and think over ways I can “be there for him” while I’m gone. Things like making sure the bathroom is stocked with fresh towels, the linens on the bed are fresh, there’s plenty of iced tea made, and providing easy to prepare food options that don’t require a bunch of complex kitchen work or standing around, all seem like pretty standard things I can do… but… is it enough? Is there more, or other things, that I can do to make the experience a good one for him? The one inescapable challenge is that he’d definitely rather be with me than without me, even for a few days. At some point, I have to be okay with that, accepting, understanding, and grateful to be so loved. The away time is good for me, and I for sure need the rest and the solo time for meditation and self-reflection – I just want to also make sure it’s not a hardship for my beloved, as much as I can.
I didn’t see the aurora borealis over the weekend, though it was apparently visible in my community; too many of my neighbors have aggressively bright outdoor lighting on their homes and decks and the light pollution made it impossible to see the colors in the night sky from my home. The warm weather we’ve had (that may or may not be associated with the ongoing solar storm) certainly did splendid things in the garden! The salad greens are a dense and tasty assortment, ripe for harvest, the radishes are plump and spicy, and there are peas on the vines nearly ready to be picked. The roses – those mature enough to flower – have plump buds ready to bloom, and it looks like a good year for roses (if only the deer will please stop eating the tips of the new canes off!). “Baby Love”, a rose my Traveling Partner gave me after we moved in together back in 2010, is already blooming like crazy, and is nearly always first to bloom (and last to stop).
“Baby Love” in bloom.
One of the tasks on my list for the weekend had originally been to drain, clean, and refill the hot tub for the season. After the planning conversation with my Traveling Partner late last week, though, we decided to “decommission” the hot tub in favor of having it removed, repairing the deck (much easier without a 6 person hot tub standing on it!), and then replacing the hot tub with something more modern, quieter, and more energy efficient. I do love having the hot tub, and for just a moment I worried a bit that we might not ever get to that “replace the hot tub” place… it’s a costly sort of luxury, and resources are finite. That’s just real. I let myself think it over with greater care over the weekend days, and found myself comfortably acknowledging that I’m in a different place in life, in a more results-focused (and successful) partnership, with a human being who shares most of my values and goals. We both want this, and we planned the project together. Doesn’t seem likely to “just fail”, unless we change what we want to do, or what our priorities are. So. I drained the hot tub. It wasn’t a particularly poignant moment, just a bit of a chore that needed to be done to move on to the next step (which is to get it gone, ideally without destroying the lawn on the way out).
Change is.
“Benchmark-wise”, on my Ozempic journey, things seem… fine. It’s time to get a refill on the Rx. I’m still seeing steady (slow) progress, with no obvious side effects aside from mild acid reflux now and then (most often when I take other prescriptions on an empty stomach). I feel fortunate that this is turning out to be a “good fit” for me, as a treatment choice. I don’t yet see anything much in the mirror that looks any different, but my jeans are fitting a bit more comfortably, which is a win, and I’m not expecting to wake up a size 6 tomorrow with the blood pressure of a 21-year-old athlete, and the A1C of someone who’s never been at risk of diabetes at all. Incremental change over time is something I understand. 😀
…Another day, another sun rise. Another opportunity to become the woman I most want to be (with some practice). Another chance to begin again…
I had a peculiar thought about mortality the other day. Something along the lines of “you can’t take it with you”… but reconsidered. We also “can’t leave it behind” in a very particular sense; our memories and our experiences are ours alone. No one else has an identical experience of life to the one we each live, ourselves. Our memories – the record of those experiences, our perspectives, our thoughts and understandings – live in our own heads. There’s no real way to leave that behind for anyone else to enjoy once we’re gone. Sure, they have their memories of us, of shared experiences, of who they understood us to be, and what they recall of what we’ve said or done…but… this singular human experience that is mine? That is our own individual journey? That’s ours. Ours to keep. Ours to enjoy. Ours to attempt to share or communicate… but, ultimately, ours alone. Even for those prone to autobiographical endeavors, what’s left behind in those words on a page is filtered through edits, consideration of other points of view, and simply the limitations of seeking to share that are so difficult to overcome. Artists create art; the viewer sees it through the lens of their own experience. At some point, the artist’s own perspective is entirely lost. There’s so much of who we are that we can’t actually leave behind. What I’m saying is… enjoy your life. Do you. Be the person you most want to be. Keep practicing; the journey is the destination. You are here, now. It’s what you’ve got to work with – don’t let the moment pass, expecting your legacy to be something worth leaving behind. Maybe it will be. Maybe it won’t be. You won’t be here to know – or to share. Share while you can. Use your words. Connect. Love. Care. Choose your words and actions as though they will be what you are remembered by (because, mostly that’s what will remain; the thought of you, in the memories of someone else).
I sigh out loud and sip my coffee. I think of my Dear Friend, and other dear friends distant or who have passed. Time is short. The clock is ticking. Do your best to be the person you most want to be. Let go of petty resentments and bullshit and anger and hate – do you really have time for that crap? Love. Love because you can, and because it feels good. Care because it really matters. Make choices that improve your life, the lives of those you care about, and your community, your society, and the world. We’re all in this together, and this ball of rock hurtling through space is surprisingly tiny to support so many. Play nicely. Be a good neighbor. Apologize freely. Accept (and offer) help graciously. Do your best. Be kind.
…Keep practicing…
I think of far away friends and ticking clocks and how best to be the woman I most want to be. I watch the sun rise. I’ve no way of knowing how many sunrises I may have ahead of me. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 