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Warmest Regards,

January 4, 2015 //
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No fooling – warm indeed; my hormones have been all over the place this week, and at the moment I am uncomfortably warm, window open on a winter day, trying to cool down. Hot flashes are odd; I’m definitely feeling ‘hot’, as in ‘the temperature is too high’, and I am sweating uncomfortably, and feeling weighed down by my clothing. The room is a comfortable 70 degrees…and my body temperature is normal. Hormones. I feel what I’m feeling, and it’s real enough…but…it also isn’t something that directly affects anyone else, unless I start racing around panicked and tearing my clothes off, trying to find relief in the open refrigerator door, or throwing all the windows in the house open, or some similar foolishness. Now and then it can be pretty comical. In the moment, it mostly sucks. It’s not so bad, today; enough to notice, but not so much that it is really disruptive.

The hormone thing that is such a huge part of a woman’s life is complicated. Compassion for that complicated experience is valuable. Real recognition that not having experienced it from within means there are likely elements of the experience won’t be obvious, or easily understood is nice, too. I’m fortunate that my traveling partner is generally very kind, accommodating, and understanding about ‘the hormone thing’; he’s also very perceptive, and sensitive to the shift in comfort and mood, which results (less fortunately) in feelings of discomfort for him more often than either of us would prefer. The easy answer on both sides is love, and giving each other some space. I like the love; the need to take some time apart in order to care for each other most efficiently (on the principle of ‘this too shall pass’) is something I enjoy less, but value having a partnership that makes it easy. Hormones are what they are, and the machinery is winding down, an understandably complicated process. I am fortunate to be well-loved along the way.

Life isn't on rails, we have choices, and our path is our own to choose.

Life isn’t on rails, we have choices, and our path is our own to choose.

Raised voices on the other side of the door interrupt the flow of my thoughts. Today I woke earlier than the rest of the household, for the first time in many days. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of late nights, sleeping in (well, as much as I am able), and living without the ticking clock of the work routine in the background. This morning, I was up, and having my first coffee well before anyone else stirred. I didn’t bolt into the kitchen to throw my arms around my traveling partner; neither of us is at our best first thing upon waking, and the loving thing is to give the man some room to have some coffee and wake up. At the moment that I considered heading into the great room for good mornings, hugs, kisses, and happy greetings, I heard raised voices, and the vocal tones of stress, irritation, and frustration. I decided to let that moment pass.  The house is quiet now, and I feel calm and content with the choice to take care of me.

My coffee is almost finished. I’ll have my second coffee in town, with a friend. I’m looking forward to the outing most especially because we no longer see each other as much, now that we don’t work together. Then it’ll be home, and laundry, and getting ready for the work week. The holiday is over, and it’s been mostly quite nice. I’ve enjoyed the time with family, with love, and with myself. It’s been a very good time for growth, and contemplation, and I feel more prepared for the new year than I might have without this interlude.

The stereo comes alive with a favorite Santana track…the day begins in earnest. Today is a good day for love. Today is a good day to be kind and considerate. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

You Say It’s Your Birthday…

December 27, 2014 //
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Someone dear to me has a birthday today. (Happy Birthday!) More than one friend, love, associate, colleague, or family member have birthdays during the winter holiday season, sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Statistically, it would be stranger if none of them did. I rather like celebrating these birthdays; each person a unique individual, with a different need/desire to celebrate – and different aesthetics and traditions for celebrating. How delightful my entire holiday season were filled with these individual days…the calendar could roll from one to the next day over day… Jen’s Day, Jo’s Day, John’s Day, Sean’s Day, Tyler’s Day, Michael’s Day, Lisa’s Day, Stephanie’s Day, Rhi’s Day…mixed in with the ‘bigger’ holidays and given full measure of celebration and meaning! Each of the people dear to me are worth celebrating, at least I find them so, myself. I hope they find joy in celebrating their experience of self, it seems important.

When I celebrate my own birthday, I like it to be ‘about me’ in a rather literal way. I like to spend the day with friends and loves, doing what I like to do utterly unapologetically, sharing those experiences with people who matter to me – who are willing to share the moment because I have value for them, and the relationship is worth taking that time to participate in some activity that might not be their first choice, any other day of the year. We celebrate me, that one day each year. I tend to celebrate everyone’s birthday that way, if I know it is their birthday, just by deferring to their preferences when the opportunity to do so arises. Seems an easy enough way to say ‘I value you’ by saying ‘let’s do it your way’.

I know people who don’t actually celebrate their birthday. I don’t know that it is truly significant or has any meaning beyond what it is. The more I enjoy me, the more I want to really celebrate my birthday…and to do so beyond gifts, parties, or elaborate plans; I want to celebrate simply by being me, quite comfortably so, and really delighting in what I have to offer myself. Seems a little funny to take a special day to do that, though; I am sure I could do it every day, in every mindful moment, quite as easily.

Like a butterfly; a birthday celebrates the growth of an entire year.

Metamorphosis; a birthday celebrates the growth of an entire year.

Verbs and choices… Perspective. Words matter. Happy Birthday. I hope you celebrate you. 🙂

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Categories Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Time, Space, and Distance

December 21, 2014 //
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Learned helplessness sucks. It’s a common enough byproduct of surviving certain sorts of trauma. The frustration that can surge to the forefront of my experience due to complications of struggling with learned helplessness is akin to the nuclear blast of emotional weaponry; sudden, unreasonably forceful, and laying waste to the pleasant now that might have been. When I am simply doing my best to manage, day-to-day, and doing so with some measure of success, other things that need to be attended to may fall by the wayside; I can only do so much, moment to moment. My will falls short in the struggling, you see. I give up. Learned helplessness is a very real thing.

I wrote some days ago about my environment degrading, and that being a sign of ongoing stress, and a need to take care of me, more skillfully. I spent yesterday restoring order to the chaos of my environment. It feels very nice to handle that bit of business, and my surroundings are orderly, clean, tidy, and quite to my taste, generally. What I need is at hand. What I don’t need, has been put away. The effort to restore order in my environment results in renewed enthusiasm to keep it so, as well as ‘clearing my head’ for a whole host of other things that would benefit from being handled sooner than later.

I woke later than usual this morning, and took my medication later as a result. I am now taking care of me – and my loved ones – by taking sufficient time solo for my medication to kick in, and to wake up, and find my voice before I impose myself on their experience. Yes, that level of consideration matters to me; some women don’t leave the house before they ‘put their face on’, I avoid interacting with people before my brain has entirely come back online, and my level of pain is as addressed by medication as it will be, for the day. Taking the time I need really matters to me, and failing to do so changes my experience in a reliably unpleasant way.

The only snowflake I'm likely to see this holiday season.

Let it snow…

I recently got an email from an ex. A large measure of my PTSD is related to relationship trauma, and domestic violence, and I don’t have a comfortable experience of exes reaching out from the past, generally. I felt very anxious reading the email, and feel anxious considering it after the fact, too. This ex, this time, reached out to inquire – 4 years after the break up – whether I have any of her antique holiday ornaments. I was filled with complicated emotions that began with irritation and anger; when we divided our property I had specifically asked what holiday ornaments she wanted and was firmly and specifically told that the holidays would no longer have any meaning, and that she wanted no part of them. The anger became mixed with some measure of humor, and bewilderment; we’d never owned any antique ornaments together, at all. She had a few small handmade figurines, made by her Mother, and those were so clearly hers that taking them with me wasn’t even something I considered. I had a small number of handcrafted ornaments my own Mother made, and had given to me. The rest of our ornaments were common enough glass ornaments, some traditional sorts that I purchased my first holiday alone after I left my first husband, few of which actually remain, and some interestingly non-traditional sorts that continue to delight and amuse me with their whimsy. Still, I carefully checked the tree, decked out for the holidays, to see if ornaments dear to her had remained with me. I didn’t find any, and my journal entries of the time indicate that I had taken pains to carefully box the ornaments that were peculiarly ‘hers’ and left them behind for her when I moved out. I replied kindly that I didn’t have the ornaments she was looking for, and reminded her that we hadn’t had any antiques that I could recall. I made an effort not to read subtext into her reply, and have since tried to let it go. You can see the effort to do so has been only marginally successful; I feel angry that she even asked, and helpless to act on that in a way that is appropriate, effective, and needful. My logical brain tells me that I already have – so let it go, already. My heart says ‘this was so not cool!!’ and wants to do/say more. That was probably the point in the first place, making it even more wise to just let it drop without another word.

My level of physical pain the past couple of days has been very high. I hurt enough to affect my experience moment to moment, and although the effort to be compassionate and kind to others nonetheless is entirely worth it, I also find myself struggling not to resent how clueless people around me seem to be about the fact that I am indeed in that much pain. Sometimes I just want to lay down and weep, I hurt that much. It doesn’t help, though. I sometimes want to plead with people around me “please just be patient with me, please be kind to me – I just hurt, is all!”, but it hasn’t been my experience that it makes much difference; they are having their own experience.

Time to get the day started…laundry, putting away things that were relocated out of my personal space during yesterday’s cleaning, writing holiday letters…all the makings of a fulfilling quiet day. Today is a good day to take care of me, on my own terms. Today is a good day to change how I feel in the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

What’s That Far Off Jingling?

December 16, 2014 //
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This morning is a nice one. I rested well, woke most pleasantly and just a bit ahead of the alarm. No nightmares. My just-waking-up headache quickly dissipated, leaving only my tinnitus behind, and it, too, doesn’t seem that bad, today. My coffee is hot, and tasty, and a bold reminder of drinking my coffee straight up, dark, and robust in other lives, on other mornings. I’m not shivering in the cold. I’m not sweltering in heat. I am comfortable and content.

For some moments this morning, I was troubled by a strange far off sounding jingling – a holiday jingling that was sort of cute and fun at first, and quickly started causing me some stress; I couldn’t place the source of the sound, and it seemed… everywhere. Thankfully, I realized – before that had gone on very long – I’d chosen it. Oh, not mindfully, nope; it’s very early in the morning and I’m not quite entirely awake. I put on colorful holiday earrings this morning…a cascade of tiny… wait for it… jingle bells. LOL Yep. I chased myself slowly through the house listening for the source of a noise that was immediately next to my ear, small, delicate, ceaseless. (I’ll resume wearing them when I get to the office. The background noise is sufficient that the earrings won’t seem so loud.)

Use your words.

Holiday cheer, and the power of words; speechless is not voiceless.

So far, this morning is as light and pleasant as yesterday’s was difficult. Yesterday ended well, and the day itself was productive and worthwhile – it’s certainly not one that I find myself moved to regret on any noteworthy level; it lingers in my memory in a largely pleasant way, after-the-fact. I enjoy the malleable qualities of the mind, having learned more about making them work for me.

It’s the small course corrections, over time, that have made the most difference for me. I’m saying that because some day I, myself, may need to read those words again… There is a lot of ugliness in the news, and it is so easy to drown in the despair that comes of trying to consume too much bad news too quickly. Those small course corrections happen every day, all around us, and even those entities of great evil that appall and terrify us aren’t static, and change is; it exists whether we embrace it or not. Change isn’t always easy to see, and those small course corrections, and small changes, are not always enough to ease our suffering in the moment – it’s ‘not enough’, somehow, to see some change in the face of great evil. Still, change is, and I had an odd moment yesterday that drove that message home for me.

The value of incremental positive changes over time is huge…but it is easy to lose sight of the improvements, because things can still seem so… status quo.  Two recent South Park episodes were illustrative for me: Season 18, episodes 9 #Rehash and 10 #HappyHolograms. I had never actually been exposed to the popular internet commentator, PewDiePie, or even the phenomenon he represents. I’m not his target audience, so I’m not super surprised. Why does it matter? Incremental changes over time do matter…he became relevant for me when I read this quote:

25 October 2012, Kjellberg posted a Tumblr message, stating “I just wanted to make clear that I’m no longer making rape jokes, as I mentioned before I’m not looking to hurt anyone and I apologize if it ever did.”

That’s actually a pretty big deal. The quote is linked and cited in the Wikipedia article, which tends to support its value as potentially true. A valuable, very real, relevant small course correction. Incremental change over time. It’s powerful – he has a voice, he uses it. Rape humor is controversial, and it’s dangerous territory to be casual and insensitive about; it’s very easy to hurt someone who has been traumatized by rape by carelessly joking about the topic. As a survivor, I still struggle to find the balance between handling the horror, and the healthy healing power of humor and laughter. Most of the comedy I favor doesn’t stray into rape humor territory – but some of it does. It matters how it is handled, and it was those clear simple words assembled by PewDiePie that pointed out what makes the difference [for me]: respect and consideration. When the humor targets the victims as yet another attack on their credibility, or their suffering, it isn’t funny, not at all, not even a little bit. When the humor points the laser beam of comedy at the heinousness of the crime, itself, at the perpetrators, at the culture that ‘doesn’t get it’ – that’s where the laughter is for me. South Park gets it right, seating Bill Cosby on a couch next to Taylor Swift, holiday music playing, a glass of wine the focus of the scene…but we can’t hear what is being said, the voice-over is deliberately louder, distracting…social commentary, comedy genius. Funny enough that it didn’t really warrant a trigger warning. Subtle enough to avoid liability, and unlikely to frighten children. I laughed and laughed. I watched it again. I laughed more. I watched it yet again, and began find the details and references I’d missed the first two times. I’d send Matt Stone and Trey Parker holiday cards and well wishes this year, if I knew them. I’ll probably watch it again, soon. 🙂

Change is. Small changes matter – over time they become larger. I see hints of change in our culture. I see more people finding their voice – and using it. I see more human beings reaching across the details that divide them to recognize we’re all in this together. This morning, I feel encouraged and alive…I’m not sure why. It’s a lovely feeling to start the day on.

Today is a good day to pause and appreciate the change that is.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

Incoming!

December 15, 2014 //
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Wow. What a shitty morning. I woke too early because other members of the household manhandle doors without giving people sleeping much thought. My first association with anyone else in the house went awry very quickly. I feel mistreated. I feel disrespected and hurt. I’m angry. The time I made to enjoy the company of someone dear to me – by choice – was treated as without value. I haven’t been awake even two hours and I’m in tears, feeling hurt, feeling pissed off, boundaries violated, explicitly stated needs utterly disregarded, and reeling from the powerful emotional punch that is having ones security threatened, emotional security that is. There was a time in my life when I did not understand that these experiences are not ‘love’ – they don’t define the wonder and joy of Love and loving – these kinds of experiences suck, and hold no pleasure, no value, no joy. I find them unpleasant, and unworthy of being called ‘love’.  Experiences like these still happen in the context of relationships I have with people I love…which doesn’t stop the experiences from sucking, actually, I think it makes them suck that much more. Love, in its wonder and joy and delight, isn’t defined by our challenges – that’s just human beings, being human. Hopefully, when I cool off, there will be a lesson to learn.

I feel sad. I feel pissed off. I feel blamed. I feel cheated of a quiet pleasant morning in the good company of someone dear to me. I feel ashamed that I let someone else’s shitty mood provoke me, too. No one needed that.

Searching for the positive, finding stickers and thorns.

Searching for the positive, finding stickers and thorns.

We’re all so very human, aren’t we? Each with our own baggage, our own experience, our own perspective…the context of our unique perspective, that is so ‘us’, can so easily find us out of step with those who matter most to us… assumptions… expectations… the narrative we accept as ‘true’ or ‘real’… the stories we tell ourselves… Right this very moment, more than anything, I would like to be laughing and sipping coffee with this fantastic guy I love… right now, I can’t stand the thought of being in the presence of his right-now experience; as much as it appears to suck from my perspective, I imagine it must feel pretty awful from within, too. Certainly, it’s not what I expect from love.

I don’t know why I’m bothering to write about this… we all have these experiences, though, don’t we? Moments of anger. Moments of hurt. Moments of frustration. Moments that suck. They are, however, just moments.

Today is a good day for perspective…I hope to find some, soon. Today is a good day to treat people well – myself, included. Today is a good day to change the world… I’d be content to change the moment. Today is a good day to remember to dress for the weather, and to remember that this too shall pass*.

*Indeed, it did pass…with some practicing of practices that work to move my heart in a more positive direction, like ‘taking in the good’ and savoring small pleasures as I walked to the light rail station, and taking on a healthy challenge that distracted my focus, in general, and also had the benefit of giving me some needed exercise – I walked to a much more distant light rail station than I usually do, and enjoyed the bracing winter air, the feel of taking on a challenge and meeting a goal. More pleasant, nurturing, words were exchanged along the way, and I took a moment to be grateful for the technology that makes it so easy to do so, without stewing in my own emotional bullshit all day long before getting to that opportunity. Kind words were shared. Encouragement and apology were offered, and accepted… the day moves on. Humans, being human. Lovers, loving. Today? Yeah, as human as I am, today is a good day.

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Categories Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words
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