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Any Day Is a Beginning

December 26, 2016 //
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I am up super early. No real reason, it’s just when I woke. It’s the day after Giftmas, I am home alone, the house is quiet, and I am unsurprisingly up early – about the time I’d usually be up on any ordinary Monday.

For now, the lights on the tree still shine.

For now, the lights on the tree still shine.

Giftmas is over. Oh, there’s still fun and holiday to be had – New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are not yet played out. There’s something to be said for being accepting of other cultures – the holiday season becomes filled with celebrations of all kinds, and opportunities to connect with friends, loved ones, and associates of all kinds more deeply. What’s not to like?

Why the hell am I up so early on a day off work? I grin sheepishly at myself in the pre-dawn darkness. Perhaps I am just excited to get on with living these precious moments? 🙂 I’m already on my second coffee… it’s not yet 5:30 am.

I contentedly scroll through my Facebook feed again, cherishing holiday photos from faraway friends and family. It is a season when everyone puts their best moments and greatest delights ahead of all else. It’s wonderful to see. For a few days, most of the bullshit stops, people put aside most of their pettiness and drama, and just enjoy each other. It’s lovely. Let’s do more of that in 2017, shall we? I mean, really pause the clock to enjoy one another, to be in the moment, present, engaged, and deeply connected; these are the moments that linger in our hearts with the greatest warmth and healing presence. These are the moments that are the best of who we are.

Be someone's lighthouse, always guiding them toward their best self, in life's stormy weather.

Love is a lighthouse, showing the way to safe harbors in life’s stormy weather.

Last night as my Traveling Partner packed up his gear and his goodies to head home, I made sure to ready a container of fresh holiday cookies to take along for another partner. A moment of holiday goodwill, a moment when all the possible baggage and old business got set aside and my best intention – and my best self – stepped forward. Had she been on hand in person, she’d have gotten a hug and a smile, and a genuine well-wishing from me for a very good holiday, and a good year-to-come – are we not both human? Both mortal? Both very fancy fucking monkeys just doing our humble best, mostly, most of the time, as far as we each can tell, generally? I like to think so. Certainly, we’re each having our own experience, and as I am generally content with mine, and not invested in creating misery for others, why would I treat her differently? Holding old pain against her in the here and now does nothing positive for me.

Begin again. Love well. Love authentically.

Begin again. Love well. Love authentically.

Thinking it over this morning, I am more easily able to recognize how much healing has taken place over time. This seems a healthy thing. Oh, the relationship bridges were burned along the way, and there’s no going back on that journey – but why add to the chaos and damage after-the-fact? That seems silly. Has it become a Giftmas tradition in my home to waken afterward with just a little less baggage, a little more true to the spirit of the woman I most want to be in life, a little more easily able to live up to my values, even in those relationships in which my boundaries were tread upon, and my values not shared, or respected? I like the thought that it could be, and consider the verbs involved to secure its place in my ongoing holiday celebration each year.

Peace be with you, and Love, too. <3

Peace be with you, and Love, too. ❤

This morning seems a good one to begin again. Oh, any number of things could be beginning, and there’s no need to wait for the New Year (although, clearly it is a favorite date for new beginnings, generally, most particularly for the grand sorts of life changes we know we won’t actually see to completion).  This morning, I’ll begin again, first, with another cup of coffee and a smile – and a merry “thank you” in my heart for the lovely holiday. For now, that’s enough.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

Here I Sit, Appreciative

December 24, 2016 //
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So. Yeah. Wow. Good things happen. It’s nice to be part of that. It’s powerful to learn more about creating that. It’s mostly built on choices, perspective, and sufficiency. There are verbs involved, and practice – a lot of practice.

I’m sitting in this quiet room, at my desk, fingers dancing rhythmically across my mechanical keyboard (still giggling that the burglar(s) didn’t take it, too, and I’m grateful; it’s very specific to my needs). My replacement laptop arrived ahead of delivery commitment, and before Giftmas. (Thanks, Santa!!) My Traveling Partner arrived yesterday and was already settling in, and got to be here for the fun – and the occasional moment of frustration or confusion – as I begin “moving in” to the new machine. She and I have a way to got together before we’re really comfortable together. All in good time. Funny thing; sitting with her in the living room, or at the dining room table just wasn’t feeling… “right”. I felt somehow out-of-place, mismatched for activities or circumstances, or… something. I was stalled. I got up for a break and walked around the apartment, tidying up here and there; it’s one of my little ways of gathering my thoughts. I stepped into the studio to set something down rather willy-nilly, and noticed with new eyes how much it was beginning to look like a storage space.

Choices. Verbs. Perspective. A few minutes later, my studio looked rather tidy, even welcoming. My desk, which had slowly gathered small stacks of miscellany to cover the emptiness, was tidying up, wiped down, and… ready. Ready to begin again. Ready to welcome me… home. I giggled at the thought – do I “live in” my laptop, more than my apartment? I suppose it could be a truth about my experience; it’s my “back up brain”, if nothing else.

So here I am. Writing in the morning, next to the window, looking out on the meadow. Here I am, enjoying my partner’s voice from the other room “Do you have more of my coffee?” I smile, feeling welcome in my own space, feeling warmed by love, comfortably wrapped in enough. I’m okay right now. Sometimes the disordered bits get away with more than they ought, simply because I don’t see them with clarity; in comparison to ancient pain and heavier baggage, it hasn’t been a big deal… but my Traveling Partner noticed. My therapist noticed. My close neighbor friends noticed. I mostly ignored it, because it could have been so much worse. Over time, though, the small failures to take care of me more fully would have worsened, perhaps spread – it’s best to handle things promptly, when possible, I suppose.

I do love Giftmas. “Merry” feels good. “Merry” has more than fun to it, it’s deeper than that. There’s a quality of appreciation, and awareness to this merry moment. I didn’t get here alone.

I sit soaking in the moment of contentment and stillness. Merry Giftmas, World. Today is a good day to enjoy the moment, to share merriment, to be there for a friend, to save the day, to lend a hand – as with any other, today is a very good day to change the world. ❤

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

Comfortable

December 19, 2016 //
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I’m sitting here mostly dressed for work, reconsidering whether to wear a base layer; temperatures are forecast to get higher than 40 degrees today, and although it is cold now, it won’t be so cold by the end of the day. My base layer is probably too much. I don’t get up to change immediately; I’m comfortable right now.

My fingers keep finding their way across a snag, a small tear, on the cuticle of my left pinkie finger. I would do well to get up, use the tool created for the job of tidying that up, rather than picking at it mindlessly in the background until my finger is bleeding. I’m comfortable right here, right now, so I don’t bother to take care of it in the best way available.

There is a pan on the stove I overlooked when I did the dishes last night. I can’t see it from this vantage point, so it isn’t annoying me at present, and I do nothing about it for now; I’m comfortable.

There are so many times when my life fills up with small moments of discontent, little pains and inconveniences, details that could have gone much differently had I made some small change, or taken some needed action – things I’m aware of, things I notice, things I know to handle quite differently, and do nothing much about, because I’m “comfortable” – which is not at all the same thing as being “content” or being “satisfied”. Feeling comfortable can be a slow invitation to a degradation in quality of life; over time what feels comfortable continues to make room for things I don’t at all find satisfaction in, don’t at all prefer or find ideal, don’t even actually like, but have simply grown to accept as a given, as tolerable, as “what it is”. I start overlooking those details more and more, and the disorder can spread quickly.

It’s a Monday morning. I like Monday mornings for beginning again. All manner of new beginnings feel so orderly and proper on the first day of something… a new week, a new month, a new year. It’s a lot to expect of a moment, to be a deliberate starting point for something important, something… uncomfortable. Change, willful change, is not generally comfortable, in my own experience. There are verbs involved. Choices. Practice. Awareness. Repetition. Frustration. Beginning again. Comfortable does not define the experience of making changes… There sometimes seems a lot to be mindful of, a lot to keep an eye on, a lot to manage – there probably actually is. Some things get missed in any one moment. Being human is a thing and it is rarely an experience characterized by any quality of “perfection”. We are beautifully flawed, and incomplete, each on a journey that lasts the entirety of our experience.

I set aside my half-finished coffee and allow myself a moment of discomfort. An efficient manicure, a rethinking of the day’s choice of clothing, emptying the dishwasher and reloading it: there is effort in living well, in good self-care, and even in life’s simplest pleasures. “Comfort” is sometimes deceiving. I am by far more comfortable having completed these tasks than I was considering them, but it can seem so much easier in the moment to choose the path of least effort. There’s something to learn there, and I make a note to think about it more, later.

Mondays are good for beginnings. Cold winter Mondays, started well before the dawn, are good for plotting a new course on life’s journey, for rethinking previous first steps on journeys well-underway, and for reconsidering some scenario or another that has previously been less-than-ideally satisfying, and perhaps too comfortable. I am hoping not to be misunderstood as seeking discomfort or unease, it’s really not what I’m after, myself. It’s more than I find the sensation of being “comfortable” to more than occasionally put me at risk of complacency, or “settling” for something less than what I’m really going for, under circumstances when there are verbs involved, and I’ve perhaps stopped actually taking action.

I sip my coffee reviewing my physician’s recommendations for changes to my dietary habits intended to improve my health and, over time, fitness. I am deeply uncomfortable. lol It’s a lot of change… at the same time, none of it is really “new information”; I’m facing a long list of known best practices. There are verbs involved, though, and I’m going to need to overcome my comfort with what has not been working well for me. Well… at least it’s a Monday. Monday’s are great for beginning again. I’m going to need to do that a lot. 🙂

I’m standing at the starting point (another one) of a journey (again). I’m ready to walk on. Today is a good day for change.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, winter, Words

Gnōthi Seauton

December 12, 2016 //
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No, seriously, do it. Take time to sort yourself out, to figure out who you are – based on your values, your understanding of your experience, your wants, your needs, your chaos and your damage – the highs, the lows, all of the whole of your experience are part of the answer to the question “Who are you?”. The answer itself is that first step on any journey, whether the answer is held in our awareness or not; whether we take the step is part of who we are. Who we are fills that moment, often imperceptibly brief, between when we form the thought or feel the impulse to step forward, and the moment we lift our foot to take the step. It is in the thought itself, and the impulse.

Today is “team building” with my professional peers. I’m okay with that. I find reflection powerful. I find communication useful. I enjoy growth, and relish connection. Should be a fun day.

Along the way, of course, there is structure to which I must succumb, and I find myself doing so with some amusement; I have been here before. Personality tests are often a part of these experiences, intended to foster improved understanding of one another. A younger me would go into it with less comfort and more resentment, understanding that these tests and quizzes have literally zero actual evidence backing them up as having any particular accuracy or validity whatsoever. (I’m not bashing on whatever your favorite eye-opener is, I’m just saying that generally speaking, things like the Myers Briggs test and DiSC assessments have no scientific basis, even after many years of use and data gathered. They are corporate America’s astrology, best done for ‘entertainment purposes only’ and taken with a grain of salt.) I find value in the sharing and communication. I enjoy working with people who feel connected and informed. If a quiz can open those doors, then let there be many such activities! 🙂

I don’t need to be “right”.

I know myself. Well, better than most other people know me, at least. I’m still working on the rest. Am I the “ENFJ-A” of this morning’s Myers Briggs? Hardly. I am a more loosely defined, more variable set of characteristics. I live. Any one quiz, however many questions, makes observations based on a snapshot, a moment, a few answers of ever-so-many more that may be available. An astute observation that results in improved self-awareness, easier authenticity, and a more enjoyable life-experience overall is surely welcome – but I won’t be changing my mind about what I know of myself on the basis of an internet quiz. 😉

I do put effort into this whole “knowing myself” thing, though; there’s more to learn. Like the vastness of space, or the unfathomed depths of the oceans, there is much I do not know about life, love, and the woman in the mirror. On every journey there is an unexplored horizon in the distance.

Today is a good day to walk on, more questions than answers, eyes-wide open, awake, aware, and engaged in this moment.

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Categories Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

What Makes You Glow?

December 8, 2016 //
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I’m sitting here just smiling. I’ve been smiling since before I went to bed last night. Life doesn’t feel like this every day, and I’m enjoying the moment. I feel “lit up from within”.

Moments that feel rich and warm and well-crafted of the stuff of daydreams aren’t an everyday thing. That used to be a problem for me; I was chasing the Happily Ever After of childhood fairy tales. No map. Happy not being the thing I think I thought it was. Slow going – and I wasn’t getting there. Sitting here this morning, smiling, sipping my coffee – I am happy. This is nice.

what

What makes you glow?

I got home after work, my Traveling Partner and a friend had arrived ahead of me, and they were next door enjoying the company of our friends there. Some visiting, then it was just the two of us, at my place, relaxing and talking and connecting – intimacy, contentment, that contented longing of lovers who want each other even after years together, and… Giftmas. 😀 I do love the holidays. “Your place is festive”, he had observed. It is. The conversation got around to holiday baking, at some point, and he made a funny face at me, when he notices the store-bought cookie dough in the fridge waiting its turn. He knows I bake. What the hell, right? 😀 No mixer. I am so not up to creaming endless pounds of butter and sugar together by hand! The conversation moves on. At some point I notice he is distracted on his phone, and he notices me noticing; the secret is revealed. He is holiday shopping. It’s Giftmas time!! He teases me with revealing the surprise, then admits he plans to have it to me right away; he is replacing my Kitchenaid mixer. It’s an unexpected delight, and an emotional moment for me; hundreds of times I have not chosen to replace it – and I can’t rationally explain why. The money? They’re not cheap… but it wasn’t that.  I make a puzzled face and let the wondering go for some other day. He saw my happy tears, he understands that as silly as it is, sometimes things also have meaning beyond what they are.

Saturday I’ll have a mixer… I can make my grandmothers’ cookie recipes, or my Traveling Partner’s mother’s, or my Dad’s, or my own. I can make fruitcake. I can make macarons – or at least learn how. It’s a mixer, just a kitchen appliance in most practical regards – a very useful tool. This morning, and last night, it also amounts to a moment of genuine happiness, not about a mixer (or I’d have replaced it myself), but more about a moment of healing, of love, and of being understood and cared for. This morning I feel wrapped in love. I think it is moments like this one that leave us so often feeling like materials things matter… because I could easily confuse these feelings for being to do with the mixer itself, rather than the circumstances of life, and loss, that were tangled up with the old one it replaces. It’s the moment that is the source of great joy, and the moment is less tangible, and less easily discussed, than the mixer itself… which isn’t even here yet. 🙂

…He chose one that matches my other appliances. I smile.

…He thought to make sure it reached me in time for some holiday baking. I smile.

…He recognized the lingering sense of conflict and loss over giving up the old one. I smile.

…I am well-loved, and am fortunate to be able to love in return, and this moment, here, is quite precious. I smile.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

This too shall pass. Still smiling I allow myself the awareness that such a powerful deep moment of joy not only won’t last, it isn’t meant to; without the ups and downs, and the complicated complexity of all of it, how would I experience this as a moment of joy? Also knowing suffering provides the comparison needed to recognize it. Without the hurting over the loss of the old mixer, and the complicated baggage around its meaning in my experience (a wedding gift from my violent troubled first marriage, that I carted around for decades of baking – a lifetime, really – the value of the tool out-weighing the painful memories that surfaced every time I used it), I would not experience this new one as a moment of joy at all… it would just be a mixer. 🙂

Today is a good day for a moment, awake, aware, and willing to embrace the whole of my experience to be also able to experience this particular moment, here. Now.

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Categories Brain Injury, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words
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