Archives for posts with tag: baggage
« Older Entries

Road’s End

April 18, 2026 //
0

Roads end. I mean, I guess they do, at some point, even this one, although it doesn’t appear to end here. That’s just the name of this place, “Road’s End”. It’s a small state park at the edge of the shore, with a trail down to the beach. I am here, listening to the sound of wind and waves (and some asshole with their car radio on loud enough to be heard, which I could do without).

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

The view from Road’s End

I definitely need this time alone. I don’t get much solitude as things are, and my Traveling Partner was encouraging to the point of being willing to find me a suitable hotel and book a room for me. (I was going to make it a day trip and call it good enough.) I felt very loved, and excited to enjoy the day on the coast, and a night of solitary fun, reading, writing, and meditating.

A small bird. A moment.

This morning is different. At least for now I am neither merry nor at peace with myself. Instead I’m wrestling demons. It’s fine. Part of life with cPTSD and brain damage, I guess, and in spite of some 30 years in and out of therapy of one sort or another, I still deal with the chaos and damage. I’m not surprised by that, though I am dismayed, disappointed, and even sometimes despairing over it when shit blows up over some little thing, or I disgrace myself by losing my temper or hurting someone I care about with thoughtless words or actions. I do my best, I still fail. This is human.

… It’s also human when it’s someone else having a moment. It is important to forgive, and to make room for people to grow through experience. We’re each having our own experience…

So I’m sitting here at Road’s End, thinking my thoughts. Thinking about endings and beginnings, and change, and trying to be grateful for the solitude I am fortunate to enjoy. I need this time to myself, it meets needs I struggle to meet without the quiet of solitude. I do wish I were enjoying it on other terms than these but feeling mired in my bullshit, I’m glad to be alone with that.

… But is the sky still blue?

What matters most? I sit with the question for a little while, on a fence rail looking out at the sea. The sound of ocean waves reaching the shore and the sea breezes used to be enough to drown out my tinnitus. Now there is a high pitched whine that I still hear, but only on the left side. I frown, momentarily distracted from my thoughts. I hope it’s nothing serious.

I’m thinking about my “baggage”. Not the carefully packed weekend bag I slid onto the seat of the car. I mean “my baggage”. It’s a figure of speech that is so apt it’s easy to forget it is metaphorical. No matter where I go, no matter what relationship I’m in, I drag my bullshit along with me. Baggage. I’ve made so many changes, and I have grown and improved my thinking and behavior so much over the years, but at any moment I may yet again be standing in the middle of my pile of carefully crafted custom matched set of baggage I still lug around with me, somehow only partially unpacked even after all these years. It’s super annoying. Frustrating. Discouraging.

Beginnings. Endings. Practice.

We become what we practice. We choose what we practice. It is important to choose wisely and stay focused on who we most want to be, because if we choose poorly, we may become someone else entirely.

I sit feeling the breeze and watching the horizon. My head is filled with ghosts and regrets. Weird morning to have them turn up and demand attention. My skill with choosing relationships has been poor: a violent psychopath, a manipulative slacker looking for a meal ticket, a cruel woman who delighted in gaslighting me, an assortment of lovers who may have lacked any explicit bad intentions but found value in my limited capacity to understand that I was being taken advantage of… Then there’s my Traveling Partner. One good relationship in a lifetime of trauma and chaos, but the opportunity came late in life, and I still find myself picking metaphorical shards of past damage out of new emotional wounds. I find myself apologizing a lot. That’s got to wear thin after awhile. It still matters, and I keep practicing.

I sit by the sea feeling the breeze, and the weight of all the many mistakes I have made over 16 years with this singular human being. I wonder if he does the same thing, when he finds that he’s hurt me without intending to. Neither of us are perfect beings of pure love and empathy. I feel confident neither of us would hurt the other intentionally. That’s not who we are. We are, however, quite human. I sigh to myself and let it go, at least for the moment. I remind myself that self-care matters, and in solitude there is no excuse to treat myself as second best, ever. I left rather abruptly this morning, instead of enjoying a leisurely coffee with my beloved. Coffee and some healthy calories would be good…

… The descent into madness often begins with poor self-care and low blood sugar…

I guess I should begin again. I don’t know where this path leads…

Sometimes the path isn’t an easy one.
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Like a Pimple

November 20, 2025 //
0

Sometimes small things get large, or at least feel larger than reasonable. Sometimes that experience is a reflection of lost perspective. Sometimes it is about many small things piling up. Keeping small things small is a smart choice, but sometimes it sounds easier than it seems to be in practice.

I sigh to myself from the parking lot of the co-work space I sometimes use. It’s an hour away from home. Some idiot person who didn’t know better locked the deadbolt on the front door of the co-work space, which uses an app to control access. The locked deadbolt is not necessary for security, and being locked it prevents the app from unlocking the door. Shit. I’m more annoyed by this than I want to be.

Most mornings I could shrug this off as a mild inconvenience, but today I had planned on an early start, have calls scheduled earlier than usual, and a late evening request from an upstream colleague last night to look into something “first thing”. Fuuuuuuuck. I would have shifted gears and gotten set up at the Starbucks across the parking lot for the price of a terrible coffee… but they’re closed. So I’m sitting in my car, an eye on Slack to see if the co-work management gets back to me about the locked door. This is not the first time I’ve had to deal with this; it happened once last year, when the cleaning contractor changed. Apparently, it happened yesterday, too, although I wasn’t here and that didn’t affect me.

… I don’t need to be this irritated…

I’d be less annoyed if there were anywhere at all to sit, near the locked door. There isn’t. I’d also be less annoyed, probably, if I hadn’t come here to work with specific plans in mind that have timing details. I sigh again and try my damnedest to let it go. Adapt. Bounce back. Pivot to plan B.

My head aches. My chest is tight. I feel deeply anxious and as if I am having difficulty breathing “enough”. It’s stress. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and focus on my breath. I keep at it until I feel less like smashing things with a hammer and more just quietly aggravated. This situation isn’t personal, at all.

Small shit adds up and it can create big stress. Yesterday, just as my work day ended, I got an unexpected call on my work number from an ex, which I ended before any conversation could develop. I was still triggered, and as a result I was tense and hyper vigilant through the evening, and my sleep was restless and disturbed. Yuck. Traffic this morning was awful and I hit most of the lights red. The coffee place I prefer was closed; their opener didn’t show up. Everything (and I do mean everything) seems more expensive these days, and that manages to stress me out in spite my attempts to put it in perspective. Small shit, adding up.

Daybreak comes as I sit in the car, thinking about what to do next to deal with the random stressful bullshit that doesn’t involve violence. I would have, anyway, so I take time to meditate.

… Fuck this shit, I am so g’damned annoyed right now…

The receptionist doesn’t come in until 09:00… I definitely need planned to get started earlier than that.

Shit. I’ll just have to begin again…

An unexpected ping from another co-work colleague gets me the code to a side door, and my day restarts from a new perspective on timing. There are changes to be made – aren’t there often changes to cope with? I sigh and try to be kind to myself. I am the person I am, with the baggage and odd wiring that make me who I am. It’s mostly pretty okay. Sometimes it’s challenging. Beginning again helps when things skitter sideways and my plan breaks down. I do my best – mostly that’s enough. I remind myself to breathe and slow down, as I move on.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5

TBD

September 26, 2025 //
0

I slept through the night, waking to the artificial sunrise of my silent alarm. I dressed and left the house in the usual way. I arrived at the trailhead before daybreak, put on my boots, grabbed my cane, and began the trek down the trail.

I walk and breathe, my mind a mostly barren place, nothing really amounting to actually thought going on. I just walked.

… Strange morning…

My Traveling Partner pings me. No “good morning” greeting or inquiry about my state of being. Instead I get a hurt reminder that I had said I would pick up a package waiting in the mailbox. I’d forgotten, distracted by a moment of discord shortly after I got home yesterday. Shit. For the time being (and it is a recent change) we’ve only got one key to the mailbox, and picking up the mail now requires a return home to grab the key, or the foresight to take it on the way out the door. A suprisingly complicated change, once brain damage is accounted for. I sigh to myself. I do my best to do everything that needs to be done… Seems always just out of reach.

I’m now at my halfway point feeling aggravated, disappointed with myself, and fairly disinterested in interacting with “the world”… And it’s a fucking work day. Great. I ignore the slow tears dripping down my face. For the moment I have no patience with this very human experience. My Traveling Partner is having a difficult morning, himself. I do what I can to be supportive, compassionate, and kind. Maybe one of us will turn our morning around and have a good day?

I breathe, exhale, and… Well, I try to relax. I persist with trying to meditate, trying to let go of my irritability, trying to simply breathe and be… Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. How fucking hard does this shit have to be?!

Daybreak comes. I look down the trail and get to my feet. It isn’t all lovely mornings, big smiles, and beautiful sunrises. This is a very human experience, and sometimes there’s real work involved, and however “successful” the outcomes seem to be, the moment may still be quite unsatisfying or unpleasant. It is what it is. Another reason to begin again… and it’s time. I’ll do my best.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Put Down the Baggage

January 30, 2023 //
0

Weird weekend. (I could stop right there, honestly…)

“Baggage” is a tough challenge for people who have been traumatized. It can be super hard to put that shit down, and properly “begin again”. Our baggage tends to linger in our hidden corners, tucked away carefully where it’s difficult to see how problematic our thinking has become. We struggle with decision-making and outcomes that create an unpleasant experience or prevent us from thriving in our lives. It’s hard sometimes.

I’m hopeful that a particularly painful and difficult conversation with my Traveling Partner really does have the promising positive outcome it appears that it may… I’ve just got to set down some baggage and back away from it, then do some things differently going forward. Him too, I suppose, although in this instance the focus was for sure on me and the chaos and damage I sometimes struggle with.

Love and words. So many words. So much love.

Once we were “on the other side” of that difficult conversation, we enjoyed our evening together. I woke this morning feeling loved (and hopefully he did too). I’ve got a massive headache, still managed to enjoy a cup of coffee with my partner before I left for the local co-work space I sometimes work from. So far a promising start to the day and week. Nice.

Moving back into my studio was a sort of mix of manual labor and thoughtful work and careful selection. Now that it’s finished, I can’t fathom why I stalled for so long. I find myself returning to my studio again and again, thinking about creative projects. I’ve rekindled my eagerness to finish a particular manuscript that has been languishing in a file on my hard-drive for awhile – almost a decade. Long overdue, and I did not understand that two things were holding me back: 1 poem I had included that I had serious second thoughts about, and those journals tucked away in a bin. Funny; I took care of the journals, and now project after project that had been stalled seem to percolate to the surface for their moment.

What’s holding you back? When will you tackle that?

How much baggage are you dragging along every day? How much can you “just set down” and walk away from? Are there things you could let go of, that you… just don’t? What is that doing for you? (Seriously, you probably wouldn’t cling to some of that sticky bullshit if you weren’t getting something out of doing so, if only the strange comfort of familiarity – which is totally over-rated.)

I’m no therapist, just saying – lightening the load makes for an easier journey. 😉

I sip my coffee and think my thoughts. There’s a garden to plan. A life to live. Love to embrace and nurture. Already time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5, weight loss secrets

Packing a Bag

April 29, 2016 //
0

“What’s in your wallet?” I chuckle to find jingles and advertising slogans ‘stuck in my head’ as I pack a bag for a weekend of adventure and love. I pack in a fairly structured way, beginning with thinking through what I hope to do, and envisioning getting ready for those sorts of things – what might I miss? I make a list (and yes, sorted by categories of things, it’s part of ‘who I am’). This morning, I take another look at the list and assembled the listed items, group them, pack them, and move on to the next trusting that the planning is adequate to the purpose. If I think of something I overlooked, I add it to the list as well as packing it; the list will be the last thing packed, and a handy resource on the other end of the weekend to ensure that all the things I thought I might need also make their way back with me. 🙂

I don’t make a point of calling this out day-to-day, but for the benefit of those joining me here more recently; having a brain injury definitely affects how I do what I do, and it is also a very… personalized? Customized. It’s a very individual sort of thing in some regards; what works for me to cope with my own gaps, losses, quirks, etc, is very likely to be finger-print-distinctive if compared to what someone else with a TBI does to cope with their own needs. I do well making lists… which is kind of a good thing, since I also feel a certain… compulsion… to do so. 🙂 We are who we are, right? I mention it, because it may be that some readers may come to this blog with the perception that there are ‘one size fits all’ perfect-fit solutions to the chaos and damage they – or a loved one – may be experiencing. It’s not that easy. Perhaps if it were as easy as following some handy steps on a cheat sheet shared by all who suffer a head injury, I wouldn’t still be noodling around blogging about ‘wtf??’, ‘how the hell??’ and ‘oh, hey… that worked’ in this haphazard trial and error sort of way? 🙂  We are each having our own experience.

Anyway… moving on… this morning I am finding myself fairly engaged with the process of preparing for adventure, and packing what I’ll need. I consider everything quite carefully, not wanting to drag around a lot of weight that doesn’t serve a definite need. I find myself wondering how I can shift gears, and look at life itself through the lens of packing for adventure, applying the power of metaphor (and perhaps some linguistic shenanigans) to extract a better understanding of bags and ‘baggage’ on life’s journey… Could I… ‘pack lighter’? Could I drag along fewer things that no longer truly serve a purpose? If I were to consider my needs with greater care, and lighten my emotional load? I learn so much about myself, and about life and living, by contemplating the whole of it within the context of some smaller process or task.

…My poetry notebook! Damn… I almost forgot to pack it. I mean…I can write poetry on napkins in diners, and even in the quiet moments walking along, in my own head (some of my best poetry never finds its way to paper)… but… I do like writing it down neatly in my notebook, and poetry is one style of written communication which I never leave behind. The weight of a notebook, versus the weight of the unspoken word? Yeah. The notebook goes with me. 🙂 (For a moment, the demon chorus in the background gives voice to a bitter and angry hurt woman of long ago, “What are you, fucking 12?” and I am briefly stalled on the hurt I feel, delivered by my own brain. I take a deep breath, and allow myself to recognize the profound struggle to be heard represented, and show myself a moment of real compassion – it has been hard, and there are times when I’ve hurt myself worse than the world ever would think to, and it isn’t at all necessary or helpful. I imagine a softer kinder me giving that bitter angry woman a tender hug and a smile, as I pack the notebook; it’s important to both of us.)

Of course... the map is not the world.

Of course… the map is not the world.

It’s a lovely quiet morning with a good cup of coffee and a packing list. Adventure awaits!

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Spring, The Art of Being, Words
« Older Entries