Archives for posts with tag: be here now

Have you ever noticed how time sort of “stands still” in those fully engaged intimate moments of connecting with another? I know, I know – those moments are so fleeting, so cherished, so hard to pin down, or duplicate later. I still find them “timeless”, at least in the moment.

That’s how it was last night. My Traveling Partner came over and hung out awhile, before he heads off for work elsewhere, far away. We talked rather seriously through the evening. The future is vast, and broad, and the choices on life’s menu seem to… breathe… expanding and contracting day-to-day, sometimes moment-to-moment, and I am having trouble choosing my adventure with any comfort or efficiency.

Sometimes life is uncomfortable – and inefficient.

We talked. We enjoyed a pleasant evening hanging out. No TV. No music. Just us two, talking about things to come, where we’re headed in life, what we each want – or need. As evenings go, it was intimate, nurturing, adult, romantic, supportive, practical, and connected. It met needs upon needs upon needs, no tears or tantrums required. No demands. No frustrations. Two people who love each other, loving each other. Sharing.

Sometimes it’s not about words.

We talked – and we also just chilled with each other, hanging out in my somewhat too warm apartment. He shopped and talked about things he needs in life. I went over recent changes in thinking, and discussed the profundity of change. We shared pictures. We shared anecdotes. We shared concerns. We shared hugs and kisses. The evening was quiet and relaxed. We’d thought about going out for a movie, we could have done it, we didn’t need to “do” so much as we needed to “be” – together. So we did that.

This morning I’m smiling. I slept more deeply, and woke feeling more rested, than I generally do. I grin at myself to notice the quality of my smile. I “hear” a Nicki Minaj track in my head, in the background, it’ll probably be there all day (or at least until a love song replaces it). 😀 I find myself wondering about the connection between feeling so well-loved, and sleeping so well… Is that a thing?

Lovely moment. Lovely morning. Lovely day. Loving love… so… loving life, too. Funny how hard it was to find my way to this place. No idea how long it may last (it’s not really a helpful question). I let the cool morning air fill the apartment, sip my coffee, and smile. There’s nothing to add to this, really. Life is no less complicated, busy, or challenging, just because there is Love, but the love does seem to make all the rest less… troublesome. It’s enough.

Love is enough. Loving starts with me. Starts with the woman in the mirror and how I treat myself. What a strange puzzle. There are definitely verbs involved.

…We become what we practice. ❤

Have you ever chased something? Run hard, run fast, kept running after whatever – or whoever – pushing yourself beyond expectations because you’re just that close to catching up… only… “chasing” and “catching” are not specifically connected in any particularly firm way. I’ve chased things I never ever caught up with – or achieved. At some point, perhaps I reconsidered the worthiness of the goal, or just… couldn’t quite get there.

I woke feeling groggy. The apartment was stifling and still, in that “it’s going to be a hot one today” sort of way. I’d feel foolish to bitch about a “hot” day forecasted at 87 degrees Fahrenheit; my Fresno friends have it much worse. They’re expecting 107 degrees or so – real heat. I take a moment to enjoy sipping hot coffee in the cool of morning as the sun rises. Perspective. Gratitude. Nice ways to begin the day.

I’m thinking about how easily I am tempted into pursuing something desirable without really being mindful of the journey, itself… Chasing something, instead of… well… what else? It’s worth thinking this over.

I have friends chasing Love. I wonder if they’ll catch up with that? Seems an odd way to go about it…

I have friends chasing Success. That’s a tough one – and so subjective. I never could catch up with that one, until I understood that I could only achieve satisfaction through understanding Success on my own terms. I’m likely an abysmal failure seen through the lens of another person’s definition of Success. I’m undisturbed by that.

I have friends chasing Money. Fuck, it would be so lovely if that weren’t a thing. I even wish I could help; I’ve had to find my way to being content with “enough”, just generally in life, to clear that hurdle and let go of a chase that only ever seemed to wear me down, fairly pointlessly, without ever ending or achieving anything of note.

I used to chase a good night’s sleep, pursuing Rest as though it were a mugger who’d taken my handbag; I wasn’t going to let it go, and I wasn’t going to stop, and… I wasn’t going to catch up to it by chasing it, either. lol

Sex, too – Personally, I’ve probably chased Sex more often than most other things. The yearning tempts me into it and off I go with the wanting and the needing and the pursuit… Easily won at 20, 25, 27, 30… less so at 54. Perhaps what I think I want hasn’t caught up with where I am in life? Perhaps chasing shit just isn’t the most effective approach to living life? (Or getting sex!) (Or finding an intimate emotional connection!) (Or knowing myself!)

For me, the word itself is telling, “chase” suggests pursuit without end, a frustrating journey without a satisfying conclusion. The very notion of being encouraged to “chase” one’s dreams seriously irks me, because, for example, for me it implies that they are always just out of reach – so have fun with that. lol Built in frustration – no, thank you.

I’ve stopped chasing my dreams. I’ve stopped chasing Sex. I’ve stopped chasing Love. I’ve stopped chasing Money. I’ve stopped chasing Success. For now, I’ve even stopped “chasing” homeownership – because once I realized I was chasing it, I knew I wasn’t going to catch it. “Chasing” a goal doesn’t end that way for me, because what I understand about “chasing” means something quite different from that.

This morning, this moment, my experience of life is a little like that breathless pause, mid-chase, bent to catch my breath, heart pounding, chest heaving with the struggle just to breathe… having given up pursuit to rest, to reconsider… to be. Aware that I’ve been chasing shit again, and can go ahead and stop that. 🙂 It’s a nice morning to sort things out. To think. To pause. To appreciate what already is, and re-examine what my resources are, and what I really need, and where I am heading in life. There are, of course, verbs involved – my results will vary – I’ll probably need to begin again. 😉

…Like… a bunch of times. LOL

… Lately (although I’m not really sure if the perception is grounded in anything real, or even if it really has gone on for any measured amount of time, it merely seems so, perhaps…) I feel a bit adrift, as though I am awake and aware of change, in the midst of change, without the certainty of having chosen change specifically, or planned to its effect on my experience.

I am processing recent experiences, and I’m not all done with that complex internal process quite yet. A weekend of stillness in the forest, definitely a prolonged meditation on life – and change – and it was definitely needed. A weekend of the entire and complete opposite of stillness (and also the opposite of solitude), also in the forest, also a weekend of it – and also a prolonged meditation of sorts, on life’s interconnectedness which fulfilled a certain need for community (and then some).  Next up, weekend-wise, a weekend of details, of tasks, of self-care, of considering the future, of making new choices from new perspective, of revisions, and sorting things out – also needed, and also a meditation of sorts, I suppose, particularly considering the contentment I find in order, and the somewhat excessive bit of disorder I’m finding myself dealing with, due to the chaotic nature of upheaval, and choosing change. So here I am, planning my weekend…

…Planning the future.

Beginning again. Again. 😀 There’s always room for one more beginning!

The time spent with my Traveling Partner was lovely connected time, wholesome “family” time, intimate shared emotional time; it was needed, and it is cherished. I smile each time I consider the weekend we shared. 🙂 It was time so precious it changed my thinking. A singularly magical birthday shared with so many travelers on life’s journey… I hope I never forget the way it sparkles in my memory now.

“Fireworks”, a rose in my garden, a metaphor for change.

Today my Traveling Partner, this being I love so much and so deeply, will head out again for a place, elsewhere, to have his own experience. I’ll be here, having mine. I learned a lot this past couple of weekends about what I really want, and what really meets the needs of my deepest heart, and where I could choose to take life – the menu seems more vast than it did three weeks ago. 🙂 It’s a lot to consider.

What next? Sleeping in. Sleeping in is definitely “next” on my to-do list, I think, and I’m so earnest about that one I’ve put it on my calendar. lol Where will the weekend take me? Where will I choose to take myself? I guess I’ll know more… later, further down my path.

It’s a good time to walk on. 🙂

If each birthday were a new beginning, a moment of re-birth, an awakening, a start on a journey, a moment of profundity, or simply a break from the being we once had been which opens us to being the being we would soon become… would we grow faster?

…But isn’t it? I mean, it could be, couldn’t it? Is that a choice we make? When we’re very young we eagerly look ahead to milestones marked by years… The year we’re promised high heels, or make-up, or a firearm, or dating, or a trip somewhere exotic, or the year we graduate, or get to vote for the first time, or ride a bicycle, or buy a car, or a house, or get married, or have a child… each a big deal, anticipated, considered, maybe yearned for and planned around – are these not re-births of a sort? A new beginning, a change of heart or thinking so profound that “the course of our life” is altered in ways that seem subjectively obvious, and also unexpected? We begin again, so many times…

I took a journey down a road I’d never traveled, predictably it lead me somewhere I’d never been.

My birthday weekend was amazing, and connected, and shared, and human, and delicious with wonder, and adventure. It was eye-opening. It was romantic. It was practical. It was peculiarly wholesome – for some values of wholesome – and it “took me places” I hadn’t thought to travel previously. I’m glad I went. I’m glad I “said yes” to the moment and immersed myself in a something strangely new, made up, as it was, of so much that was entirely familiar.

The music festival weekend was likely not at all as planned by the event organizers. It was cold. When we arrived a freezing rain was falling. It was wet. The rain fell, on and off, all weekend long. It was blustery. I personally helped catch, retrieve, and right 3 different canopies and 1 tent over the 3 days I was there. There was rather of a lot of odd drama which seemed both unexpected and tedious, but it was such a small part of the experience the recollection will likely fade quickly. I met a lot of new people, and I got to hang out with my Traveling Partner and a friend while they did their thing out there in the world. I listened to some great music – and I listened to that music so loud, so bass-heavy, so entirely encompassing that the ground shook with it – for 2 days, from noon to 6 am. No kidding. Sleep was a very new experience in that environment. My dreams didn’t suffer from it, but I made the drive home in silence, listening only to my tinnitus and the sound of the wind along the way.  The people who came to the event, who stayed through the wind and weather, brought with them a sense of community that I’m still wowed by. The best part? New friends – and time well-spent wrapped in love, just hanging out with my Traveling Partner for a couple days. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

I’m still smiling. It’s Monday night, tomorrow I get back to the office, back to the routine of meetings, calls, emails, spreadsheets, summaries, recommendations, task processing, and commuting. I feel pretty okay with that, sitting here this evening. I smile, thinking about my Traveling Partner. I think about the weekend. I think about his visit this afternoon. I think about shared goals, and the dovetailing of individual goals that is so tidy that even those feel shared; a partnership of equals.

I’m taking a quiet moment at the end of the day to wish the woman in the mirror a happy birthday. This one definitely feels like the beginning of something wonderful, and if nothing else it is enough that the weekend and the day were themselves quite wonderful. Really nothing more is required, it’s all quite enough. 54? Yes, I am. ❤

Doesn’t much matter where I am right now; there is a next step ahead of me on my path. No matter how many choices I have made, already, there is another ahead of me. Approximately infinite. Life definitely gives the impression that the actual living of it is the point of life, no further point, meaning, or necessity required… and, if this is true, then so long as I am indeed living my life, I have succeed at finding – and meeting – my purpose. 😀

What a nice thought to wake up to. 🙂

I am contemplating my upcoming birthday, which has amusingly skittered way off of any attempt at original planning, and the things I had planned and looked forward are no longer expectations, although they rather strangely still linger on my calendar; I hesitate to remove them, not wanting hurt feelings… or… well, why exactly? lol I take a moment to clean up my calendar – because it is mine, and I actually use it; it matters to me that it guide me like a map of my future journey, as much as it ever can. 🙂

My weekend looks very different than I’d planned it. My Traveling Partner’s commitment to spending my birthday weekend with me later became a request to accommodate other plans he wanted to make, and our time dwindled to just two brief events framing the long weekend (of course I am taking time for me!) Then, the phone call from the road last week, and a question – would I like to come out to a place, and spend the weekend with him…? We live rather separate lives in some regards, and the invitation caught me by surprise – I had to ask myself that question, separately from hearing it in his voice. Would I want to spend a weekend at a music festival in a remote location hanging out with this human being so dear to me – and like, many hundreds (more?) additional other humans that I don’t know? Um…

…Maybe?

I sat quietly after we got off the phone, considering years of weekend Renaissance fairs – a different era of my life, and I admit, it went from delightfully fun, exciting, and reliably great times hanging out with friends to stressed, rushed, hurried, pressured, too broke, too much, too often, no down time, no “me time”, no privacy, no time to think, no quiet to recover in… and… the relationship I was in at that time couldn’t do much to lift me up or ease the strain. I was doing most of the “heavy lifting”, literally, financially, and logistically, and I grew… tired. Want to know why I gave up weekend road trips, weekend travel, and weekend event fun of all sorts? Because I got tired of doing all the planning, all the preparation, and all the work getting to/from and handling clean up at home afterward, too, and not just for me – for everyone in the household. It was too much to ask, and I continued to do it long after I’d begun to resent it, didn’t really speak up about it, and didn’t have the skills for setting clear expectations and reinforcing boundaries then, that I have (think I have) now. I just stopped doing it as the only way I could take care of me that I understood then, problem solved.

I’m not even in that relationship anymore. So… Fuck yeah, I want to head to the trees, hear some great music, and hang out with this delightful human being so dear to me! 😀 I happily accepted.

There’s not much for me to plan here; the event exists and is a thing. My Traveling Partner and his traveling friend/colleague have logistics handled; this is their thing. I still need to know things. (A hilarious conversation on its own, including such witty repartee as “What do I need to bring?” “Wear clothes. Bring the clothes you want to wear, be prepared for cold nights.”) As I inquired what I may need to do or bring or when I need to be ready… I started feeling stressed about the trip itself. Where am I going?? What will happen when I get there? Where do I go? How will I find…? What will I be expected to do, bring, carry, be responsible for…??? What the hell is going on with my weekend?? LOL

Instead of drama or wild emotion, I tried out some new adulting skills. I allow myself to experience the relief and delight of experiencing this weekend in the context of a partnership in which I am actually not responsible for every damned thing. I consider my own baggage and issues as things that I am indeed responsible for managing, and identify where my stress is coming from. Time. Work. Agency. I suggest that I travel separately to ease my time-based stress about being back to work on time (knowing they live on a very different sense of time/timing than I do – and also don’t have any pressure to “punch a clock” work-wise). My heart soared when my Traveling Partner seemed pleased that I would take that step to take care of myself, meeting my own needs without requiring him to rebuild his plans, or troubleshoot my experience. Win and good. They’ll likely depart sometime today. I’ll leave tomorrow – possibly after doing a load of laundry. I feel comfortable, content, and excited about the weekend. 😀

Wherever my path leads…

This is an adventure, and I am eager to see where it leads. I’ll be away for a few days… if you find yourself missing me, perhaps return to the beginning, and begin again? I’ll be back before you’re all caught up to now, I bet; it’s a lot of words. 😀