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Connections

May 17, 2016 //
0

This morning I sit down with my coffee, a headache, and no clear direction to take my writing. It’s a quiet morning. I woke ‘too early’, but well-rested. The routines of the morning have felt… routine. It’s no lack of inspiration; I am eager to get back to painting, but the early hour finds me unprepared to do so on other levels (I am very clumsy for some time after waking, for one thing). I feel content and well, save for this headache plaguing me. My coffee is good. The day is loosely structured and without noteworthy stress. Still… these words here, so far? Observational stuff suited only for getting going, really. Mildly disappointing when I consider how frequently in recent days I am taken with an insight or understanding that I find helpful or illuminating in some way… fail to jot it down in the moment then discover that however enlightening or powerful that insight had seemed to me to be then… it’s gone by morning. Yep. Entirely forgotten…or… summarized into some very succinct handful of words that I find myself unable to build on, or no longer interested in.

A good day to begin again.

A good day to begin again.

I put my writing on pause for a few minutes to chat with my traveling partner, also up early. A friend reaches out through Facebook. We exchange a few minutes of conversation. I see another friend online and realize we haven’t caught up in a while, and I reach out for another few minutes of conversation with someone dear to me. Life is telling me something… I am reminded that what matters most are these beautiful connections we make with each other. Profound or ordinary, enlightening or humorous, tender or firm, the very most critically important thing I find about living life is, again and again, these connections we share. I am filled with joy to have so many good friends who care, who miss me when I am away, who notice when I am hurting (whether I say so or not), and who similarly find that I matter to them. I am also saddened that the whole of us – the world – suffer so much and so often from nothing more or less than that we don’t extend our courtesy, our hospitality, our graciousness, kindness and good-nature to just every human being we interact with, near or far. It’s morning, and a great time to begin again. I find myself committing to being decent and good-natured with each person I interact with today… sure, I probably won’t change the world, but I may improve some small bit of it for a stranger. 🙂

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

It’s a gentle quiet morning, somewhat lacking in clear structure or firm plans. I may see my traveling partner today. I may not. Perhaps today I’ll get the phone call for the ideal job in some exciting previously unconsidered field of endeavor – or figure out how to sustainably enjoy life without that, long-term. Today may be the day that ‘everything makes sense’, or the day that I realize it doesn’t have to. It is, at least, a day – wholly new and ready for me to do… something. That’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Being

February 20, 2016 //
0

I woke easily but wanting to sleep later. I lingered in bed for some time, but sleep wasn’t happening; the day had begun. I sat down with my coffee and opened my Facebook feed – generally a very positive place these days, because it actually does work to continue to refine my feed preferences over time. I block ‘news’ sites that aren’t legitimate news sites, choosing to refrain from injecting poison into my brain through my eye holes every day, if I can. I’ve even chosen to unfriend some long-time historical connections whose values, and means of expressing those, continued to cause me stress and rouse emotions like fear, panic, anxiety – hard to call them friends, if that is my reaction to their words, right?

The world is what it is, though, and incremental change over time on a global scale is crazy slow – because we don’t all share the same values, and frankly, it’s not even a given that we all make choices in favor of our own survival as a species. I mean… actually… it’s clear we don’t.

Isn't the beauty of a sunrise important, too?

Isn’t the beauty of a sunrise important, too?

Two articles got my attention in a fairly painful way this morning.  The first was an article about the artist Kesha losing a court case seeking to end her contractual relationship with a record company requiring her to continue to work alongside a producer who raped her. Wow. Seriously, Sony? Evil much? Is a record deal actually worth sacrificing a young woman’s mental and emotional health? My first thought is ‘how dare you?’, followed quickly by my own memories of attempting to report a sexual assault to my unit commander and being told I didn’t really want to ‘ruin that young man’s life that way’ and besides ‘it would be bad for unit cohesion’ and I should ‘grow a thicker skin – boys will be boys’. Yep. Apparently that’s still the world we live in. How about we fix that?

We could choose to change the path we're on.

We could choose to change the path we’re on.

The second article was entirely different, very peculiar, and tough to fit into my understanding of rational adult governance; the Southern Poverty Law Center produced their annual report of hate groups, and I guess I’m not really surprised, but… the Republican Party made the list this year. (Oh hey, guys – go you! It’s like an award for being… the worst people in the nation. WTF? Certainly validates my choice to register differently some years ago, just saying. Don’t hate.) Yeah. I actually don’t know what to say about it. I seriously doubt that my own Republican friends meet the definition of ‘a hate group’… then recall that I’ve unfriended a number of former associates, friends, and colleagues, for reasons very much relevant to the politics of hate: racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious fundamentalism, and political extremism of the sort that seeks to create a bigger and bigger divide between some arbitrary ‘us’ and some frightening ‘them’. So… huh. What now?

Taken in context, fully considering what you know of the world, yourself, are your individual choices building the world you want most to live in?

Taken in context, fully considering what you know of the world, yourself, are your individual choices building the world you want most to live in?

If Republicanism has indeed become a hate group… do we now see the wholesome, compassionate, educated, forward-thinking Republicans among us lead their party to a better way of viewing the world… or do they leave the Republican party? Those aren’t the only two options, of course. Another option is pissing and moaning about how misunderstood their hate is, and how they are only seeking to improve things for “everyone”, and perhaps something about how ‘that’s just a few extremists in the party’. Scary, though. If I were told, with supporting documentation and evidence, that ‘being an artist’ was a hate group… would I stop painting? Would I paint differently? Would living my own values require me to change my actions based on the new information – or would it require me to acknowledge the truth of it, and continue to live it?

What matters most? Taking care of me is not at the expense of others - it never had to be.

What matters most? Taking care of me is not at the expense of others – it never had to be.

When I realized I had gotten sucked into a very dark place quite early in the morning, even letting my coffee go cold, I set the world aside – it’ll still be here later – and take time for me. I calm myself with meditation, and take time to watch the morning unfold beyond the window. The sunrise was worth taking the time for it. A fresh cup of coffee is nice, too. I breathe, and let go of my own hurting resurrected by the unpleasant, uncomfortable, all-too-human hateful bullshit that snuck into my experience this morning. Hurts from the past don’t have to be indulged in the present; it’s something my traveling partner pointed out to me early in our relationship. Having the injury that I do, it’s often very difficult to ‘let things go’ once visceral real-time emotions are aroused, but it isn’t impossible. Verbs. Always with the verbs. 🙂

Be love.

Be love.

I don’t have to live within my emotional pain. It isn’t a requirement to hold onto the worst moments as though they define the present ones. They are now only memories, scars, and lingering impressions caught in my implicit memory. I allow ‘now’ to become prominent, again. I step more firmly into this moment. I hear the music in the background… it’s apropos and I smile, and relax.  I think of my friends, their wit, their wisdom – even the Republican ones. The world is damned scary filtered by fear and hate, isn’t it? That isn’t the world I actually live in, myself… You? Maybe it’s a matter of speaking up when we hear it around us, just simply saying ‘Dude, not okay!’, and reminding each other of Wheaton’s Law.  Maybe it’s bigger than that – maybe we’re not the most amazing primates, after all? Certainly we’ve got room to grow as beings. We live in the world we choose to build. Could we do better? Choose more wisely? Well… yeah. 🙂 Let’s do that!

Today is a good day for sunshine, and for logging off Facebook. Today is a good day for being. Today is a good day to buy products from companies that don’t promote hate, or rape culture, or slavery, or exploitation, or… I didn’t say it was going to be easy. It’s going to take practice. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

It’s a Choice

November 16, 2015 //
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I spent the weekend relaxing quietly, and taking care of me. I considered writing more, once or twice, and even had the occasional worthy notion to reflect upon. I chose differently. Instead, I took care of myself gently, and spent the weekend relaxing, recovering from the long week, and building emotional resilience for the week to come.

In the middle of autumn, a rose blooms.

In the middle of autumn, a rose blooms.

This morning I scroll through my feed noting the pendulum swing of opinion in action; French flag overlays disappearing quietly in favor of newly outraged articles about terrorism elsewhere in the world, other deaths, other wounds, other pain, accompanied by reminders that all these lives matter as well and… where was everyone then? I see articles wisely counseling the use of language that refrains from honoring terror groups with dignified titles, and asking that we not culturally dignify terrorists with honorifics or titles crafted to convey legitimacy. That makes sense to me, language has power. The reactive articles from pundits on the opposite end of the political spectrum reflexively spit back resentment that any change is asked of ‘the righteous and justified’, seemingly unaware that being one of ‘the good guys’ requires acts of goodness, not just a naming convention. What a mess we’ve made. Certainly, it is at times like these that it is most apparent we are very fancy monkeys; we do not easily agree on what is ‘good’ or most suited to our kind.

It’s strange how little part politics has to play in the life of any one individual human being. It’s a choice. One choice among so many, and we make tons of small choices every day. Treating each other well, truly, and without regard to our origins, our politics, our lifestyle, our beliefs, or our circumstances, is something to aspire to. People who successfully treat everyone quite well are a joy to be near, to stay connected to – to love. Behavior is chosen. What choices must I make differently to be that person – someone who treats everyone quite well, and is a joy to be near? How do I change the world when I make choices based on whether or not the outcome fits into ‘treating others well’? I reflect on these things most days.  It isn’t enough to consider, to think, or to wonder; there are verbs involved. There is a need for balance; among all the people I wish to treat well is one person I am often most likely to overlook – myself.

A busy work week begins soon. How will I choose my actions to ensure I treat myself, and those around me, truly well? What choices will I make to secure a comfortable experience, pleasant, fulfilling, and content? What choices will I make to provide that experience to others? How can I do better by the woman in the mirror today, than I did yesterday?

Blue sky between rain showers.

Blue sky between rain showers.

I turn the thoughts over in my head somewhat fretfully. I notice I am picking at the edges of my cuticle, left hand, index finger. I smile, and recognize that as small as it is, I could start with not tearing my hands to shreds with fussing and worrying. It’s a start. However small, as starting points go, each moment I choose to stop something damaging, and continue with something helpful, I begin again. Each new beginning holds the power to change the world.  Perhaps it isn’t ‘everything’ – but it is more than nothing, and it is enough to choose, and to choose again. It is through our choices that we change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Turning 50, Words

What’s Your Point?

September 10, 2015 //
2

I wrote a lot of rather angry words this morning. I’ve deleted them. I’m reluctant to give OPD (Other People’s Drama) that much of my time – or to allow it to take that much of yours, either. I’ve done my best not to waste time ranting…but…I suspect it comes across a bit more that, than not. 🙂

Saving the world over my morning coffee...or something similar.

Thoughts and coffee

I sip my coffee and think over the whole point I thought I was getting to on the first draft (and the second, and third)… I think I was using way too many words just to communicate something simple – a caution? More a request. Please don’t be vile, nasty, bad-tempered, callous, cruel or mean to people you say you care about. It is mistreatment. In a perfect world, people don’t stick around for that shit, but we’re imperfect beings, and trudging through bullshit is sometimes part of the journey; we end up too willing to tolerate abuse. Love is not nurtured by mistreatment – and how much of your nastiness your loved ones can withstand is not an ideal measure of their affection.

Oh, hey, while I’m at it – please don’t be vile, nasty, bad-tempered, callous, cruel or mean with strangers, either. Realistically, you don’t know them well enough for them to warrant any sort of mistreatment, and it amounts to unkindness that just makes the world a shitty place. Stop it. Seriously? How do you excuse that shit?

Thinking it over, if it is unacceptable to mistreat our loved ones (which, frankly, it totally is), and also unacceptable to mistreat total strangers (and, I mean, why would you?)…how is it justifiable to mistreat all those people in between? You know the stuff I mean: being rude to a waitress, or nasty to a check-out clerk, or barista, or dismissive toward the landscapers, the mail carrier, or a telemarketer is all just as unacceptable and inappropriate – certainly, it is rude, and unnecessary. They are human. You are human, too. End of conflict… or, it easily could be. Your choices matter.

Being a better human being than you were yesterday is as simple as making just one choice to treat someone a little better than you might have – make it easy, start with people who really matter to you. (If someone ‘really matters’ to you, how do you justify treating them badly with purpose, deliberately, aware of the outcome, in the first place?) Here’s the thing – we like to think that we are not doing these things willfully –  it’s ‘happening’, ‘things just went wrong’ in a bad moment, we ‘didn’t mean it’ or some how meant it differently but lost our cool, or… but… that only holds up the first time. After that, it’s a choice, perhaps a habit, or worse a character quality, and it is definitely mistreatment and also entirely and completely unacceptable bad behavior.

How are you adding to global happiness?

How are you adding to global happiness?

Sorry about the lecture-y demanding irritated tone; we’re all human here, and feeling cared for and being heard matters to each of us. You are probably frustrated by these things, too. (I am finding it hard to watch from the sideline as someone I love is mistreated in another relationship, and I am not the sort to pretend I don’t see it, or to make excuses for bad behavior.) There’s no ‘chicken or egg’ paradox to mistreatment, either – that’s verbal slight of hand used by people to excuse abusive bullshit, and it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Tit for tat nastiness between lovers is just another variety of mistreatment, still unacceptable. Mistreatment is mistreatment. Make all the excuses you want to, the excuses do not change the behavior. We all have moments when we fall short of being that person we most want to be, but it does matter to make the attempt, and to address our poor behavior toward others, honestly, and openly, being fully accountable for our bad behavior, and poor decision-making. We all have opportunities to choose to listen deeply, to be open to understanding someone else’s experience, to demonstrate compassion, and to show growth – sadly, we don’t all take those opportunities when they come.

I tried a number of times to ‘find the right words’ this morning. My annoyance gets in the way of taking a lighter tone. I am frustrated at how easily human beings justify their shitty treatment of others. Seriously? How is abusing people we [say we] love even a thing? Personally, I find it most effective to snarl ‘go fuck yourself, that bullshit isn’t love at all’ and walk on – because when someone mistreats me, I do not feel loved. I no longer allow abuse to be part of my definition of love, loving, or being loved. “Love” is a verb, and it does not include abuse, mistreatment, or emotional weapons of mass distraction. Those are their own experiences, their own verbs, and choosing them is no demonstration of love – and it very much is a choice.

I could have just said “Wheaton’s Law, people, damn!” and saved a couple hundred words from being misused this morning… or maybe suggested a sing-a-long…  Be kind – there’s a surplus of jerks in the world these days. Be genuine – there’s also a surplus of shifty pretenders, and the real you is by far more worthy. Be considerate – we’re all human, each having our own experience, each suffering under the weight of the burdens we choose to bear, each worthy of being treated well.

Be love. That’s the thing most worth being.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Some Days the Nightmares Win

March 27, 2015 //
1

Disclaimer: This post is about emotions. I sometimes work through them more easily with words, in text, that I can see reflecting the experience back at me. It is a way of getting perspective. This post, though, may be a downer – I say that before I even write it, because I am having my own experience, and I feel what I feel in this moment. I am so very human. So…do yourself a huge favor, take a moment for ‘informed consent’; if you are in a place emotionally where someone else’s pain and struggling may wound you, throw off a good vibe you are enjoying, or change your experience for the worse, I recommend skipping this one. Hey, if nothing else, the writing is likely to be of poor quality, and angst-y, and rife with spelling errors and weird grammar fails – who needs that on a Friday morning? I’ll understand, I promise.

Still here? Okay…

Some other morning, a coffee.

Some other morning, a coffee.

I woke crying this morning. I fell asleep crying last night. In between, I found myself ambushed by Demons in The Nightmare City. This is not an emotional space I want to occupy. I am frustrated by my lack of resilience, my lack of emotional regulation, and my lack of perspective. I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel resentful and let down. I feel. Yeah. I definitely feel. I feel mistreated, and mislead. I feel set up and I feel sabotaged. I feel hurt.

“That’s a whole lot of feelings there, lady, what gives?” I’m a human primate. I am an emotional being more than a rational one – it’s a balance. Today it isn’t balancing as well as I’d like. Stress kicks my ass, being hurt kicks my ass, abrupt change kicks my ass – and it takes me a little time to recover, even with some support. Emotions are not criminal actions. Assaulting people with them is, I hear, avoidable. That sounds like fine thing to me, and I turned the little sign on my door this morning to ‘do not disturb’, meditated a while, had a shower, meditated some more… I still don’t want to be as disturbed as I feel, right now. The sign didn’t do much to help with the feelings, but by design it may prevent anyone else from walking through the mess I woke to, within, this morning.

Meditation, mindfulness practices, good basic self-care are all going a long way to improve my experience of me, very nicely. I feel a momentary hurt, recalling with sadness how quickly encouragement turned to criticism, a few months after I began this journey. I was taking a moment to feel proud of my progress, and I was feeling pretty impressed with new tools and practices being effective at helping me on a level nothing else ever had… I got called ‘smug’. I was incredibly hurt. Admittedly, I had been foolishly trying to explain or share the experience with someone else… maybe they hadn’t asked? (I suck at that – put a person in front of me and I will probably just start talking. Are you aware that your executive function manages that for you?) It hurt, nonetheless, and since then I am self-conscious about feeling encouraged by progress, and reluctant to share positive feelings about it in conversations. (Sticks and stones? Fuck right off; words matter.)

I feel confused. “Emptied out”. I feel overburdened by unmet emotional needs piling up over time. I feel like I am not making the progress I could be, right now. It’ll be okay, I think – I hold on to that tightly. I’ve got the hotline number in my pocket, just in case it gets too hard.  I lost a beautiful niece to suicide this year, and I see how it hurts my cousin every day she is without her daughter; I won’t put my traveling partner through that, and I can take the steps to avoid it. Despair is a motherfucker – it is part of our human experience.

...and another...

…and another…

I can’t be certain that the intensity of my emotions this morning reflects something ‘real’ or necessary; they are only emotions. For all I know, this is a 100% bio-chemical experience with no grounding in events or experience. Does that matter in the moment? Well, sure. It matters the way anything true ‘matters’. One true thing is that my emotions are this intense, and unpredictably so. Another true thing is that my emotions, and lack of top-down control, are incredibly uncomfortable for some people to live with. (I don’t get a choice, myself; this is my experience and I live it.) Unfortunately, in a live and unscripted real-life environment, I also don’t get much compassion specific to the ‘invisible’ issues associated with my TBI or PTSD. I rarely fight for it; if it isn’t there to be offered, begging for it, pleading for it or wishing it were there will not make it appear. Compassion can be taught – but that phenomenon also requires an active learner. Change is, but forcing it on someone isn’t appropriate – and generally isn’t effective.

My traveling partner encourages and supports me – he frankly provides a level of emotional support that I can only describe as ‘super human’ – but the environment in the household, generally, is unhealthy for me. I feel aggravated and moody about looking for a place of my own, because I’d honestly prefer to continue living with my traveling partner – he’s wonderful to live with [for me]. I am painfully aware, though, that living with me can be hard on him. Right now so much of what I am working through touches on sexuality, gender, individual identity, boundary setting/management, and relationships with others that it’s harder to treat each other gently in moments when we need it most from each other. So…yeah. I need to be on my own a while – not a break up, not even a separation, just a different living arrangement. It still sucks to hurt over it. I hope by day’s end I am embracing it in good spirits.

I leave other household members out of this, generally; I am writing about my own experience and the other people in it are entitled to be free of public scrutiny of their values and choices filtered through my chaos and damage. But…I am not willing to continue to over-compromise my needs, or undercut my values to keep peace, and the time I spend in the arms of my loves is too precious to taint it with OPD, or games. As a population of individuals, we don’t want or need the same things, and at 52 I have no time to waste on fighting to get the most basic emotional needs met; we are not all equally committed to that endeavor. I don’t yet have the emotional resilience to hold enough in reserve to continue to take care of me when common place bullshit goes sideways, and often find myself without any emotional reserves left to care for me, myself, by the time I have a moment to do so. I feel positive about the choice to get my own place…and for the moment, sad that it is necessary at all.

You know what I don’t feel? I don’t feel guilt or shame over the choice to move out, it needs to happen; I don’t thrive in an environment in which my emotional quality of life is poor. Hell, right now in this moment… I’m okay. (Thanks, Dearheart!) My tears have dried. I’m not feeling social, but I’m not enthralled by Demons in The Nightmare City.  (If I knew that I would have the kind of nightmares that I had last night, in nights to come, I’d never sleep again.) I don’t have the headache that followed me around all day yesterday, which is a huge improvement.  My coffee tastes good – I feel a pang of sadness sweep over me when I realize I won’t have an espresso machine in my kitchen for some time to come after I move; it will be a frugal lifestyle, focused on painting, meditation, and love. Wow. Suddenly that sounds fucking amazing – and all over again I wonder why this hurts at all. I enjoy solitude. I dislike drama. I have musical and culinary tastes that are not shared in the household at large… and I miss a good French press in the morning; it’s a lovely ritual to prepare coffee that way, time it carefully, enjoy the outcome at leisure… I miss living a gentle life. (The most humorous thing about that is how little time I have ever spent living that kind of exceptional quality of life – across years and relationships, I can’t really pin down more than a total of about 18 months that qualify as ‘gentle living’ in 52 years!

I’ve already found my way to a better place. It’s nice. No rushing, either; I’ve made changes to my schedule, effective this week, intended to dial down some of the fatigue-related stress, and don’t have to rush off so soon on Friday mornings. Have you actually read this far? Are you okay? Thank you for being interested, curious, or concerned enough to come all this way with me – whether just this morning, or over these past couple years. I appreciate it. You help me feel heard.

Yeah. Some days, the nightmares win. Today they didn’t. 🙂

Because love matters more. "Emotion and Reason" 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Because love matters more.
“Emotion and Reason” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Today is a good day to put down some baggage. Today is a good day to practice good self-care. Today is a good day for self-compassion – first, not last. Today is a good day to enjoy this amazing woman I am becoming without competition, dread, or games. Today is a good day to treat others well, and understand that they are walking their own path; their story, and experience, are not mine to endure, to manage, or to criticize – and participation is a choice.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5, women, Words
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