Archives for posts with tag: be love
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

All of the Uncertainties, All of the Choices

November 3, 2017 //
0

I’m not at all firm on what to write about, this morning. I often begin that way, and it is a state of things that does not cause me any particular stress. I put words in the title field, and then begin typing in the text box, and away I go. Writing coherently, fluidly, about something that matters to someone, in a clear, specific, insightful way… is not a given. It’s more a coincidence, I think, when it does work out that way.

I think that “insight” is more to do with you, the person reading the words, than me… or the words. We each have our own dictionary, and what I think I’m saying may not at all be what you understand me to have said, and this need not be a relevant concern to the matter of insight, at all. You’ll likely make some assumptions as you read. Maybe if you know me personally, you read my words “in my voice”, but is it my voice now, or my voice of some other lifetime? Are your assumptions accurate? Were mine? If you don’t actually know me personally, in what voice do you hear these words, when you read them? There go those assumptions again, at work in the background. Who do you think I am?

If I got something from the process of writing the words, and you get something from reading the words I wrote, does it matter at all if we understood completely different things? Perhaps – at that point we attempt to explain to each other how well we understand one another, I could see that being a potential sore point, but… maybe not? Maybe? I don’t have an answer here, only a question. It’s not even an important question. Just a random thought on a Friday morning.

I make a second coffee, and marvel at how terrible it is. How is this cup of coffee possible, from the same beans, using the same machine, made in the same way, by the same method, into the same cup, at all different than the previous coffee?? I take another sip, puzzled, curious, and seeking greater understanding. I like understanding things. Yeah… No – this is one terrible cup of coffee. Wow. I mean… like… an achievement of bad coffee, a stand out, an extraordinary demonstration of how poorly made a cup of coffee can be – and I didn’t even need to use a percolator, an air pot, or poor quality additives. Good grief. This sucks. I mean… on this whole other “No, seriously? I must be wrong… one more sip…” level. lol This is bad coffee. LOL I am still drinking it… no idea what that says about me, or about human primates generally, but… this is me. Drinking terrible coffee. At this point, I am savoring this terrible coffee and even enjoying its noteworthy awfulness. Please don’t ask me why would I do such a thing, because frankly… I don’t have an answer for that one, either. It is every bit as inexplicable as if I were to suddenly rise from my seat and do a cartwheel. lol

I think about the winter ahead. I think about the future. I sip my bad coffee, now mostly over how dreadful it is, my consciousness has moved on to other things. I think about love. I think about lovers. I think about the twinge of discontent that sometimes catches me by surprise in some lonely moment, when my awareness of age and aging collides with my awareness that I “still feel young on the inside”. This morning, the thought is merely a thought, and does not evoke an emotion. My thinking moves on.

I’ve a busy weekend ahead, and I am eager to get on with it. I’ll see my Traveling Partner this weekend (if all goes to plan, next weekend too!). Fuck I miss that guy. I’m ready to make the drive down, and I’m glad I seem to be well enough to do so; I don’t think I have the pro-adult skills to firmly decline if I weren’t up for it. I just miss him too much at this point. lol I consider the drive itself. It is autumn, and a lovely time of year for a long drive through beautiful countryside. Weather permitting, perhaps I won’t take the highway? A longer route, through scenic forests, down less traveled state highways and country side roads could be quite lovely and relaxed, and a great deal more like part of the weekend than mere transportation from point A to point B. (I-5 is efficient, but not beautiful, the result being the drive feels very purposeful, and more like “work”.)

The map is not the journey. The journey is, itself, the destination. Life’s menu of options is vast, and the choices are many. I am my own cartographer. I sip my terrible coffee and smile. The words pile up. I open up Google Maps with a plan in mind, ready to begin again. 🙂

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Tells

October 18, 2017 //
0

The alarm beeped for a while. A while. Eventually I shut it off. Turned on a light. Tried to piece together a sense of “where am I?” and “why is now?” lol I came up short on “why”, but managed open eyes and sufficient balance to get out of bed. I’m groggy again this morning. I woke yearning for the sweet sweet sensation of sleeping in, and looking forward to Saturday. I almost convinced myself it was.

I yawned through my morning routine, empty of content but still contented. My coffee seems lackluster, but I am still drinking it. Practice(s) seem pretty pointless from this perspective, but I practice nonetheless.

Some time later I sit down to write. I’m still not “awake”. So the week, an important and also overly busy one, rich with big distractions, and small disruptions to carefully selected self-care practices, slows creeps forward productively, successfully, and calmly, without requiring me to be awake upon waking. I’m managing to make much of the day-to-day turmoil look less chaotic than it feels, and I suspect most of my colleagues don’t see much evidence of stress – but the evidence is all around. I have “tells“. I look for similar tells with friends, loved ones, colleagues, strangers – part of the idea of “emotional intelligence” is a simple considerate practical awareness of not only what I am going through myself, but also what others may be going through, leaving room midst my awareness for them to actually speak about it if they care to, and my own acceptance that my assumptions must yield to their voices when they do. Those tells can be an important non-verbal signal that something yet-unspoken exists to consider.

My own stress tells are fairly obvious when you know what to look for. Well-manicured hands become torn cuticles, and bitten nails. The usual fairly carefully chosen “look” for work becomes the same sloppy favorite comfort-sweater thrown over everything, just whatever top and jeans, day after day. Others are not as easily spotted unless you are here, at home with me: there is a coffee cup on the counter, not even close to the sink, just left rather nonsensically in a location, and it is from yesterday – how did that not make it into the dishwasher?? My bed isn’t made – it usually is. My dumb bells, instead of being properly put away, were left where they were set (after the last set), in a prominent toe-stub-able location just sort of … out. Chaos creeping in. Routines slowly giving way before breaking down completely. In the office, and at home, the subtlety of seeing a choked email inbox – a rarity for me. Small things. Unavoidable – because I overlook them in the moment, completely. They shout “stress!!!” to the world, but the world most likely isn’t actually listening. We are each having our own experience.

Our tells are actually fairly obvious. Do you know/see your own? It is a simple enough thing, with practice, to notice the tells around you, of other people. It does take practice (for me). It didn’t come “naturally” in any noteworthy way (for me). Working at it, though, has seemed to result in much more satisfying relationships. Between being aware of the experience of others (as much as I am able to do so) and also practicing explicit communication in my relationships, a lot of what used to amount to drama has faded away. It’s nice. It’s been some work. There are verbs involved. It continues to be worth the effort and practice to take time to really listen to other people, to really see them, to really connect and be present.

Simple and real. I find these comfortable sustainable qualities. Well… “real” can be damned uncomfortable now and then, but in a more-comfortable-than-the-alternative sort of way (for me). 🙂

I spent the evening, simple and real, with my Traveling Partner and one of our Mad Hatter friends. I invited them to dinner. Picked them up and enjoyed a lovely evening meal together, in a friendly small town setting. Before dinner I brought them to my new place and showed my partner around. After dinner, I took them back to their place, and hung out awhile, listening to travelers tales, sharing my own, and generally enjoying my partner’s company. It was good fun. There was romance, laughter, friendship, connection… There was no stress. Delicious. Cherished time spent wrapped in love.

I stayed out a bit later than ideal, though. I don’t care much about that right now, though I know it will come at a cost, and that by Friday my consciousness may be wreckage, my emotional resilience lost to reactivity, over-stimulation, and fatigue. Hair today… concert tomorrow… but Friday night I can sink into slumber, no alarm clock, and wake when I wake, and begin again on Saturday. I can do this! 🙂

I sip my coffee. Count my memories like gold coins, letting my “treasure” cascade through my thoughts, a trickle, a stream, a waterfall. I’m still not awake, yet, not really, but the day begins in a satisfying way, and my perspective is merry and contented. It’s enough. I can begin again from right here… 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5

All That Planning, Then…

October 17, 2017 //
2

Real life happens. It shreds my planning pretty regularly. Yours, too? I imagine so. 🙂

I sip my coffee, groggy, reluctant to fully wake, and wistfully contemplating my still-warm bed just there, in the other room… Had this morning gone according to plan, I’d already be at work right now. I’m quite content to be sipping my coffee on a more ordinary morning than that. The long work day, and late-ish evening, and the difficulty getting sufficiently relaxed soon enough to find sleep just mean I’m groggy. Tired. Still disoriented and kind of stupid. I keep sipping my coffee – rather more aggressively than most mornings. I’ll certainly have another. lol

Change is a thing. I knew that “before I knew that”, I mean, those words all have meanings I understood. At this point, I sometimes wonder why I fought it so hard, so often? I chuckle remembering the first time (I think, from my perspective now) that I heard the phrase “embrace change” – it was in the context of work, and seemed… amusing, more than inspiring or motivating. My cynicism at that time definitely got in the way of my personal progress. Also a thing. I had to make a point of learning to be open to change, even learning to be open to growth, to success, to love. It was hardest when it turned out some of those things weren’t at all what I thought they were. lol I also had to learn to be open to discovery, generally, because often things were not what they seemed, when I began to explore them more deeply.  At some point, it became easier to ask “what does this even mean, really?” in the face of change, rather than fight it, or struggle with a fading reality, clinging to something that is slipping away.

I am rambling. Still groggy. Bits and pieces of consciousness a bit like a large box of unsorted photographs of distant relatives and long-past vacations, spilling out, tumbling down in disarray, becoming words on a page, lacking theme or direction, or (possibly) coherence. lol I drink coffee. I write words. It is too early on too little sleep to do also do it very well. 🙂

The end of the work day seems quite far away. My Traveling Partner seems nearer, somehow, although he is quite a way away, yet, he is nearer than yesterday at this time. 😀 Will I see him tonight? Maybe. Maybe tomorrow after I get my hair done. Definitely Thursday for the concert. Damn I am so tired, right now, already. I remind myself that each day ends with a night, and I yearn for night to come so I can sleep some more. lol

Coffee’s gone. I’ll need another. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Slowing Down to Live

October 16, 2017 //
0

Yesterday was lovely. I had a decently long list of things I had determined “needed” to get done, and after a leisurely coffee in the morning, some time lingering on the deck in the morning chill, and gently catching up on world events, I got off my ass to work the list.

I gave up after about 2 decently productive hours. The crisp sparkling autumn sunshine kept catching my attention and tempting me into the outdoors, and I quickly “re-evaluated my life” on a small scale and decided to go hiking instead of doing housework. 😀 Yep. That’s a thing I sometimes do.

I’m glad I did. The two hours I spent walking in the sunshine felt amazing, and I guess I really needed that time, out there in the trees. The local trail I chose is nearby, rather steep, and “doesn’t really go anywhere” in the sense that one must either commit to a very long hike, or do one of several out-and-back hikes possible on a combination of shorter trails. I hear it is a popular area to hike. I had the trails to myself on a beautiful mild autumn day.

Well, I had the trail to myself, except for these guys, and lizards, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons… I was never alone.

It was quite a lovely hike. I returned home feeling properly recharged and refreshed, and although it had not been my intention, quickly worked off a few more items from my list of things to do.

The busy week ahead may blow me off course in a number of ways, and I contemplate how to best take care of myself this week, as I sip my coffee. In anticipation of my sleep routine being thrown off by my odd work hours ahead (long late shift Monday, very early shift Tuesday, concert night out Thursday…) my brain “helped me out” by getting an early start on that, and I slept like crap last night, waking often, rather pointlessly, and struggling to return to sleep. Anticipatory sleep disturbances are entirely annoying. I’m still smiling. I still feel pretty good. I sip my coffee and put my attention on those positive details; they have more value for building implicit memory that will tend most to support good emotional wellness. It’s a practical thing. It requires practice. 🙂

Figuring out how best to maximize my opportunities to spend time with my Traveling Partner is high on my list of things to do to take care of me. I’m excited that he’ll be in town. Our planning includes a visit to my new residence, and perhaps even an overnight visit, or at least something more than a few minutes to walk through the place. I include in my planning – and in my daydreaming – regular reminders that “things don’t always turn out as planned”; my Traveling Partner lives his life with “spontaneity settings” turned all the way up. lol The way I see it, I may not do any writing tomorrow, and may not write on Friday, depending on time, timing, and how many spoons I really have left.  Busy weeks are hard sometimes. Fuck I am eager to see my Traveling Partner, though, and the fact that this is a busy week for other reasons, while inconvenient, isn’t going to prevent me doing it. 😀

Okay. I’ve got plans. I’ve got a flexible mindset. I’ve got verbs. I’ve made choices. I’m ready for the week… The journey is the destination.

I’m walking my own path. I am my own cartographer.

I’m ready to begin again. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Look Elsewhere, Look Within

October 15, 2017 //
0

I was a bit lonely yesterday. It happens sometimes, and it an occasional inevitable byproduct of living alone. I’d heard from my Traveling Partner quite early, and very briefly; he was awakened by way of practical joke, after a late night working. (Which, while it must have seemed an amusing notion in the abstract to the prankster(s)… really?? What the hell, grownups? No. Just, no. Jokes that amuse at the specific expense of someone else’s discomfort aren’t actually funny to the person who endures them. My opinion, but admittedly, I learned that fairly late in life, myself, sometime in my 30s.) He shared his irritation and we both moved on with our mornings. I didn’t hear from him again, yesterday, aside from seeing an occasional like or post or reply on Facebook.

I spent the day contentedly working down my “to do list” of things both needful and helpful, and a few things that were subtle improvements that were in no way actually necessary. Music played in the background throughout the day. Near the end of the day, as I began to tire, I began also to miss my Traveling Partner immensely, and yearning for any little moment of connection or contact. Nothing. He was busy elsewhere, doing other things, and did not have the time or inclination to connect with me. This has to be okay; we are humans, living our lives, and do not live together. Sometimes, one of us will be busy with what is in front of us, right here, right now, and that distant lover is… distant. Far away. Not here. I ended the day feeling lonely, and a little unsettled; I’m used to more contact with him over a weekend, unless he explicitly sets expectations that I won’t hear from him. Lacking that expectation-setting, I allowed myself other implicit expectations and fucked myself over, emotionally; loneliness settled in with my fatigue, late in the day. Which sucked. But… I wasn’t having a shitty day, there wasn’t any drama, or cause for alarm, and really – I was okay, and most likely, so was he. All good.

I put down that baggage several times, and moved on to other things. “Practices” take practice – actual repetition, actual verbs, actually doing the things. Yoga. Strength training. Study. Deep listening – even to the woman in the mirror – have such value. I made a point to allow myself to be heard, to feel understood, by me, myself, and it was enough. I went to bed just a bit disappointed that I hadn’t heard from him, and hoping that he was well, and content, and feeling loved. I reminded myself how loved I am, and when I wrapped myself in my blankets as I crawled into bed, I felt content, and warm, and yes, loved, too. All good. No heartache.

I woke once very early, and saw that my Traveling Partner had messaged me quite late. He even tried to call. He was sorry I was lonely and feeling unsettled. He’d had a busy day with a lot of work going on, and some help at hand – so a limited opportunity to get quite a lot done, and he’d been involved in that. Makes sense to me. I smiled in the darkness. On my way back to bed, I hoped that he wasn’t too disappointed not to reach me by phone, after I’d gone to bed. Even though I saw him last weekend, I miss him greatly, already. I fell asleep reminded that I would be seeing him this week, showing him the new place, going to a concert with him…

My loneliness yesterday wasn’t a matter of being without Love in my experience of living. It was a matter of choices; I had a list of things to do, and was insisting (to myself) on doing them. lol That was a choice. I made that choice because it was, in my opinion, needful. My loneliness increased over the day, not hearing from my partner, because I’d hung on to an implicit expectation of hearing from him “more often” (I’ll point out how poorly defined “more often” is…), not because he’d actually let me down in any way. My emotional life is mine. The emotional “climate”, the emotional “weather”, the long-term experience of self, the immediate turmoil of some moment – these are all mine to manage, to endure, to delight in, to change, to explore, to accept, reject, or to resist as if it were madness. No one actually “made me” feel lonely – feeling lonely was merely my reaction to insisting (for myself) that I stay home and “work the list” rather than be out and about doing things with friends. I had shit to do. I chose to do it. <shrugs> It’s not even a thing this morning.

For me, today, it matters far more than my loneliness matters to my Traveling Partner, even at a distance, than the fact that I experienced some loneliness. His reassuring message and attempts to call were sufficient reassurance that he was okay, and adequate reminder that I matter (to him). I sometimes worry when I don’t hear from him. He heard me. I feel heard. All good.

I smile and sip my coffee and think about hearing and listening. I think about feeling heard. I think about emotion and reason, and love and lovers. I think about perspective and balance. I think about being the best human being I am able to be with the resources and qualities of character that I have right now. I think about walking my own path, and becoming the woman I most want to be.

Eventually, I think about my “to do list”, and the autumn leaves on the deck I have yet to sweep up. I smile, sip my coffee, and get ready to begin again. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »