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Mixed Emotions

December 9, 2020 //
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What a peculiar day. Busy on the work side, scrambling toward the end of the calendar year. Merry on the personal side – ’tis the season, etc. Ups. Downs. Emotions. Today I had a moment of deep sorrow and self-directed disappointed, in the middle of a morning filled with self-doubt, then, immediately following (even caused by) that moment, I went on to have one of the most moving, intimate, profoundly connected moments of supportive partnership with my Traveling Partner that I can recall in our 10 years together. Seriously, right up there in my top 10 deepest and moved love-infused experiences.

…Never even finished my second cup of coffee. What a day.

Sick fish in the aquarium are not good news, and omg I so did not need that on top of… oh. Hey… interesting. It’s not really “on top of” all that much. Mostly things are pretty okay. Needs are met. Love is enduring. The sky is still blue. I’m okay right now. In fact… aside from feeling a sad acceptance that I may lose some or all of my aquarium fish to illness (and being fairly over the momentary hurt of it, at this point, aside from the bit of sorrow that is what it is)… it’s honestly an okay day. A bit stressful. A bit busy. But… yeah…

The holiday season is here. The cookies I’ve been baking are yummy. I’m okay with the social distancing and staying home stuff, mostly. I do miss my friends. I miss brunches out. I miss even being able to say in any reasonable way that I’d like to visit family. It’s not always easy, but… mostly? It’s not all that different. I just don’t rush off to go here and there on a whim, and I’m sort of mildly annoyed that I can’t yet comfortably really just explore this new community I live in, because… pandemic.

…Things could be much worse. I’m feeling both fortunate and grateful, which turns out to be enough on which to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, gratitude, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

This is Dedicated…

December 4, 2020 //
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…To the one(s) I love (right now)… 🙂

It’s my Traveling Partner’s birthday, today. It’s been my great good fortune, now, to share his birthday with him for 10 of them. Wow. Quite a bit of time together. It’s gone by rather quickly. 😀

I find it sometimes a bit challenging to find gifts that will suit his taste, and his current activities and interests. Sometimes costs put a neat idea quite out of reach. This year, the real challenge is that we both have what we need, and we’re together; everything else feels “extra”. I did find a couple gift-worthy items that I hope he likes, and I definitely “went for it” with the cake and ice cream. lol My time, my presence – that, too. I’m taking half a day off to enjoy with him. 😀

I slept like crap last night. I mean… I woke an hour or so after I went to bed, and couldn’t fall back to sleep until sometime well after midnight. The sleep I got was fine. I’m tired and in pain, though. I’d like to feel young and fit and thoroughly joyful today, for sure. Gotta make do with this mortal form and all the challenges that go with that – and avoid taking any of it at all personally. Aging? Yeah – totally impersonal. lol

So… looks like today will balance genuine joy and celebration, and the precious gift of our limited mortal time together – balanced with the unfortunate truths of aches, pains, and mortality itself. lol Still – this human traveling sharing life’s journey with me? Now that’s a life worth celebrating. 😀 Certainly my life would be very different today if I were without his companionship and love.

…Don’t forget to tell those special human beings in your life how special they are.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5

Finding the Chill

December 2, 2020 //
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I don’t mean the icy mornings of autumn in my titular reference to “chill” – I mean that fully relaxed state of being in which self-awareness leads observation to a well-spring of contentment in non-attachment to specific outcomes. 🙂 The chill chill. Calm. Still. At ease.

…My coffee is long gone. My most recent break was little more than an excuse to take an Rx pain reliever. Headache. Arthritis. Tennis elbow? (Well, or something unreasonably similar.) The afternoon sunshine sneaks into the studio on an angle, illuminating a tissue box on my desk, beneath and behind my monitor(s), giving it seeming significance of some kind. It has none. It’s a trick of the light. Like this blog post; it has no import, no real gravitas, no significance, just… words. A moment. A break from routine. A few swallows of water, and a mental “reset button” pressed, moving on to another task. I am here, now. I am okay. Nothing to see here. Nothing much to share. Still…

…And I do mean “still”… I think about a friend’s recent observation that she is struggling to “get a minute of peace”. I think about other similar remarks from friends (and readers – I see you!). Me, too. Sometimes busy is far too busy, chaos is too chaotic, and breaks are a challenge to take properly. Have you tried this…? It’s a good starting point on finding that quiet moment, when quiet moments are hard to come by.

…It helps to have a good pair of headphones, too… 🙂

I pause and take my own advice for two minutes. I end up feeling more refreshed than I expect to…but also already looking forward to the end of the actual day, hours from now, when I can flop down onto my bed and just give in to fatigue quite completely. Taking more breaks, more skillfully, would probably really help with the enduring fatigue that has chased me down since daylight savings time ended. Damn I wish we’d get smarter and stop doing that.

…Work interrupts me interrupting work to grab a break. Yeah… this is more complicated than it looks, sometimes. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I push my mind firmly off the work topic, and back to writing for a couple minutes. I know taking proper breaks results in more efficient (and faster, and more skillful) work… so I also find myself, often, wondering where the hell I got the reluctance to do it…? Strange, isn’t it? It’s such an important self-care detail, too. I wonder, also, if this bit of weirdness is cultural (unique to American workers?) or regional, or universal, or… and then I find that I’ve descended into yet another work “rabbit hole” – my field of endeavor being to do with how people work, and how much time things take, and how many people a task or job will require to do well… LOL Fuuuuuuck. This is hard. Clearly I need more practice…

…Only now it’s already time to begin (work) again. 😉

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Quiet Moments

December 1, 2020 //
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I’ve learned to find quiet moments almost anywhere that isn’t ridiculously noisy or busy. Handy. Sometimes I do find that I’ve got to search out that moment of quiet, or build it from unexpected circumstances, but now and then some perfectly lovely moment of quiet just happens to be where I am sitting.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke often. I returned to sleep with relative ease, mostly. I never felt wholly awake and alert (which might have made getting up make sense), and I didn’t feel particularly sleepy at the time (even immediately before falling asleep). “Wakeful” night. I seem to have managed to get enough rest, anyway. 🙂

There was this one quiet moment, during the night, that I sat contentedly, relaxing in the dim glow of the Giftmas tree lights, just enjoying that quiet moment. It was lovely. There was no pressure to do more, or do differently. No rush. No stress. Just quiet time, there in the holiday twilight alone, while my Traveling Partner slept on, in the bedroom. It was precious.

Today is lovely, too. Beautiful moments. A soak in the hot tub on a misty cold autumn morning. A quiet cup of coffee shared with my partner. A spontaneous exchange of yule gifts, because… why not? It was delightful. 🙂 The recollection of it still is.

I sit smiling in this quiet moment, retrieving joyful memories of other quiet moments. Enjoying joy through recalling joyful moments. Easy. (And yes, it’s a practice, and yes, there are verbs involved, and results may vary…but how pleasant to practice it? Why wouldn’t I? 😀 )

Here. Now. This is enough. I fill up on the joy and contentment, smiling. It’s the middle of a work day… time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Revisiting Gratitude

November 29, 2020 //
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It’s a quiet Sunday after Thanksgiving in the time of pandemic. Weird year. I’m sipping the (cold) last dregs of my second coffee, and listening for the dryer to finish. Quite a routine sort of quiet Sunday; I’m doing housekeeping, and relaxing between tasks. There is ample time for meditation. There are opportunities for shared merriment. I hear the sound of aircraft taking off (or landing) from my Traveling Partner’s game room. I feel relaxed and at ease. Contented. Emotionally comfortable.

I sigh aloud. A sign of contentment and quiet joy. A sound that means, in this time and place, “I’m okay right now, and it’s enough.” I have not always had the good fortune, or decision-making, to be in this place. Feels good. I have been luxuriating in the wonder of it all weekend, and filling my soul up on its goodness. I don’t want to waste these moments by taking them for granted, or rushing them along, or failing to really properly savor these lovely moments. I have so much to be grateful for. I sit with my cold coffee, my gratitude, and this smile on my face, just enjoying the quiet.

The setting was simple, dinner for two, and a quiet holiday.

Thanksgiving came and went. Dinner was delicious, and compared to some years, quiet modest. We shared the cooking as well as the meal. Home-cooking. Together. It was fun. We’d each laid claim to the items we would prepare, in advance. No confusion. No fussing at each other. Just wholesome fun, intimacy, and love in the kitchen. It was splendid. Prime rib. Pumpkin pie. Everything made at home, in our own kitchen. It was lovely. Clean-up was orderly, and easily handled later in the evening. We shared that, too.

2020 has been a weird year. I’ve much to be grateful for, even so. This lovely home. This reliably supportive partnership. Love. Literacy. Hell, the basics, too: indoor plumbing, hot & cold running water, a well-stocked pantry, safe clean drinking water (I hope), a secure home in a friendly community, employment, leisure time, friends, family, places to go when the pandemic is behind us all… and hope. I’ve still got hope. I’m grateful for that, too.

There is also this lovely sunny Sunday ahead, and aside from a few housekeeping details I’d like to get done, it’s a good day for leisure time, well-spent, enjoyed on the things I find enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be fancy, expensive, or far from home. I’m good right here. This is enough.

I finish my coffee, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being
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