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Perspective Matters, Too

October 6, 2017 //
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I’d been growing progressively more irked with myself over my lack of motivation in the evenings, after long, busy, cognitively complex work days dense with new information. By the time I got home each evening this week I just… couldn’t. Not even. Not at all. So… I didn’t. Mostly.

Last night I happened to arrive home and sit down at the computer to alert my Traveling Partner I was safely home for the evening, feeling a little low for no reason I could pinpoint. The phone rang unexpectedly – my partner calling me, spontaneous, out of the blue, no agenda; he was on his lunch break from work. It was good to hear his voice, and I felt considerably “lifted up” by it.

The called ended just as a recently-discovered-favorite DJ began a live set on Facebook. Yay!! I said a silent thank you for Chromecast technology as I cast it to the stereo. The hour passed so quickly, and with so much energy! I spent that hour dancing, and chatting with friends who had noticed the share on Facebook and also checked him out. Even my sister – which surprised me, and made me smile so hard my face hurt. It felt connected, shared, and it was fun.

I must have really needed some wholesome shared fun with friends. I mean, like, a lot. 😀 I’m still smiling.

When the live stream ended, my energy didn’t. With a smile and no sense of fatigue I tackled a bunch of small shit from my to do list that had been silently mocking me. (Take that, housework!!) I went to bed still feeling mildly burdened by “all the shit I’ve got to get done before I head out for the weekend” and a little anxious about it.

I woke this morning still carrying that around with me, and annoyed by swollen eyes and stuffy sinuses (hoping, hoping, hoping that I do not wake up actually ill tomorrow – I’ll be so fucking pissed off if I do). I sat down with my coffee, and a willingness to begin again, and decided to take on my anxiety-driving concern head-on; too much to do? Let’s see about that, I thought to myself, and opened my task list.

I made a short list of things my Traveling Partner asked me to bring down for him. I made a short list of the things I wanted to get done, because I don’t want to come home to having to do them. Neither list was actually all that bothersome. Totally doable to complete them in an evening. Is all this stress really to do with work? Could be; there’s a lot going on, and more than typical performance pressure. I take a deep breath and let it all go, queue up some music (the track linked above, actually), and sip my coffee feeling less pressure, less anxiety, and a reduced sense of urgency. I open up my blog, and start writing. Much better.

Perfection? Nah. Just perspective. It matters. Do I have a lot to get done tonight? Not as much as it felt like in the abstract. I just had to take a step back, get it on paper, and consider it differently, and (for me) in a more organized way. It’s where the work-related anxiety comes from too; I work in a distraction-rich environment that results in constant interruptions of work processes that benefit from not being interrupted. lol I need to take more breaks – that don’t become interruptions of their own, by taking those breaks as moments of quiet, without actually pumping even more information into my brain (which actually needs a proper break). I commit to treating myself better in the office, and make a second coffee. 🙂

It’s already time to begin again…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Daydreams and Plans

October 5, 2017 //
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I was musing about the future, near term, specifically a concert I plan to see, which my Traveling Partner also has tickets for, but now lives quite far away and likely won’t drive 5 hours to attend it. It’s a poignant realization, to reflect on how unlikely it is that he’ll make the trip up this way casually, just to see a concert, go to dinner, or hang out. He’s never even seen this new place…

…My eyes begin to fill with tears. I take a funny little moment to “mentally hold my own hand” in a comforting sort of way (actually visualizing an adult-me, holding the hand of a tearful child-me); I need my sympathy, compassion, and support in such a moment. It’s only a moment, and without compounding it by additional needless self-inflicted suffering to force it to grow and linger, it quickly dissipates. We’re each having our own experience. Our most reasonable, rational, choices do not reliably also represent the most emotionally comfortable or satisfying choices for those dear to us. That’s something I’m glad I’ve come to understand, because I am also prone to rational, reasonable, choices, and also have loved ones dear to me who may be discomfited by them.

I had been, I admit, daydreaming about making a home here in this new place, in which my Traveling Partner would feel welcome and comfortable, and in which we would enjoy our lives together any time he blew through town. It doesn’t look likely at this point. His job down south quickly resulted in a permanent move. His other partner, having the means to do so, simply packed up her household, and moved also. I definitely feel more disconnected from my partner than I generally have; living alone wasn’t enough to cause that, it required a sense of greater distance and a sense of being less… something. The very fact this lessening is so very nameless, when I have so many words for so many emotions, suggests it is an illusion. My recollection of our conversations, and our time spent together recently, seems to confirm that my sense of our connection being somehow diminished is indeed an illusion.

…Daydreams don’t make much room for change. Daydreams can feel very threatened by change, by variance from the ideal, by realities that don’t match expectations, and by unspoken assumptions. Plans work differently. I smile when I think about planning my retirement. My Traveling Partner and I had discussed our plan for my retirement in detail. That planning touches nearly everything about our shared experience. I can look around this space, and see things that are “not yet according to plan”, that could be, and I find myself moved to action; it’s the action that gets me to my planned goal. Reflecting on that shared planning is less emotional, and less uncomfortable. Funny how my planning is not negatively affected by my emotions, the way my daydreams can be.

I have literally gone to pieces, and wept openly, when a vacant lot I daydreamed about building a home on for many years was sold to a developer and a condo was built there. Wasn’t my land. I didn’t have a plan. There was nothing real or solid there, just a daydream that lingered over years. It was unkind to treat myself so poorly, but I didn’t have any sort of understanding that my daydreams could do me any harm. I’m a big fan of daydreaming. It’s becoming attached to a daydream that gets me into emotional trouble. I don’t know that being attached to a plan would be any different… but I think generally, becoming committed to a plan usually resulted in achieving a goal! (I mean, so long as I am also flexible about rolling with the changes, prepared with a plan B, and willing to also not be attached to the outcome!)

Yes, and I’ve written more than 600 words this morning on the difference between daydreams and plans. lol I’m not sure this was necessary. I’m not even certain it can be fully understood by anyone who is not me, because our personal dictionaries matter so much here. It matters how you define “daydream” and “plan”, for me to be understood clearly. (How much does it matter that you understand my own specific point here, though, so long as you understand something and find some value in that for yourself that makes the time spent reading these words worthwhile?)

This morning I plan the visit down to see my Traveling Partner, while also daydreaming about it. I’ll get to see his new place! 🙂 That matters to me. I enjoy having a good mental map of his physical experience when I think about him. I like knowing, first hand, that he is safe, comfortable, and living well. I am eager to get as many visits down as I can before icy weather sets in; I won’t want to drive when the roads are icy. (Note to self, be sure to verify your VPN connection to your work tools before winter weather sets in! You’ll want to work from home on snowy or icy days.)

My brain sneak attacks me once more, and I find myself wondering a bit sadly if he will still come for the holidays… Seriously? I sigh out loud, and let that go. We can talk about our holiday plans together in person this weekend. That makes more sense. 🙂

I sip my coffee, review my to do list, and consider my plans. There are verbs involved. I’m the only one here right now, so all that is up to me. It’s time to begin again. 😀

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Faced with an Unfinished List

October 2, 2017 //
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That’s how the weekend ends this week, with an unfinished to do list. lol I keep glancing at it, as if awareness alone was ever sufficient to get shit done. I sip my morning coffee with little concern about it in this moment. No doubt it may cause some momentary anxiety now and again, later on.

Yesterday’s early (and enthusiastic) start to the day didn’t result in a fantastically productive end result at all. My coffee may as well have been decaffeinated; after two double espresso drinks, I still managed to feel like a nap. Hours later I woke up and frankly repeated that experience; two coffees, another nap. I remember thinking I wouldn’t be laughing later when all that coffee kept me from sleeping… as I had my fifth coffee… followed by a nap. I woke a bit past 1:30 pm. Finally feeling sufficiently rested to be up “for the day” – what was left of it. I felt surprisingly weak and lethargic, and that never really passed. I had ended up canceling evening plans, between naps.

I ended the day quite early. Wishing my Traveling Partner well, and logging off of devices before 7 pm. Meditation was obviously going to become… sleep. So, fuck it, I went to bed super early. Most of the day I wondered, on and off, if I were perhaps fighting off some virus. I woke twice during the long night, quite briefly, to pee (no real surprise considering how much coffee, and water, I had consumed throughout the day), but went immediately back to sleep each time, after drifting through the dim light provided by carefully placed night lights (still haven’t mastered this space in the darkness, and my shins just couldn’t take it any more) and feeling so very light-headed that I wasn’t certain either time that I was truly awake, at all. I felt as if I were floating. Bobbing rather recklessly through the air. Careening gently between walls and doors.

I woke aware that I am “not at 100%”. The alarm yanked me from a sound sleep with some effort, pulling me free from my restless weird dreams as if they were quite sticky. Headache-y. Sinuses stuffy. Eyes gummy. Yep. I’ve come down with something or other. It could be worse. I’m getting around okay. It could be a lot worse; I really just want to go back to sleep. Aside from really wanting to go back to sleep (after almost 10 hours of sleep), I’m “okay” for most values of okay. I work in an interaction center environment, so… illness happens. We’re having our first significant wave of autumn ick going around… could be I’ve come down with it. If so… yeah, I’m feeling pretty fortunate. This is not that bad. Saturday’s stressful morning probably hit my immune system, opening a window of opportunity for illness to take hold. Predictable.

The headache is the worst bit. The fatigue is second runner-up. I may come home early today, but it is hard to justify in the face of the mountain of work ahead of me this week. I frown at my monitor, chewing on my lip, wondering which is the more appropriately adult set of choices. Something to think over, while I drink my now cold coffee. I’ve lost interest in my coffee completely. It “tastes off” and doesn’t seem at all enticing. I swallow what is left of this first cup of coffee; it’ll be enough to prevent a headache (from lack of caffeine) later.

I sigh and prepare to face the day, resolved to do the right thing by the woman in the mirror (short of just… going back to bed, which still sounds like a first-rate idea). I begin again.

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Categories anhedonia, autumn, Brain Injury, health, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

Morning Comes Early

October 1, 2017 //
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I woke promptly at 3 am. I mean, like, really woke up. No panic, no sense of being awakened by something, I simple woke, feeling rested and alert. Too alert for the wee hour of morning at which I woke, but… fuck it. I got up and made coffee. 🙂

It seemed the sort of morning for it, so, wireless headphones on, I move through my yoga routine, some strength training, and feeling joyful and generally good I moved on from there to simply enjoying my playlist, dancing, and tidying up a bit (relatively quietly, considering the hour – and my neighbors’ likely desire to sleep much later than I had).

Yesterday ended up being, aside from the bit of OPD (other people’s drama) in the morning, quite a lovely and relaxed day. My brunch plans fell through, so I made a lovely bit of brunch at home. My afternoon plans to hang out with a friend also fell through (no ache over that; we hang out most Saturday afternoons, and don’t take such things at all personally, when one or the other of us cancels now and then). I enjoyed a lovely nap in the afternoon, in spite of the quantity of well-crafted espresso beverages I’d consumed. I painted some. I spent some time reading. I enjoyed some time out on the deck, listening to the rustling fluttering leaves tell me about the breezes. I hiked a couple miles on unfamiliar neighborhood trails; my current favorite is rather steeper than I ever seem to expect it to be, and therefore still a bit challenging. It was, in general, quite a lovely day.

After my blog post, yesterday, and throughout the remainder of the day, friends reached out, checked in, checked on me, offered sympathy, encouragement, words of support. I certainly feel well-regarded by my friends, readers, associates – y’all are a good bunch of humans, and damn – I appreciate you. ❤ I’m still pretty wowed by the outpouring of concern and affection. I hope the woman next door is similarly well-regarded by her friends, family, and loved ones – pretty sure she had a much tougher time of things, yesterday, than I did.

Our ability to connect, to share, to be open to one another, to “be there” for each other, matters so much. This morning I finish my coffee while thinking back on dear friends who have always tried to “be there”, and how long it took me to understand that welcoming that connection, and being open to be being supported, is also required. Perhaps I’d have come farther, faster, or found my way more easily to greater wellness sooner, if I had been more easily able to accept help when offered? It’s something I think about.

Funny thing about these early mornings; they don’t seem to change whether or not I have much to say. LOL The track changes on my playlist. I finish my coffee. There is so much of the day still ahead of me…

…The light in my current studio is every bit as good for painting at 5 am as it is at 2 pm in the afternoon (not very; I use artificial light here, so the hour of the day is irrelevant). I turn an imaginary sign in my head to “artist at work”, grin at my fanciful imagination, and go make another cup of coffee. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

PTSD, OPD, TBI, EIEIO

September 30, 2017 //
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My lovely chill Saturday morning was suddenly disrupted by the screaming next door. Not my duplex neighbors, other neighbors. A door slams. Slams. Slams. Slams. Hysterical rage. She’s out on the front stoop screaming to be let in, so clearly the target of the yelling has now locked her out. From her repeated enraged screaming, “if you would just HEAR ME!“, again and again, I’m pretty certain she already felt “locked out” for some time, this morning, if not for far longer.

I can see their front stoop from the window of my studio, where I am sitting. I’ve turned up the music on my headphones to try to drown out her anguished vocalizations, but at this point, I’m at risk of damaging my hearing to turn up the music more. My eyes are helplessly drawn to her misery and anger, and she’s begun throwing her body at the door, again and again, and isn’t making actual words now, just animal sounds, anguished, enraged, frustrated, demanding, pleading. She is lost to “now”, and exists in some moment of complex emotion, trapped in her narrative.

This isn’t where I want to exist this morning. The morning began quite differently. My tears, part sympathy, part PTSD, part lack of executive function, part pure animal stress at being exposed to pure animal stress, spill down as I write. I glance at the phone – should I call 911? Shoulders shaking now with sobs, helplessly overcome by my own memories of terror and rage, I watch her collapse, crying, on the front step of her home… what do I do? I mean, aside from sitting here crying, myself? I can’t bear to be that person who observed and did nothing, even recognizing that I don’t know who the “good guys” or “bad guys” are (it’s “other people’s drama” – in a very real sense, we are all both good guys and bad guys; they are human beings, having their own experience), and I don’t know what’s really going on there, or what the risk is.

…I’m triggered now, but I’m also aware of the other human being, over there, alone in her moment. Shit. I sigh as I rise from my chair, slipping my sandals on to walk next door and offer her a moment of calm, a cup of tea, someone to talk to. Hell, I’m already crying, and I know how terrible such experiences can feel in the moment. May as well… Can I conquer my fear with my compassion? Can I be a friend to someone suffering?

…. … …

It’s some time later. I got to the front walk, and started to walk down the driveway as the first police car pulled up. I find myself wondering who called, and when, although those details don’t matter at all. I go back inside, figuring this is likely a deeply embarassing moment for their household, and not wanting to compound it being an obvious witness. I’m trembling. Crying again. Leaning with my back to the inside of the front door, the unexpected knock startled me. It’s a “cop knock” – they have their own unique way of making a knock on a door sound terrifying (or is it just me?). The officer at the door “just has some questions”. He scanned my face, the tears were obvious. Was I involved, or…? “No, dude, I’m a survivor with PTSD. I’m stressed about that shit going down next door, is all…”

His questions aren’t hard, but I unexpectedly broke down trying to express myself clearly, sinking to my floor helplessly weeping uncontrollably, lost to a moment that doesn’t exist anymore, that can’t hurt me anymore, that isn’t my experience of life anymore… He asks to see my id, and I try to retrieve it from the wee card case in my pocket. Cards spilled everywhere. Credit cards, id, my insurance card, my medical cannabis card, assorted defining cards of an adult human – without any real worth or meaning, just then. I cry harder. He picked up my cards, because I clearly couldn’t. I looked up, feeling embarrassed and childlike. He looked at my id closely. “You’re a veteran?” I just nodded. He sat down with me on the stoop. He sees how my view frames the stoop next door. “Did you see anything?” “Heard her screaming at her door is all” I say, sniffling and wiping my eyes. Practical questions gave me something in the present to hang on to. She is not me. I’m here, now. I’m okay, now. “She was body slamming the door a couple times, then just sat down crying”. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “I was going to offer her a cup of tea and help her calm down” I observe, “…you guys got to her first.” My tone sounded vaguely accusatory in my ears, although that’s wasn’t my intention. He sounded sad when he replied “That’s all the questions I had” and “thank you for your service” as he stood and reached out his hand to help me up, before shaking hands with me and leaving.

It’s quiet now. Very quiet. I don’t even know if anyone was arrested, or who, or… I only know it’s quiet now. I’m okay right now. This wasn’t about me, or my life, and now the moment is about letting it go, and taking care of the woman in the mirror. Begin again, I remind myself…

…Please treat the people you say you love as if you do indeed love them. The damage done when you don’t lasts longer than you may understand. There are never enough tears to wash away the stain of cruelty, neglect, or violence.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, grief, Moments, pain, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, War and News of War, women, Words
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