Archives for posts with tag: beginnings and endings

Playing Catch Up

February 5, 2024 //
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My commute into the city this morning was pleasant and uneventful. I got gas. Got coffee. Arrived at the office a bit early – and that proved to have real value, since I’d managed to forget to slip my office fob and key into my coat pocket on my way out of the house! I didn’t lose my head over it – it wasn’t even a particularly stressful moment; I had the presence of mind to think to check with the building concierge and was able to check out a key and fob temporarily, to let myself in. (Being first on site has its downsides. lol) Turned out to be just as unremarkable as it sounds.

I sat down to my computer and skimmed my email, and Slack notifications, and answered the most time-sensitive items straight away, then went to make coffee – only to discover that the weekend cleaning crew had jammed the door on the coffee machine, so… no fancy machine-made coffee this morning. I’m drinking instant. LOL I’m not too proud for that, and hey, it reminds me how fortunate I truly am, so I sip my instant coffee quite contentedly as I catch up on emails and whatnot that piled up over the days I was out of the office. Easy. Routine. Within minutes I’m sufficiently caught up for the day to feel like an absolutely ordinary Monday. Win.

It’s hard to measure the impact of anxiety on a day that begins with “catching up” after being out of the office. I can remember a time when my unmanaged anxiety would have had me spun up before I ever sat down to look over my email, and prone to reactively responding without thoroughly reviewing whole threads to see what had already been well-supported, eventually spending some notable portion of an entire week aggressively pounding out replies to things via email that might have been better handled (and more skillfully) after a moment of real consideration, and maybe a pause to reflect, instead of churning out new replies to haphazard earlier replies, and breathlessly dashing from meeting to meeting feeling like I was on the edge of losing my mind. That’s no way to live (or work), and certainly tends to undermine any restorative restful recreational hours that had preceded the shitstorm of “catching up”. It can be done more gently, and with greater presence and thoughtfulness. 😀 So… that’s what I do now. lol

It took me about an hour to fully catch up from taking a long weekend. Not too bad. I end the hour with a thorough understanding of what I missed while I was out, and what new action items are on my plate. My time is planned. My work feels supported. I know where I need to put my attention, now. This feels pretty comfortable.

…And all that in an hour after a long weekend…

The weekend was lovely and restful. The homecoming was comfortable, and warm, and welcoming, and I feel very loved (I hope my Traveling Partner does, too). I’m looking forward to ending the work day and maybe cooking up a stir fry after work, or some other properly home-cooked healthy meal. I feel refreshed and restored, and full of energy (at least for now, at the start of the work day). I sip my coffee and smile, hoping my Traveling Partner is getting the rest he needs.

The sun rises on a gray rainy day. The sky lightens to a soft featureless pale gray, and rain spatters the office windows. “Nothing to see here.” I think to myself. I sigh and think back to the sea breezes and waves, and the gulls floating on the air currents just beyond the balcony. It already seems “so long ago”. I laugh at my mortal foolishness, and begin again.

The sun setting on a lovely day.
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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

Practicing Gratitude

March 12, 2021 //
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My last day at my previous job was Wednesday. It’s Friday, today. I spent much of yesterday “overhauling” my studio (which is also my office, for work purposes), cleaning, tidying, organizing – putting away what once was, and making room for what is yet to come. The result? Honestly, it was a satisfying project, and it felt as if I managed to “get more moved in”. Certainly, I finished off some incomplete moving-in tasks (like actually filing the paperwork associated with the mortgage closing, the new utility bills, and the move, itself), and surprised myself by finding quite a few things that I’d managed to lug along to this new place that I truly don’t need (or value) now. I made a pile of those odds and ends, and what is still serviceable has been dropped off at a local donation center, to benefit someone else for awhile.

Today, I made the day about doing the same sort of work in my library (the smallest of the bedrooms, well-suited to being a quiet reading nook, cozy with book-filled bookshelves, and a comfy couch – and handily available as a spare bedroom, when needed). It sounds rather grand to have a library…but I’ve certainly got enough books that they need a room of their own, if I’m not making use of them in the living room décor. lol By the time I was done, there was another trip to be made to take things to a donation center, with an entire shopping bag filled with cookbooks it turns out I don’t use (not even one recipe, which sort of defeats the entire purpose of a cookbook). There’s no sadness there; I read them. I enjoyed them. They don’t meet the need, and in their departure there is now room for some other cookbook that may be “just the thing” for how I cook now. Dusting. Vacuuming. Sorting books that seemed out of place into the places it seemed they belonged. Clearing the closet of random weird clutter that had been shoved into that mostly hidden location “until I can get to it” – back when we moved in. I laughed about that more than once while I worked.

…It was my Traveling Partner’s idea to tidy “my” spaces between jobs, and not out of any need to nag me about the housekeeping; he knows me. I’d asked “what will I get most benefit from in order to get real down time between these jobs?” He suggested – as I had been considering, myself – that I take a trip to the coast and spend the weekend there, solo (I head out tomorrow morning, early). Then, he suggested-more-than-asked that I clean up my studio and library over the long weekend, too. I agreed, and it seemed a good use of my time, but I didn’t really grasp how deeply satisfying and… “wholesome”(?) it would feel. (Sure, “wholesome works – and it has felt both satisfying and rather restful and delightful.) My partner understood more than I did, when he made his suggestion about the tidying, how much I really would get out of it, as a project between jobs. 🙂

Today, I’m grateful to have a partner who knows me so well. I’m feeling contented and satisfied, and happy to be alive. I feel secure and comfortable in this home we’ve made together. I feel loved, and supported. It’s nice.

Tomorrow I’ll head to the coast, check into a room, and walk the beach for hours taking pictures of nothing-in-particular, and listening to the wind and the waves, and asking myself hard questions, and listening to my own thoughts for awhile. I’ll meditate. I’ll write. I’ll think. I’ll read. I’ll be, quiet and still, alone with the woman in the mirror. (I’m okay with that; we’re very close. 😉 )

…I’ll miss my Traveling Partner while I am away, and that’s a good thing; we need to miss each other now and then, to really appreciate how fortunate we are to love as we do, and to re-explore our joy together with new eyes. It’s been a long pandemic year…

…It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Leveling Up, Letting Go

June 12, 2019 //
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56 today. Feels a lot like 55, yesterday. lol I’m okay with that, too, and chose a lot of what it has taken to be here, now. I sip my coffee looking back on the year with considerable contentment. It was a year well-lived, and greatly enjoyed – even if the first half was largely spent “being there” for my Traveling Partner, as he extricated himself from a sticky, damaging, abusive relationship (and doing so at some expense). I lived my life, and my values, and that matters, so much.

The garden is lovely. My coffee tastes good – the sort of great cup of coffee that leaves a thirst for more, once it is down to the last sip. I’m home, enjoying the day, in the middle of the work week, celebrating life, and love, and self. I feel rested. The forecast is for another very hot day (above 90 F). I’ll finish here, and take my coffee out onto the deck, water the garden, and meditate.

The pointless loveliness of a flower is, for me, rich with meaning.

This all feels so… comfortably ordinary. This isn’t a feeling that I’ve spent a lifetime with; it’s new. Well, relatively new. New enough for me to be acutely aware I have not always “lived here” in this way. The takeaway, this morning, is that healing is frankly very possible – for a lot of us, many of us, most of us (perhaps), and that’s incredibly powerful. It requires a lot of self-work, a will to be wholly frank with oneself, open, able to reassess implicit assumptions and biases, skilled at recognizing those internals attacks that hold us back, and tear open old wounds unexpectedly. It sounds like so much to have to take on, and it feels… impossible. Overwhelming. Isolating. Depressing. Devastatingly permanent. At least, at first. Is it weird that getting from hell to my garden has been a journey that begins (again and again) with a breath, and ends on a meditation cushion (again and again), feeling content, and whole? If it ever really ends. I could call yesterday an ending…

…But isn’t this morning a new beginning? Am I not here, beginning again? (I assure you, I am, at least for now, in this mortal life.) It’s been a journey. I’ve had help along the way – and I’ve needed it, and often felt unable to ask for it. Being able to accept it when offered, was an excellent place to start. I pause for gratitude. I think of my Granny. I think of friends. I think of my therapist. I think of my Traveling Partner. I haven’t made this journey alone, except in that limited way in which is happens to be mine.

Dinner with friends last night was celebratory and beautiful. It pushed aside, however briefly, the news I’d gotten moments earlier that my Mother is ill… like… end of life ill. Rejecting care, ill. Wrapping things up, ill. My heart, for the moment, is surprisingly light; she has been, in my life, a source of intellectual inspiration, and I find that I am not able to disrespect her thinking on this important choice in life. I feel the hint of the pain to come, like taking a sickening blow the back of the head – I know the pain is coming, but it isn’t here, yet. I’m okay, right now. We are mortal creatures; even life is something we must let go, sooner or later. I’ll call her later. I’ll find words to say.

Beginnings and endings. Mortality. Choices. One pure moment of real contentment, a spot to stand in life’s chaotic stream that feels calm, for just a moment, one deep breath in, released as a sigh – contentment saved my life. I found I could build and sustain it, and that in doing so, happiness could find me, and I could stop chasing it. It’s not permanent. None of this is.

I’ll always remember my Mother’s age; she’s twenty years older than I am, and the dates are rather close. Easy. I suspect I won’t find it so easy to remember when she passes… 56? 57? 58? When it comes, it is likely to hit a year that seems insignificant in so many other ways… (and let’s be real; most of the details of our individual lives are fairly insignificant) I guess that seems reasonable. Isn’t her life of more value to me, even in its end, that her death ever could be?

Beginnings and endings. Birthdays. We live. We celebrate. We die. “This too shall pass…” Even life. Make it worthy through your choices. Take care of the fragile vessel in which you reside. Love with your whole heart – and yes, include yourself. Be present. These are all choices within your reach… if your baggage is in the way, just shove that shit to the side – and begin again. ❤

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Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, women