Archives for posts with tag: being and becoming

Tough day at the office.

I put on a new playlist, one with beats and edges and emotions – all of the emotions. I let it carry me from here to there. It covers a lot of emotional ground, highs and lows and inbetweens. I dance. I manage some housekeeping along the way. I medicate. I cry a few tears that weren’t at all about me.

I dislike endings, even though they are no more permanent than the beginnings are, and with few exceptions, generally precede beginnings. I take time to feel the weight of the truth of it. This too shall pass – a helpful thought. Change is. We don’t always choose it, sometimes it just shows up to the party uninvited.

I don’t mean to be vague-book-y at all here, truly I don’t. There were some organizational changes made at work. I lost a team member. Funny thing about that, though; I’ve grown. Some of my colleagues are my friends. He’s one such, and so – my heart loses nothing. I dig working alongside this guy. He’s sharp. Get’s it. He’s got a good heart, and a lot of commitment and skill. It will suck not seeing him already working when I get in each Tuesday. I will have to go digging each Monday for the information he always provided me in his hand-off each week. But, and this is real and so important, we’re friends. There’s nothing lost there. I’m still here. He’s still here. We’ve got each other’s numbers. lol There’s nothing to see Β here, besides change, and change is always with us.

I still cried. I did. Yep. (I’m grateful I didn’t have to break it to him. I had it easy.) Change is a thing, but fucking hell – we’re a fantastic team at this. I miss him already. I worry whether he’s okay. We are friends; I want to help. I smirk at myself in a moment of honesty; now I have to do verbs to maintain this friendship. I can’t just show up to the office.

Tomorrow will be different. It also won’t be the end of my work week. So much change for one week… I gotta get some rest, though. Soon I’ll have to begin again.

Got that splinter removed. πŸ™‚

 

 

I woke to the sound of the rain. I found it a soothing counterpoint to my lingering horror over yesterday’s acts of domestic terrorism, racism, and violence. I enjoy the rain. I opened all of the windows to let in the fresh rain-washed breeze. Same number of windows here as in the last place, but here the breeze more easily finds its way in. I stand sipping my coffee in the patio doorway. I stand because one must stand for something; the metaphor reassures me, and gives me something steady to lean on, for a moment.

It’s been a long fight, hasn’t it? For all of us, I mean. Hanging on. Hanging in there. Fighting for change. Let it rain. Our tears, each of us, all of us, matter in this moment; fight on. Fight on, and let it your tears fall like rain. Rage against hate, weep for the pain of it. Weep for the lost. Weep for the wounded. Never forget? Never forgotten. Share your story. With no one coming to save us, we must save ourselves.

I remind myself to get some rest; it’s a long fight ahead. Lessons to learn. Lessons to teach. Experiences to have – so many we must each have our own. We’ll need to begin again. We’ll need all the verbs we can handle. Our results will vary – but incremental change over time is real, reliable, and we become what we practice.

I sip my coffee, and listen to the rain fall.

It’s a lot to take in, and I’m not sure what to say about any of it. Terrible. There’s a word. Overwhelming. Unnecessary. Heinous. All words. All fitting. I just… can’t. I feel struck by it. I’m not at all prepared – and perhaps not qualified – to write about any of this. So, perhaps another time? A different topic?

I don’t want to point this out, but it’s a thing, and part of what is making me struggle with all of it so much; in six months, if you read this post, you will have to look up the events of the date to be certain what I am referencing. That sucks beyond what I have words for.

…Any of this should be so much more significant, so unacceptably significant, that it would drive real lasting change. How terrible that it isn’t, and doesn’t.

So human.

This morning, I wrote, as I do, but to a dear friend, only. It met my own needs, and I considered no others this morning. Huh. Still human.

The other day, I got poked by a rose thorn, but thought nothing of it; roses have thorns, it’s a thing people know about. Today I am fussy and irritated by the discomfort of the thorn still lodged in the pad of my index finger, rather inconveniently precisely where my finger strikes the keys of my keyboard. I don’t actually do anything about the thorn, I just bitch about the discomfort. Still human.

I read the news, get caught up, feel annoyed with myself for wasting precious limited lifetime on media bullshit, again, knowing it messes with my head for hours, sometimes days. I sometimes do it anyway, even to the point of reading and rereading the same news, covered the same way, by nearly identical media outlets, multiple times…until I finally notice I’m learning nothing new, and don’t even actually care. Still human.

I make a cup of chamomile tea to enjoy as the evening winds down, and can’t quite enjoy it, either because it is still too hot to drink, or perhaps because now I don’t understand why I didn’t make coffee, which I’ve already had more than enough of today…but I don’t know which, and don’t move to change anything. Still human.

I distract myself from all of these things with thoughts of love, and loving, and feeling grateful to be so well-loved, and so thoroughly accepted – and then distract myselfΒ againΒ with my disappointed recollection that my Traveling Partner still has not made it over to see my new place once… Which… well, he’s hundreds of miles away, and has only been within an hour’s driving time of this address for about 24 hours in the past 5 (6?) weeks, so it’s not really a realistic expectation. Still disappointed. Still human.

It’s a life. My life. It’s not the life I had 7 years ago. Hell, it’s not the life I had 3 years ago. It’s a pretty good life. I’m content – and this is true nearly all of my time, even moment-to-moment, generally. That’s… yeah, so much beyond what I could have hoped for a decade ago. Sure, it’s taken awhile, and I’m still so very human. Still have ups that are too far up. Still have downs that are scary far down. Still have many moments and emotions in between the extremes. It’s a life. My life. I’m very human.

Just one moment of many

Tomorrow, I’ll begin again.