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I Woke Up Today!

March 19, 2018 //
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I don’t mean to shout with such delight, but… I did wake up today, though. 🙂 I don’t mean that metaphorically (I don’t think we get to decide, for ourselves, when we are “woke”; the world will tell us if/when – and when we are not). I mean, no kidding, I woke up today, and I’m pretty stoked about that, generally.

My dreams, for the larger part of the night, were so ordinary that I don’t recall them. That last hour of sleep challenged my understanding of everyone I think I know, and it was unpleasant in the extreme. Those dreams didn’t rise quite to the level of “nightmares”, and the visceral emotional content was minimal, but they were vivid, fairly grim to the point of disconnected sort of horror that didn’t kick in until after I woke up. I’m glad I’m awake. I’m glad it is a new day.

I don’t often wake this relieved not to be sleeping.

I’m glad to be awake.

I’m glad to be alive.

I’m glad to have another chance to be the woman I most want to be – or at least do a better job of making the attempt.

Another day, another chance to begin again – it’s enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring

Sipping Coffee, Waking Up

March 14, 2018 //
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This morning, my pain, my tinnitus, the white noise of the furnace blowing through the vents, and the subtle anxiety in the background (as I begin “waiting around” for time to leave for yet another doctor’s appointment), are competing for my attention. My cognitive space feels very busy, but the quality of the content is poor. I sip my very excellent cup of coffee and stare forward into the void, more groggy than calm. There is no action to take in this specific moment aside from sipping coffee, and waking up.

I don’t think I did anything much last night. I’m fairly certain of it, since my recollection seems largely without content. Am I forgetting, or was it that completely uneventful? I wonder for a moment, then my attention wanders to more practical matters. I remind myself to take out the garbage. I consider whether I remembered to take my medication this morning. I notice that I am thirsty. I don’t do anything about any of those, I just sit quietly, sipping my coffee. Later, I’ll head to my appointment, then to the office, and I hope to just sort of slide comfortably into a very routine day from there… and I’d like to wake up. 🙂

The mountain as a metaphor for love; always there in the background, even when I don’t see it. Endlessly beautiful when I am in its presence.

…As I wake, I write a love note to my Traveling Partner, reminiscing fondly about morning coffees together. Another time, perhaps. 🙂 My brain immediately sneak attacks me from behind the calendar reminder about my appointment, and I am forced to face my mortality as tears spill down. What if the news at this appointment is… bad? I let the tears come. It would be hard to say good-bye to a life I am finally starting to learn to live truly well, to value, to appreciate, to experience fully. I’ll have to eventually though, as will we all. We don’t yet have the technology to stop mortality in its tracks. I sip my coffee, eyes stinging with tears, and a weird smile on my face. It’s not a happy one. I feel it from inside. I don’t know this smile. Bitter. Resolved. Hurting. Still standing. Still walking on. Still beginning again.

It was neither sunny nor warm, yesterday evening, but Spring doesn’t seem to care much about that.

…I’ll say this, with great conviction; if I have the opportunity, ever, to know with certainty that the end is imminent? I won’t be spending my last days, weeks, months in a fucking office.

I make a point to breathe, relax, and let that painfully poignant moment go. Emotional weather. I let the small storm pass like a spring shower. Brief and drenching, relieving in some hard to describe way, and I move on somehow refreshed. I’m certainly awake. I sip my… oh, shit. My coffee’s gone.

I can choose to embrace the dawn, or dwell in the evening light.

…It’s a good morning for a second coffee, and a second chance. It’s a good morning to begin again. I may not be able, in this one moment, to save the world… but I can save this one moment in my experience. 🙂 I get up and head for my meditation cushion, on my way to a second coffee. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, health, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Spring

March 13, 2018 //
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Yesterday was lovely. I watched the sunny day unfold beyond the windows at the office and wondered at human foolishness. How is it we imagine that locking ourselves away to “earn a living” instead of being outside on a lovely day makes any damned sense at all? I looked around me any number of times yesterday, feeling fairly certain we’ve got this stuff all wrong.

The first flowers to open in the front border.

The commute home was easy, relaxed, and uneventful. It took the usual 50 or so minutes. I didn’t care about the time, because the time didn’t matter. I was simply enjoying the sunny day. I got home filled with good intentions about being productive around the house, but my inner Agent of Chaos had others ideas. I spent much of the evening meditating, and a great deal of time out on the deck, enjoying the breezes, and the sound of the wind chime. I could have put that time to “good use” in some way, perhaps pruning roses, or sweeping or tidying up the remains of winter, but no; I just enjoyed the feeling of spring. I’m not even complaining; there was nothing I needed to do more, really. 🙂

I woke with difficulty this morning; the time change will take me some days to adjust completely. Sluggish mornings ahead for a couple days, probably. Like this morning. Usually, my feet hit the floor as I turn off the alarm, or I take a moment to stretch before I rise, but alert and aware of myself, more or less. Not so this morning. This morning, I may have woken ahead of the alarm by some moments, but it wasn’t obvious one way or the other. It took me about seven and a half minutes to coax myself out of bed, and I was at risk of falling back to sleep the entire time. Convincing myself to get up was only the beginning. My routines are broken. I fumbled around for half an hour, then remembered to take my medication (usually my feet hit the floor, and it’s either meds then yoga or yoga then meds, but always those two things pretty immediately) sometime midway between turning on lights, and turning on the electric kettle to make coffee. Then I did yoga – and the kettle heated up, clicked off, and I would eventually have to start that all over again. The morning is as inefficient as yesterday evening, but for very different reasons. lol

So here I am. Another day ahead. Another journey in mind. Spring unfolding all around me. I guess it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being

My Results Vary

March 8, 2018 //
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Last night’s commute was an interesting test of my intent to continue and grow as a human being, and learn better skills for experiencing and expressing anger without doing harm, or degrading the quality of life or emotional experience of other beings. Yep. I think it can be done. I see other people doing it. So. Doable. 🙂 I figure my detestable commute is worthy territory for practice, too, because… people piss me off pretty reliably when all I want to do is drive home without bullshit. LOL

As I pulled out of the parking lot at the office, I reminded myself that the goal was to get home safely, skillfully, following traffic rules, remaining within the speed limit, and to do so without “being provoked” by the behavior of other drivers, who are definitely having their own experience. So far so good. Intentions set.

All was well a good portion of the drive, in spite of people just… yeah. Omg. Human beings are not at all at their best on their evening commute, driving in traffic at the end of the day. Everyone seems to be 100% entirely out for themselves without any regard whatsoever for the other human beings literally surrounding them. I pulled up to a stoplight along the way. I stopped. Cars behind me stopped. The empty lane the right, in this instance, in clearly marked in several locations (signage, on the pavement, a reminder literally hanging from the light pole, too) that this is “right turn only” and “traffic in right lane must turn right”. It’s a complicated intersection, but this point is made very clear. The large pick up who pulled up next to me and inched forward a bit at a time was in my periphery, but on my mind; this is a favorite spot for douchebags to attempt to get around waiting traffic for which they, themselves, are too good to endure along with the rest of us. Fuckheads. Yeah, this is a thing that pisses me off enormously. The light turned green, and I purposely, with intent, skill, and my full conscious attention, quickly accelerated to the speed limit and pulled ahead of the truck and through the intersection. Yep. He (I could see him) immediately pulled in behind me, cutting off the less aware/attentive/committed driver behind me. I drove on.

I let it go and drove on. He was still mad, and tail-gating me in his unnecessarily huge truck. Eventually, there was some distance between us, and a couple cars turned into that space. Then end of it, I figured. Nope. I stopped at a light with a left turn only signal – two lanes, the one on the right continuing, the one on the left turning left. Oh, you know where this goes, right? If you were reading along thinking “well, you’re just guessing that he was trying to get around the traffic, maybe he just didn’t see the right turn only, then saw it, and hurriedly pulled into the correct lane? That could happen… so human.” Sure, sure, only… there’s this; with no one in that left turn lane at the time I was waiting for that red light so I could continue? Yep. Who comes hauling ass up that left hand only turn lane? The big pick up. Same truck. He pulled past that line of cars, and even I caught myself thinking “well, finally, he’s turning…”. Nope. He not only didn’t turn, it wasn’t ever his intention to turn. As soon as the left turn light went green he pulled through the intersection around all the stopped traffic – it was only the left turn light that was green, and he took advantage of it. I was, admittedly, immediately enraged. Nothing much I could do about it, and I choked on my anger, struggling to both feel my feelings, and also to behave in the way I most want to do. It was fucking hard. I wanted to scream at him, and I wanted to do him real harm. For an instant, I was viscerally aware why I choose not to own a firearm.

I’m still angry about that guy’s shitty behavior, thinking about it this morning. For me, this is the sort of thing that is representative of the downhill slide of our national culture and society, generally. Entitled inconsiderate douche-baggery. Fuck that guy. Don’t be that guy.

Some distance down the road later, insisting with myself that I breathe deeply, calm myself, and stay focused on skillful safe driving, being attentive, and making “the game of life” about something other than winning at the expense of others, I’d calmed myself and moved on from all that. It was hard. Worthwhile, though, in the sense that I arrived home feeling comfortable in my own skin, not especially stressed out, and actually having already forgotten most of the stress of the commute within minutes of stopping the car. That feels pretty good. I’ll give it another go again today.

Today is a good day to begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

There’s Got to Be a Lesson Here

March 5, 2018 //
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Friday was efficient. Purposeful. Carefully planned. Strictly and professionally executed to plan. Wrapped up neatly with a clear-headed, safe, and calm drive down the highway, arriving at my destination “on time” (meaning to say I got there when I said I would).

Saturday was beyond complete. Spent in the company of close friends and loved ones, the sort of assortment commonly called family by a great many people, it was a day of sunshine, of laughter, of heartfelt worship, of sharing, of celebration, of healing, of wonder, of joy, and of music. It was a fantastic fucking day all around.

Sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I grabbed a nap, knowing I would be heading back up the highway in just a few hours. I woke and enjoyed being surrounded by warmth, good humor, and merriment before packing up the car to make the journey back to this place that I live. I had a good cup of coffee. I shared the morning sunshine. I cuddled dogs, and hugged friends, and held my Traveling Partner so so so close, for an endless moment of such intense love that I feel it still, even now.

What a perfectly lovely weekend!! I sip my Monday morning coffee soaking in the memories, smiling.

I’d kind of like to erase my memory of the drive back…but that’s not really how having a shitty memory actually works. Not quite. Being able to simply choose to erase a memory isn’t so easily done with wisdom, anyway; there’s something to learn here. It’s the hard bits that teach us the most. So.

The drive home sucked. lol It’s that simple. What can I learn from that? What can I learn from the juxtaposition of the deliciously loving weekend with that shit drive? Could I point the finger to having made the trip on less than ideal sleep? (Not really; I was feeling well-rested when I woke, and I was very-well-caffeinated when I started down the road.) Was it the weather? (Clear weather, dry pavement, sunny morning, partly cloudy – so, no.) The traffic? (Traffic was light, and generally moving at or faster than the posted speed, so… it’s hard to say it was the traffic.) Was it… the people? (Here’s where it gets complicated…) I had some of the most hair-raising experiences on this particular commute. I maintained a comfortable (for me) speed without much difficulty, and was generally in good humor and patient about moments of congestion near cities and towns, and I want very much to say it wasn’t the people… because… if it was…? I was one of those, too. Was it… me?

By the end of the drive, it is enough to say, I wasn’t just glad to have parked the car, and finish the journey, I was sort of feeling regretful that there would soon (this morning) be yet another requirement to get behind the wheel at all. :-\ (It was that bad, yeah.) I feel nervous and reluctant. I feel anxious in advance. I feel hesitant and insecure.

Fuck, that was a shitty drive. lol

That drive was also just a blip on life’s radar. Just a moment. A single journey from point to point, and completed demonstrably safely inasmuch as I am safely here, and no collisions, no tickets, nothing “really happened” that had any lingering obvious consequence on the participants of the day. I’m okay right now. I take a deep breath and let it go (again). Making myself mindful that it is behind me, and aware of how spectacular the weekend was in other ways. I think about those things, and make a point of thinking more about them than about the aggravations of the drive back. That’s what works.

A few minutes into this practice, and it becomes easier to acknowledge my own role in the drive back; I was feeling annoyed to be leaving what now feels like home to head to a place that doesn’t at all. To live a life that has begun to feel more lonely than solitary. I was feeling more energetic than enthusiastic about the drive, and that energy was more artificial (caffeine) than natural (mood). I felt a strong visceral sense of real frustration anytime my speed or flow of movement down the highway was impaired or constrained by another driver’s “shitty decision-making” – nearly always defining that as “getting in my way”, without taking any time to consider the scenario from their perspective, what they hoped to achieve, and what the purpose of their decision really was. I was taking shit exceedingly personally – which, by the way, makes for an incredibly crappy drive. Few things feel as irritatingly unpleasant as the perception of a hostile universe undermining my experience in the moment. Few things that feel that unpleasant are also so entirely and completely made up and “all in my head”… right?

There was one guy, one moment, one time out of my weekend driving which clearly was indeed “personal”, intentional, and an attack on my perceived self by another human being (definitely having his own experience) who – rather randomly and at great personal and community risk – slammed on his brakes on the highway, in the fast lane, at high-speed, immediately in front of me, while flipping me off, after I flashed my high beams at him as a request to move to the right hand lane when it was clear (to me) that I was closing in on him pretty fast, and he was “just camping out” in the passing lane with no traffic alongside him, ahead of him, or anywhere near him at all. I did so from many car lengths back. He waited to execute his potentially deadly maneuver until I had closed the distance to about 2 car lengths. When I moved to go around him (figuring slamming into him made a lot less sense) he whipped into that lane immediately ahead of me, still flipping me off. He did this twice more, accelerating, then slamming on his brakes, and blocking my ability to safely get past him. It was clearly personal for him. He was definitely having his own experience. That also happened on the trip down, not the trip back. When I think back on the drive home, there’s really nothing of significance to consider. Turns out, as it happens, my crappy experience yesterday may have been 100% purely entirely my own. I feel the looks of puzzlement and awareness try to form on my face at the same time; that angry man was likely having a shit drive, or a bad day, himself. It wasn’t anything more to do with me than my drive yesterday was really anything to do with anyone but me. Huh.

I laugh and finish my coffee. We covered this in the very beginning, I tell myself, with a smile and a shake of my head. It’s in The Four Agreements. It’s at the top of my reading list. lol

A new day. A new commute. And also – not new, or different, at all. Routine. Practices. I have another chance to be a better human being behind the wheel of my car. So do you. It’s a good day to begin again. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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