Archives for posts with tag: change is
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Bumping Into Schrödinger

July 1, 2016 //
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I’ve had some health concerns on my mind lately. Aging seems to have that effect on people. Last night my traveling partner and I really talked through the concerns I have, what’s to be done, and what else if, and etcetera. My simmering stress and anxiety about my health – and frankly, my mortality – spilled over as hot tears. We shared the moment, comforted each other, moved quickly to one really important super obvious detail; I’m okay right now. We both are.

Are you okay?

Are you okay?

There’s literally not actually anything wrong right now. Sure, maybe at some point in the future, in some doctor’s office or another, somewhen, I may be given some sort of medical diagnosis that presents real risk of shortening my lifespan, or degrading my quality of life. Sure could. Hasn’t. Has not happened yet. It’s (playfully) Schrödinger’s Health Concern, being neither a crisis now, of any certainty, nor clearly and most definitely nothing at all. 🙂 My partner’s great (and very reassuring) perspective calmed me way down – as did taking the time to speak together frankly, intimately, and openly about our individual fears (as well as we know how to), concerns, needs, and to share comforting words, and presence. We moved on comfortably to other things, though I’m sure we’re both still thinking about it more often than we’d like.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

The lovely day today has been a product of good fortune, and good self-care practices, I suppose. I’m dreadfully tired, in the middle of the day. It’s not that strange – I only slept a bit more than 4 hours last night, having stayed up quite late watching a movie. I woke a bit earlier than my usual time, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I spent the early hours on yoga, exercise, and meditation. I went for my walk in the park in the early morning sunshine. It was beautiful. Today has felt ‘easy’, in spite of being short on sleep. Is that due to all the practice, new resilience, good self-care, getting good sleep most of the time, some combination of those things, none of those things – just an unexpectedly effortless pleasant day? (Those exist. They’re lovely.) It doesn’t matter. I enjoy the day quietly. I enjoy it in my garden, and on my patio with coffee. I enjoy it over a few chapters of the book I am reading. I enjoy it while I go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and at the store while I buy coffee. I enjoy the sunshine on my back and the breeze through my hair. I enjoy miles of walking. I enjoy returning home and the opportunity to stop walking, sit down and rest. I enjoy the breathing. I enjoy the thinking. I enjoy the daydreaming. I enjoy the Love. Yeah… just a generally very pleasant day. I sat for a while wondering if some people have a lot of these, and don’t realize that it’s not super common. Then… I wonder if it’s actually quite routine and mundane, and if perhaps I’m the one with the strange experience. Then… I wonder why the hell I am screwing with a lovely sunny summer day with all this strange wondering? So, I enjoy the day.

A summer day as beautiful as a postcard.

A summer day as beautiful as a postcard.

At some point I realized I hadn’t written this morning. I’d forgotten… and then… Well, then I did all that, up there ^^^^^, and here we are. 🙂

The long weekend coming is forecast to be quite beautiful. I’ve a Saturday adventure planned; I am taking the train to a distant farmer’s market, one that I have not been to before. No expectations, besides taking the journey and seeing the sights.

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It’s enough to be, to breathe, to see the sights.

I relax with the moment, and find myself suddenly sleepy. Too late in the day for coffee, far too early to call it a night. Perhaps another walk in the sunshine… Change being what it is, I’ll enjoy what I have now. Summer doesn’t stick around forever, here (at least not in 2016).

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Walk With Me?

May 6, 2016 //
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This menu of choices is pretty vast… Even when life has backed me into a corner, when I’m willing to be honest with myself and willing to open my eyes to opportunities and possibilities previously unconsidered (or even previously discarded), the menu of choices life offers up is indescribably vast, varied, and there for the taking (more often than not). My results have varied – and not just the results of the outcomes of the choices; my own willingness to choose, the nature of what drives the choices, and the inclination to go one direction versus another has varied as well. I walk on, metaphorically, from one moment to the next – change is (very few other things so clearly are).

I woke to sunshine and birdsong this morning, and a lovely sparkling Friday without any specific plan and nothing urgent on my agenda. My ‘to do list’ has things on it like ‘be mindful’, ‘live beautifully’, and ‘enjoy the day’. It’s Friday, and while I am between things and focused on taking care of me, creative endeavors, and figuring out just what exactly the next thing could be, I keep Friday in reserve as ‘a weekend day’ – and why not? My path. I’m the one walking it. I say Friday is a weekend day. 🙂 My ‘new routine’ begins to sort itself out.

It’s nearly 7 am as I write this, and another detail of life these days is the consistency of my morning walk. I’ve loved the commute through the park almost enough to hold on to a job that was slowing tearing me down… keeping the walk makes every bit as much sense as letting the job go. Time to lace up my hiking boots and hit the trail! It’s a lovely bit of paved trail through a very well-kept little park (part recreational and part nature preserve, the meadow is dotted with playgrounds, and the forested trail winds back and forth across the creek), and I can get an easy hike between .5 miles (on days I can barely move) up to 6 miles. It’s a comfortable delight, and very nearby. I take my camera and my monocular.

A detour? An obstacle? An opportunity? A choice.

A detour? An obstacle? An opportunity? A choice.

There are a lot of choices in living well, in taking care of this fragile vessel, and in nurturing the being of light within. I get to make most of them myself. I take a moment to pause and appreciate what that really means for me as an individual, and what it can mean for my tribe, my community, my culture, and my world… choice is a big deal; we guide change with our choices. That seems fairly obvious a thought. I finish lacing up my boots and head out in search of wiser words, and more insightful thinking… today is a good day to be aware of how many choices I have, and to give thought to how I change the world through my choices. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Change the Thinking…

April 28, 2016 //
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…Change the experience. It definitely does seem to work that way. This does not diminish the effect of a changing experience also similarly being one route to changing my thinking, this seems quite true, too. How I experience my experience, and what my experience happens to be, influences my thinking… and my thoughts influence my experience, or at least some qualities about it.

I had a ‘what now??’ sort of moment yesterday, walking from one place to another, when I noticed that my face ached rather peculiarly. I took a moment to consider the sensation without panic, and without leading myself astray with fearful thoughts about aging and health. Yep. My face aches. At the edges of my jaw mostly, and a bit more toward my cheeks also, and this is a new development… I consider it further and bust out laughing out loud, startling some geese. Sure my face hurts… I’m smiling that much. I have been smiling, just… smiling… so much since I left my job that my face hurts! That’s a hell of a ‘reality check’ on a major life decision.

Yesterday passed quickly, and also seemed vaguely timeless and enduring. It was a pleasant day and I got quite a few things done. By the end of the day, I was feeling a bit as if the day were not productive, although looking back I no longer understand why. I made room for those feelings, and didn’t beat myself up over it; I accepted that by some definitions of productive, I wasn’t, and also made a point of recognizing that I was, myself, entirely content with what I did get done. This morning as I moved through the apartment, I am struck by how much I got done yesterday, as seen when I look at things with “new eyes”. Awareness really matters. Perspective remains very helpful. “Enough” is achievable.

My traveling partner and I celebrate 5 years this weekend. The thought puts a smile on my face that lights up my heart from within. I may not write over the weekend; my attention will be on Love. We have plans, and I’m very excited about celebrating love with this being I hold in such high regard… Any excuse to hang out together, really. lol 🙂

Today is still Thursday, and an entire day away from the start of the weekend. There are Thursday things to do, some verbs to choose from, and I’ve got a list of all the many things to do that can be done. Looking ahead to the weekend makes it to the list, but it’s well down past mundane chores like ‘take out the trash’, ‘do the laundry’, and ‘do the dishes’.  Much higher up on my list of things to do today are ‘live beautifully’ and ‘enjoy the day’… those seem pretty important, too. 🙂

Today is a good day to stop and smell the roses.

Today is a good day to stop and smell the roses.

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

Don’t Forget the Unexpected!

April 20, 2016 //
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It’s a cool spring morning, and I’ve opened the windows facing the park to let the morning air refresh this space, which had become a bit stuffy during the night. I am feeling more or less content, and fairly well-prepared for changes to come. My back is aching more than usual, and I find myself stalled by that experience for a moment, when movement becomes unpleasant and I fully notice the pain; I breathe deeply, and make a point of letting that go, and redirecting my attention back to the cool morning air that has begun to swirl around my feet as the room cools off.

My traveling partner will soon be actually traveling, other plans, near-future events, work… does it matter why? Not in the slightest, and I already ache with missing his presence. It’s been lovely sharing this lovely space with him. That’s okay too; it’s a powerful love we share, and I definitely feel the tug of my heart’s yearnings when he is away, it’s only reasonable. Wait… is it only ’emotionable’, more accurately? Why isn’t that a word? Reason has little to do with the ache I feel when love is not near at hand. lol Still, with that ache comes ample opportunity to explore the wilderness of my own soul, to study, to meditate, and to paint, and I am eager to embrace that opportunity, as it serves me so well to do so. Mixed emotions. Good coffee, though, and I find considerable comfort in ordinary pleasures.

…Coming home tonight will be… weird. Solitary. Certainly, I’ve missed that for a few weeks, but… I already miss him, and he hasn’t left yet. LOL

I think ahead through the plans for the remainder of the week, and for the beginning of next week. Changes. I contemplate my daily routine, and what to keep, what to change, after my last day of work, and how to structure my time to meet more needs, better… Change doesn’t require me to keep my eyes closed, quite the contrary; life feels well-lived when I am awake and aware.

Just enjoying the journey.

Just enjoying the journey.

Today is a good day to live, eyes wide with wonder. Today is a good day to enjoy the world.

 

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Well, What Happened Was This…

April 19, 2016 //
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…I woke this morning feeling especially appreciate of leisure time in the mornings, very aware that the future may be built on a different routine. My anxiety comes and goes, in general, and seems more or less well-managed, though I’d be more than happy to dispense with it entirely and simply be. I’m still working on that one.

I sat down at my desk with some thoughts in mind, and a very good cup of coffee, and was immediately thwarted by The Grand Distraction – no, not Facebook, but close; Google. Yep. Google politely advised me that I had exceeded my storage limit between going to bed and waking up… (wth??) and I was sternly warned by an alarming red font, bold, and highlighted, that I was at risk of not being able to send or receive email!

Now, realistically, that’s not much of a legitimate crisis, and could have been managed at some point other than ‘now’ – but I am not wired that way, and all the practice over many years has not yet changed my lack of impulse control in some areas much at all… I immediately went into overdrive, deleting redundant files, cached images, copies of copies, archives duplicated elsewhere, saved folders of unsorted zipped images… until…at last… Google grudgingly admitted I am once again under my limit. It was not all that mysterious; I had the benefit of “50 Gigs of free storage with the purchase of a…”, and recently relied upon that to copy precious files while my OS was updated – just in case – and entirely overlooked deleting those copies, and then… last night… my “50 Gigs of free storage [for one year]…” expired. Check the fine print. 🙂

Life is full of fine print. Be sure to read it. 🙂

Much of my leisurely morning is… gone. Filled. Used up. Completed. It is in the past, already. I’m pretty certain I didn’t put the time to the best possible use – or the most fulfilling. I’m irked with Google over it, although it is hardly their issue that I still react as often as I respond to life’s small challenges. There’s a lesson worth studying there.

Today is an ordinary enough work day. My last day at my current job will be Friday. Feels a bit strange to simply say so. Choosing to make this change is more than a little scary, too. I want to feel more certain that I am doing ‘the right thing’… but… there are more than a few ‘right things’ I could choose to do, each very dependent on how I view the circumstances, the options, the opportunities, and what matters most.  What does matter most? Is it healthcare – or cash flow? Is it contentment – or financial gain? Is it fulfillment – or being prepared for retirement? Is it meeting my own needs over time – or providing for my family now? Is it “always” a choice?  (Quick answer – no; most uses of ‘always’ or ‘never’ can be safely assumed to be hyperbole, resulting in logical fallacy, being immediately ‘not true’ because it takes just one exception to disprove them. Still…always a best practice to test your assumptions. There. Enjoy that.)

Life goes on about its business in a mostly very usual way, in spite of the fierce storm of change so imminent on my horizon. I find myself generally fairly calm, hopeful that ‘it all works out’… getting enough leisure to take care of me, finding out my health concerns may be more easily addressed than I feared perhaps, then conveniently falling into a dream job well before cash reserves run out… I know one thing – there are verbs involved.

Although it was a busy day, there was time for the garden. "Baby Love" blooms first this year.

Although it was a busy day, there was time for the garden. “Baby Love” blooms first this year.

Today is a good day to recognize that change is, and to enjoy ‘now’.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being
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