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Pain & Winter Weather

February 19, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee on a rainy winter morning, feeling cross and irritated and in considerable pain. It’s the pain making me so cranky, but it’s “only” my osteoarthritis (and my perpetual headache), and there’s not much to do about it, really. I live with this. A lot of people live with pain, that’s a real thing. I sigh to myself, as I pull my posture more upright. It helps a tiny bit, though barely noticeable in the moment. The moments add up. I’m grateful to have gotten a good night’s sleep. I’m grateful to have what limited Rx pain relief available to me that I do (and am willing to use).

My reflection stares back at me from the window; it’s not yet daybreak, and I see a middle-aged woman with slightly tousled carelessly-kept long hair, glasses, wrapped in a warm (if a bit frumpy) sweater, looking back at me. She looks pleasant and approachable, relaxed, with a soft smile hinting at a life well-lived, and maybe some interesting stories to tell. She looks just a bit… amused. I don’t see the pain, just the smile, which reaches her eyes. At the corners of her eyes and her smile, laugh lines, no frown lines. She looks… capable. She looks ready for the day and unbothered. I find myself liking what I see reflected there in the window. I sigh again and think “you’ll do”, and take another sip of my coffee. I’m not at all sure how I got “here” – it’s been a difficult journey in spots, and I’ve often wandered off my path – but I’m okay with where I am, and that feels like a win.

I sip my coffee thinking about friends. Thinking about love. Thinking about errands I need to run. I think about hearth and home and all the things that add up to this life I live. It’s not perfect; there’s the pain, obviously. That’s its own difficult experience. I try not to take it personally. Things could be so much worse. Instead of living with this pain, I could have rejected having the surgery to repair my shattered spine, and taken a chance on things “just healing up” more or less, and most likely ended up in a wheel-chair, unable to walk at all. It can be hard to trust the opinion of an expert; we live in cynical times. I’m glad I did – I walk every day, and often see the sunrise from some favorite trail. The pain seems like a price worth paying for that privilege, most of the time. My irritation slips away. I chose this with my eyes open. I may not have understood the full measure of the price I’d be paying when I lay there sedated in the ICU so many years ago, but I knew there’d be a price. TANSTAAFL.

One cold winter night 40 years ago, I ran from a knife wielding man to save my own life. I took the only route available to me, that I could see in the moment, which led me to dangling from a balcony rail, dangerously high above a beautiful tiled patio, slick with ice. That man was my then-husband, who rushed to the balcony to plead with me not to let go. I looked back at him in a moment of unexpected clarity and calm, aware of my agency in a new way. The choice was mine. “I have to,” I said, and I did. The explosion of light in my head and the sudden pain that shot through me and my breath knocked out of my body overcame me only for seconds before adrenaline and terror drove me to my feet to seek help. It was a moment of profound change. One choice. One moment.

I sit with my thoughts a while. “I had no other choice” is reliably a lie. We have choices (many) – I know I’ve made a lot of them. Probably the worst choice(s) I’ve ever made? Telling myself I’ve no other choice, and and following the path that took me down. The menu in The Strange Diner is immense. We choose, on our own, to keep it folded, and to narrow our options willfully. Refusing to consider all the options is also a choice.

We’re born “a blank page”, and although we have little to say about our introduction to life, we have so many choices as we grow, and more once we are adult and free to do as we will. What will you do with it? The menu in The Strange Diner is impressively vast. What will you choose? Will you make your world (and your life) a better place in which to thrive? Will you walk a path that leads you somewhere beautiful? Will you take the steps that carry you to becoming the person you most want to be? Who is that? What will your legacy be? You have choices. Choose wisely. Pay the price. Don’t take the pain personally.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

12 Years Ago, I Found Out

December 17, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee in the quiet of the office, quite early. It was raining too hard to walk in the darkness. Honestly, it was raining too hard to walk. I would not have enjoyed it, and enjoying it is at least part of my intention, each morning, each walk. So I made the drive in to the office, early. I took time to meditate. I made coffee. I had some oatmeal. I walked the halls of the building, a bit, just to stretch my legs and be in motion. I feel stiff. It’s the arthritis, most likely. My head aches. Probably my neck. My tinnitus is loud. It is what it is, eh? A very human, very mortal, experience, and I guess I’m okay with it. There are not presently “other alternatives” from which I’d care to choose something else. I’ve got this, it’s okay, and it’s enough.

I sip my coffee thinking about a note on my calendar I spotted this morning. It reminds me that 12 years ago tomorrow was the day I found out the details of my (most serious) TBI. A head injury in the 1970s that wiped most of my memory, and set back my cognitive and intellectual (and emotional) progress considerably, but which my parents sort of… “kept from me”. I don’t remember the injury itself (hell, I don’t remember most of my life from before that injury, either, mostly just a strange assortment of third person stories told to me by other family members is what I’ve got in the place where my own memory should be, and damned few of those). I do remember having to go to speech therapy. I remember suddenly needing glasses, and being profoundly light sensitive and having a lot of headaches. I remember getting terrible grades in school, when I’d always had good grades “before”.

I found out about my adolescent TBI 12 years ago, because I was in such despair that as I approached 50 taking my own life seemed a rational “solution”, but I’d made myself a promise to give therapy one more try (it was the last item on my to-do list), and I was trying to get into a PTSD clinical trial for a new treatment. In considering my application for that trial, they turned up the microfiche records of an emergency room visit and hospital admission for my (serious) head injury. It was… news to me. The new information simultaneously explained a lot, and also brought a ton of new questions with it. Pieces fell into place – which was useful – but I suddenly also felt like I “didn’t know myself”, and that the entire context of my adolescence and early adult life was completely different than I’d understood it to be. My whole sense of “who I am” felt changed.

…The information did nothing to reduce my feeling of despair, and may have actually deepened it. It also very nearly cost me my relationship with my Traveling Partner; we were neither of us certain that I was even truly competent to be in the relationship we shared at all, with this information available to us. I was so close to giving up…

A short time later, I started this blog. A short time after that, I found a new therapist, and started a new healing journey with a completely different understanding of where I stood as I began it.

The note on my calendar asks me to consider it, and some questions – a note from past me to me here, now.

  1. Is the knowledge still important to me?
  2. What does it mean to me now?
  3. What does the knowledge add to, or take from, my every day experience?
  4. How do I make use of this knowledge in a productive way, today?
  5. Does knowing this about myself improve how I treat myself, or other people?

Deep. Worthy of reflection. I sip my coffee and consider the questions, as I consider that past moment when I found out. The tone of compassionate regret in the voice of the woman on the phone advising me I could not be accepted into their clinical trial for a PTSD treatment because of my history of head trauma. My feeling of surprise, of curiosity, of sorrow, of deepening despair. The call to my mother later to ask about it, and that painful moment when she hung up on me rather than discuss it. The hurt. None of that feels particularly difficult or visceral now, but it was so hard to live those moments 12 years ago. Now it’s just… information. Part of the background. Historical data. A step on a path.

This particular head injury wasn’t the only head trauma I sustained (it’s tempting to say something flippant about domestic violence being a kick in the head, but it’s not actually funny, at all), but it was new information 12 years ago, and it did lead me to consider things differently, and to learn more about what the potential consequences of such things really could be. It pushed me to consider different kinds of therapy, for problems other than PTSD. It let me put other injuries and traumatic events into a bigger picture that was more complete. It let me get therapy and rehabilitative support that I’d never been offered (or able to accept) before – and never known to ask for, or seek out. I wasn’t sure it would help to try to rehabilitate a head injury that was decades old…

(tl;dr – it totally did, a lot)

…It’s a strange path that we each walk, is it not? A journey with no map, no clear destination, sometimes a poor understanding of the starting point as we begin is… a very strange thing, indeed. The journey is the destination. I feel grateful for the many chances I’ve had (and taken) to begin again. I’m grateful for every sunrise I see, and every sunset I’m fortunate to enjoy at the end of a day. There’s no knowing how much time we get in this mortal life. I’m glad I didn’t end mine prematurely; it’s been a worthy journey so far. I hope to go much further. There’s so much left to do, to see, and to feel. So many more beginnings to undertake, and practices to practice, and also… I’ve got this list of shit to do, and the holidays ahead. lol It’s time. Again. Time to begin again. Time to walk my path. Time to practice the practices that have helped me along the way for the past 12 years.

It’s been so very worth it.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, Turning 50, turning 60, women

Risk and Trauma

November 30, 2024 //
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Trigger warning: domestic violence.

Yesterday was weird and difficult, although I never figured out why I was so fragile and irritable (yesterday). I definitely was, though, and it was definitely me. My Traveling Partner had helped set up the day so I could paint, or decorate the tree, but my irritability quickly made painting unlikely; I don’t like the work I produce from that headspace. Then, after another load of Thanksgiving dishes were done (almost finished with all that!), we started discussing the Giftmas plan, and the placement of the tree (conveniently already in the car), and realized the one we have has too big a “footprint” and doesn’t give my partner enough room to get around (a temporary condition, but a thing we’ve got to account for this year).

We measured. We talked. We shopped (online – no way was I eager to go out into the world the Friday after Thanksgiving). We finally found a tree that met our shared needs well. Later we figured out a better place for it, too. Somehow, as successful as all that was, it didn’t improve my irritability, which continued to lurk in the background. Sure enough, I eventually lost my temper, and it was predictably enough over feeling both micromanaged and also unsupported. Rough. I’m not even sure I was “wrong”, though I definitely did an absolutely crappy job of communicating my feelings and my needs, before, during, and after. Shit.

(It wasn’t about any of that.)

We got past it. I never did stop feeling irritable, but I succeeded (if it can be called a success) in keeping it to myself for the rest of the evening. It sucked, and somehow I still have yet more dishes to do.  My Traveling Partner suggested I ask the Anxious Adventurer for help with the dishes. Honestly, while I’d love the help (and appreciate it any time he does the dishes), what I want is for him to do the dishes because they need to be done, and he lives here, and he’s part of the family, and it matters for our shared quality of life, and he’s a responsible fucking adult. I don’t want to have to ask. I loathe the assumption that it’s somehow “my job”. I’m neither his mother, nor am I the g’damned maid. But that feels like a discussion for another time, and I squelch it, again, and let it go.

(It wasn’t about that either.)

I left the house early, this morning, and noticed the neighbors had taken their trash cans to the curb, so I put ours out too. (Sometimes it’s hard to figure out holiday trash pickup.)

I had the highway to myself on the way to the trailhead, which felt like a luxury, and my latent irritability began to dissolve. It got me thinking about what life would be like entirely alone. An interesting thought exercise… We are social creatures by nature. We form families, tribes, communities, and societies. We gather in groups and build cities. We distribute labor for sustained efficiency. A solitary human being alone in the world would be at much greater risk. How would one human being be able to know enough? To do enough? A primitive life would probably be the best one human being could do alone, and without the shared skills and effort of a group, the risk of some small misadventure becoming a fatality is pretty significant. Bitten by a snake or a dog in our modern social connected world? Go to a hospital or call 911, or rely on bystanders for aid. You’ll likely survive. Alone in a solitary world, you’re probably more likely to die. We rely on each other so much. Even our precious solitude and solitary experiences are supported in some way by the fact that other people exist. Think about it awhile. Solo hike through the wilderness? Okay – how about the car that got you to the trailhead? The gear and provisions you carry? Or what about being “magically alone” in some great beautiful library? Who wrote the books? Where does the light to read by come from? What will you eat and drink?

I drive on thinking about interdependence, interconnectedness, and my fondness for solitude in spite of how much I truly rely on others. Eventually my thoughts bring me again and again to the safety and risk reduction inherent in family… and how damaging the trauma of domestic violence really is. That damage lasts. Is that what all of this has been? My PTSD? It’s the fucking dishes triggering me?? G’damn it.

It’s been many decades since I lived in terror within my home environment – that’s the nightmare of domestic violence; home is not safe. (It wasn’t then, it is now.) My brain and chemistry were altered by those experiences, perhaps permanently. I still sometimes struggle to feel safe in the one context where my safety should feel most secure, at home with my family. I still have nightmares. I still deal with the chaos and damage. I still bear the emotional and physical scars of that violence, although it was more than 30 years ago. I still lose my shit over the fucking dishes in the sink out of a fear of harm I don’t even detect because it has become part of the noise in the background of my consciousness. Nearly a lifetime between me and that nightmare, and I still deal with the damage done, and still crave the seeming safety of solitude. Worse, I’m aware that my broken brain and lingering chaos and damage inflict new wounds on those dear to me now. That’s shitty – and seeking solitude doesn’t prevent it, or heal the damage done.

… Dishes in the sink still cause me intense stress and a fear reaction that hides in the background of my consciousness…

G’damn, fuck that violent psychopath and the damage he’s done. Sometimes it’s hard to forgive and move on. I earnestly hope he rots in his own vision of hell for an eternity that the human mind can’t fathom. I hope he gains real understanding of the damage he did and has to live with the awareness of it until his dying day, with regret that never eases, and guilt like an itch he can’t scratch.

… And I hope I learn to forgive myself for how hard it is to heal, and the damage I’ve done to everyone who has ever loved me since then. I know it’s a lot. Every now and then it takes me by surprise and I have to face it all over again. Healing takes time and it’s a long journey. It can feel too long, sometimes. I sigh quietly. I breathe, exhale, and relax. My Traveling Partner is right; it’s important to be vulnerable, to trust, to communicate. If I don’t say how some of these experiences affect me the way they do, I just look like a headcase and hurt the people around me needlessly. They aren’t mind readers. They weren’t there then.

… And I’m not there, then, now. I’m here, and I’m safe, and it’s okay to trust love and feel safe at home. It just needs more practice. I’ve got to begin again.

I walk down the trail thinking about how safe I am at home with my Traveling Partner. I think about his enduring love and patience. I think about how much he cares and how horrified he is, himself, over what I’ve been through – and how angry. I let myself take comfort in his anger at the man (men) who mistreated me and did so much damage. I let myself feel wrapped in the protection and safety of his love. I think about our cozy home together. The charm of the holidays. Who we are together when my chaos and damage don’t rise to the surface. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I keep walking. It’s a journey. The journey is the destination. Ancient pain and trauma are in the past. Love is now. I’m okay now.

We become what we practice.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, grief, Love, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, women

Triggered

August 18, 2024 //
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If you have PTSD or cPTSD, what follows may be painfully familiar, and I’m sorry in advance. Maybe skip this one? I don’t want to cause harm. Consider this a trigger warning (I’ll be talking about PTSD and domestic violence).

… I honestly don’t know whether to begin “at the beginning”, or quite when that beginning might actually be. I’m writing while also still triggered, slowly working through my anxiety and stress, and trying to find my way to a calmer place. I have the tools to manage the moment, and I feel pretty confident in the potential that I can, but it’s no easy thing. My heart is still pounding, and I can feel that my breathing is irregular, shallow, somewhere between hyperventilating and struggling to breathe. The first mile of my walk passed quickly, feet hitting the pavement too hard, pace unsustainably aggressive. I finally stop, sit, and work on properly calming myself.

For some context, after a week of providing approximately 24/7 caregiving to my Traveling Partner recovering from surgery, with few breaks, and no opportunity for deep restful sleep (or even more than 2-4 hours at a time, simply due to the timing of medication), I was exhausted, struggling with short-term memory and moments of confusion. I was also dealing with grief, having lost a cherished family member mid-week, and reconfronting the loss of my Dear Friend in the spring on the date of her celebration of life. My self-care was coming up short in places, just due to distractions and fatigue-driven stupidity.

In the evening last night, my Traveling Partner very kindly proposed that he felt up to making sure to take his medication through the night, and suggested I just get some sleep. Beyond grateful (and feeling very loved) I accepted. I even set my wake up time for a little later than usual, to be sure to get the rest I needed. I didn’t manage to sleep through the night, still waking briefly each time my partner woke up and got out of bed, and once because a laxative I had taken decided to do its thing at 04:00 in the morning. (I got a lot more sleep than I’ve been getting for the past 10 days or so, and it seems enough.)

I was soundly deeply asleep when I heard a soft voice ask me to join him in the bathroom. In my sleeping state, the voice sounded “sweetly menacing”, and seemed to me to be the voice of my first husband. A cold chill descended over me, my mouth went dry even as I immediately began getting out of bed. I don’t recall whether I replied or what I said. My consciousness felt paralyzed with dread. (Had I only dreamt my life with my Traveling Partner? Was I still trapped in a living nightmare?) I was already triggered before my Traveling Partner could even speak to me. He was stressed out, himself; one of his meds had just run out completely, which he discovered while preparing his meds for the day ahead. On a Sunday. He was panicking and needed my support – but I was also responsible for him running out of the medication! I’d been tasked with – and accepted responsibility for – ensuring his meds were timely, and available, and that he takes them. His panic expressed itself as anger, or that’s how it reached my still disoriented brain. Triggered and unsure where/when I was, I panicked, too. I fled. I took immediate action in the direction of getting that Rx filled, somehow. I wasn’t thinking efficiently or clearly.

He phoned me feeling angry and left without care. Reasonable, frankly. He gently asked me to come back, make coffee, and make a clear plan, together. I did that, dragging myself through every step, still thoroughly triggered and drenched in stress, dread, terror… None of it “real”. (No one likes being yelled at first thing when they wake, and also, no one wants to begin a Sunday discovering their partner allowed a critical medication to run out!) Nothing about the actual lived experience today actually justifies the headspace I find myself in; this is mental illness. PTSD. I’m a domestic violence survivor. Managing that these days sometimes feels like an afterthought, but this morning it’s way too fucking real.

I made coffee for my Traveling Partner, we settle on an action plan, and I leave the house, again. I’m definitely a threat to his calm and healing time in the condition I’m presently in, and I need time and space to calm myself and get re-anchored to “now”. My stress and anxiety multiply with my shame over failing my partner.

… The pharmacy opens at 10:00…

I hit the trail hard. Aggressive footsteps slamming the ground at an unsustainable (for me, now) pace. I walk myself breathless. I can’t tell if my heart is pounding with the exertion or my anxiety. My first mile passes quickly, unnoticed. I’m stuck in my own head.

I stop, finally, and sit for a minute. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Be here now.” I remind myself. For most values of “okay”, I am okay right now. No one is chasing me. There is no imminent threat. Fuck PTSD. I hate this shit. How am I so terrified right now?

… I remind myself how rare it is to have to face this crap, these days…

I write a while. Meditate. Breathe. Work on calming myself. I reflect on the relationship I have with my Traveling Partner, his gentleness, his love, and our life together. “Be here now.” Now is okay. No physical violence. No being awakened in the night to be beaten. No torture. For most values of okay, I am okay right now. I save my draft and walk on, realizing I really need to pee.

I walk on more gently. I’m still seeking calm. I’m still pretty fucked in the head. My heart is heavy with the stress and hurt that I have caused my partner. It’s incredibly difficult to make amends for this sort of thing and it’s hard to overstate the damage it can do.

I breathe, exhale, and relax (well, I try; I’m still working on that).

I notice the sunshine, the blue sky, the birdsong. I notice the swarm of rally cars in the parking lot as I reach the trailhead. I think about how far I’ve come and how much time has actually passed since my living nightmare ended… 30 years? Hasn’t it been long enough to really let it go?

Brain damage and PTSD… That’s a lot to ask a partner to deal with. I find myself wondering why he stays, and can’t help recognizing that he must love me deeply to endure so much. I’ve managed to fail him too often over these months of injury (and now recovery), and it doesn’t seem fair to him. Good intentions aren’t enough, and sometimes doing my best won’t get the job done. That’s fucking awful and way too g’damned real. I curse my ex under my breath as I walk… but the responsibility for doing more/better now is mine, 100%.

I walk and think and prepare to begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Frustration, gratitude, health, Love, meditation, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized

Long-Term Consequences

January 15, 2024 //
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Many many years ago, in what now feels like an altogether different life, lived as if by an entirely different person, I made a choice to “save my own life” through extreme means (in that moment). My ex-husband was coming after me with a very large knife, in a small apartment in Germany. The front door was locked from the inside, and I could not open that door to escape down the stairwell. I dashed to the patio, barely ahead of him, and rolled over the balcony rail. He reached me as I dangled there in that moment between actions, and his face wore a look of astonishment and alarm, “Don’t!” he demanded urgently. “I have to,” I said quietly, and then I let go.

I hit the slick paved patio below quite hard. My ears rang, I felt something snap. I “saw” an explosion of lights behind closed eyes. I felt nauseatingly dizzy. I saw him looking down, then retreating from the balcony rail quickly – I knew he was on his way and I panicked. I jumped up from the pavement, disregarding all sensations, and climbed a fence and a hedge to get to the nearest neighbor whose lights were on. I couldn’t remember a word of German in that moment other than “polizei”, and so that’s who they called. The police arrived, locked and loaded, and told the neighbors (whose English was better than my German) that an ambulance from the American hospital had been called. The police went after my ex husband, and once they found him he was arrested.

When the ambulance arrived, the medics quickly determined I’d likely broken my back (and there I was sitting upright in a lawn chair, flexing my spine uncomfortably and commenting that I could not figure out why I was so “uncomfortable” – I didn’t understand that I was in shock). They insisted I be still. They put me on a back board, and on a stretcher, and rushed me to the ER. I wasn’t there long, barely long enough for X-rays, and for the Military Police investigators to arrive to interview me, while the doctor reminded them that I was heavily medicated and badly injured, and to keep their questions to a minimum. A helicopter arrived, and I was medevacked to the big regional Army hospital to the north, where there was a larger team more capable of treating spinal injuries. That was when I realized I was actually badly injured. The flight was short, and the strange air mattress they had me on was more comfortable than the back board or the hospital bed. When we arrived at the big hospital ER, they went to take me off that air mattress (I guess it belonged with the helicopter) and I cried and pleaded that they please let me stay on it. I still didn’t know “how bad it was” (or wasn’t) and I was starting to feel pain, again.

…It was pretty bad. My back was broken in two places, a spinous process from one smashed vertebrae had gotten shoved into my spinal canal, and I had a concussion and a broken wrist. I’d be in that hospital for a couple of months after 16+ continuous hours of surgery to fuse the damaged vertebrae and install bizarre and uncomfortable hardware to hold those surgical sites still while healing happened. (A year later, that hardware would all come out… except for a ferrous surgical wire that to this day prevents me having an MRI; the wire was woven through the fusion to hold things together.) I’ve got a long scar down my spine, a visible reminder, and an uglier, shorter one on my left hip where the bone grafts were taken to build my fusion. I don’t care about the scars; I lived. I’m still walking.

Funny thing about all of this; the longer term consequences were not within view. I had no idea that I would struggle to form healthy attachments or build trust with lovers, possibly ever again. I didn’t know that the nightmares would plague me for decades to come – some to do with the domestic violence, some to do with the medical terror of the surgery itself, during which the medical team had to wake me up to verify that I was responding to stimuli. There have been few things more openly terrifying in my life than being awake during spinal surgery, intubated, on life support, surgical incisions open, and being asked questions that required answers. There have been other consequences… the pain of my arthritis reminds me regularly of the choice I made. A choice to live, sure, but also… a choice that came with profound consequences. I paid a high price for this life of mine.

I pause for a moment to reflect on the value of a life. This life. My life. The choice I made to keep it, to trudge on, to try again, reaches so far back beyond that despairing moment in 2013 when I thought to abandon it. It has been a worthy journey, consequences and all. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s easy.

…Some nights I still have nightmares. Some mornings I still wake up in pain. When I look back, though, I don’t regret that terrible lonely desperate choice to let go of a balcony rail and fall to my… freedom. Some choices just extract a big price. It’s a question I think few of us ask or answer before we choose; will the price be worth it? It’s hard to know, isn’t it? It’s probably worth wondering, for at least a moment… but there’s no map on this journey. We’re each walking our own hard mile.

Choose your adventure. Pay your price. Begin again. The journey is the destination.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter, women
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