Archives for posts with tag: ennui

Between Too Much and Not Enough

June 29, 2026 //
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I almost didn’t bother with writing this morning. I’m not having a bad morning, neither is it particularly good. It’s just a morning. It is a gray, overcast, mild, somewhat cooler morning than one might expect for a summer Monday. “Nothing to see here,” and nothing much to say about it.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

Hell, I’m not even complaining really, just noticing. I have no particular enthusiasm for this moment, and I take some bit of comfort in its underlying impermanence. Moments are fleeting. They pass.

I sit at the halfway point on this morning’s walk fighting a feeling of ennui and vague disappointment that lacks any objective point. My physical pain is vexing but commonplace. My tinnitus is loud and distractingly unpleasant, but hardly out of the ordinary for me. My headache is no worse, but also no better, and I can’t be bothered to deal with it at all. Nothing I do seems to change it. I sigh to myself. I’d complain about this crappy morning, but it’s honestly fine. It is a Monday, and not all that bad. I’m just struggling with a weird mood fed by strange dreams and interrupted sleep.

…All of this bullshit is purely subjective, and very human…

I frown at the gray sky overhead and think about the path I’m on, the life I am living, and the woman I most want to be. I think about change, and I think about “doing better”, and I reflect on brain damage and on character. I think about practice.

… I’d rather be painting…

I sigh to myself and watch the clouds capping distant hilltops, seeming almost to become hung up in the trees as the clouds continue to drift by. Yeah, I’d totally rather be painting. Or sleeping. I sit puzzled by my utter lack of enthusiasm for the day. Oh, well. It’s not as if moods are any more permanent than moments. I’m not “stuck” here so much as finding myself here through happenstance. It’ll pass at some point.

Another sigh. I get to my feet mildly annoyed with myself, and prepare to finish my walk and begin the rest of the day. I’m open to change, I’ve just got to get started and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Too Early, Too Much

October 20, 2025 //
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I woke around 03:00, to some noise most likely, or perhaps my Traveling Partner’s wakefulness, though when I returned to bed from the bathroom, he seemed to be snoring softly, asleep. I hope he gets the rest he needs. I sure didn’t, not last night. Took me some time to fall asleep, and I was awakened abruptly at some point by raised voices. I returned to sleep shortly after waking, but my dreams were restless, irritated, and unsettling. I was tired when I finally woke, too early, but I couldn’t find sleep again, and gave up – hopefully before my restlessness woke everyone else.

…I got up, dressed, and slipped away quietly…

I don’t much feel like walking, this morning. Aches and pains and bullshit, nothing of real consequence. I sit with my thoughts, perched on a picnic table near the trail, ready to walk if I get past my moody and irritable moment of ennui. I listen to the background noise of machinery, traffic, HVAC systems on nearby buildings… the sounds of humanity mismanaging a planet. There is a glow along the western horizon, the clouds overhead being illuminated by the city below. Pretty mundane stuff. I sigh quietly. My ankle aches, even within the comfortable security of my hiking boots. My left hip hurts in a way that suggests arthritis may be developing there. My head aches, feels mostly like fatigue and the studious, focused, effort to maintain top down control in spite of it. I catch myself gritting my teeth, and purposefully relax my jaw and let go of that bit of stress. My tinnitus is shrieking and whining in my ears. I’m not bitching about any of it, just noticing each detail, as I inventory my sensations and experience the moment with as much presence and awareness as I can.

… And I still don’t feel like walking…

I had an excellent brunch with a colleague on Sunday. Feels like, potentially, a real friendship forming. Maybe. Harder to be sure than it might have seemed when I was younger…or… before the pandemic, although I’m not at all sure how that is relevant. I really enjoyed the conversation. The food was good, too, but that clearly wasn’t the nourishment I was seeking – or what I found. It was more about the human connection. We talked about doing it every month, and talked about having some kind of holiday get together with our families, in December. That might be a lot of fun.

I sit enjoying the morning quiet. I think about love and my Traveling Partner, and how much faster his recovery is going these days. He’s able to do so much more now, and more every week. It’s a relief to feel some measure of day-to-day work being reduced as my beloved begins to resume tasks that he was handling routinely before his injury. Out of habit, I sometimes forget to give him the opportunity to do for himself. I’ve got to knock that shit off, for myself as much as for him.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I meditate in the chilly autumn darkness before dawn comes. For a moment, the world seems peculiarly peaceful and undisturbed. I find that it often does in these solitary moments. The world’s chaos and hardship is almost entirely created by the human primates clinging to the surface of this mud ball hurtling through space. I almost sympathize with the “burn it all down and start over” cynics and nihilists. I was once among them, a like-minded sort, but it seems like a wasteful approach to problems that could be solved quite differently, and with a greater good in mind. Another distracting argument keeping us all preoccupied while billionaire grifters empty our bank accounts in exchange for empty promises.

…I sigh and let that go, too…

There is still no hint of daybreak, yet. The clock is ticking, though, and this moment is finite. I get to my feet with an impatient sigh, feeling more resigned than purposeful. I commit to dragging myself along the trail again this morning. I’ll feel better once I’ve gotten a walk in, I know. I just don’t happen to “feel like it”, but I also decide not to let that stop me.

…Fuck, I really want a nap. 😂 Instead, I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Hit That Reset Button

December 19, 2023 //
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I started the day lost in my head. It’s fine. Strange dreams. Woke feeling like maybe I’m getting a cold? Maybe not. I get the morning started, get the commute going. I end up at work much sooner than I expected, though I subjectively feel as though I “left at the usual time”? I was definitely not speeding… but the rainy weather dominated my attention, and I barely noticed how few red lights stopped me this morning. Consistent often beats “fast”. I shrug it off, set up my laptop, and make coffee. Still lost in my own head, my coffee goes cold before I ever taste it. Wild. What a weird morning.

I finally open a new window to start a bit of writing before work… I stare out the window watching the darkness slowly transition to daybreak without typing a word. Lost in thought, but without recollection. A bit like meaning to record something, but forgetting to hit “record”. Strange morning. Strange thoughts. I teeter on the edge of fatigue and alertness.

…Somehow I’ve got to start this day…

I quaff some of this cold coffee. Same coffee beans, same machine, same process of making coffee as with yesterday… this cup is not bad at all, in spite of having gone entirely cold before I got around to drinking it. It’s fine.

I sit awhile longer. Just… sitting with my random thoughts. Nothing of consequence. I’m not “happy”, “sad”, or even “indifferent”. I am, more than anything else, at least at this moment, an “empty vessel”. Like a pitcher with an unnoticed hole in the bottom, I pour my thoughts into my attention but they don’t accumulate into anything useful, they just leak right on out. lol

I take a deep breath. Pull myself upright. I’m completely out of two necessary prescriptions; the Rx’s expired without my noticing, between refills. Fucking hell. I’ll have to 1. phone them in and 2. go directly into the actual VA pharmacy and get the attention of an actual human being and make a case for filling them in person and giving them directly to me. Their system is not set up for veterans with any sort of cognitive, behavioral, or mental health issues at all. It’s almost as if they don’t actually care. I sigh out loud. I just don’t even want to think about it, deal with it, or… you know… do the thing. Fuck. I would very much like to just have the option of putting all my Rx’s onto some sort of automated process, as I have been able to do with recurring bills, you know? Easier. Better for me. Better results. Consistency.

I finally think to start a music playlist. The first track startles me out of my peculiar reverie and I feel myself begin to “come unstuck” (in a good way). Words begin to hit the page, and I end up… here. And it’s already time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, health, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights