I’m sitting in the sunshine as the sun rises. Pretty morning. My walk to this point has been quiet and pleasant. There was no traffic on the highway, either. If the folks in my neighborhood are a representative sample of Americans in the area, most folks who were going somewhere this weekend are gone, and those that were up late firing off various fireworks and noise makers are probably sleeping in; that shit was still going on at midnight.

I’m enjoying the quiet and the solitude. Somewhere in the distance, I hear an occasional car pass by. My tinnitus is crazy loud this morning, and my back aches ferociously. I breathe, exhale, and relax, pulling my posture more upright. Changing my position doesn’t ease my pain in any noteworthy way, but slumping carelessly definitely tends to make it worse. Choices. I grumble silently to myself; everything seems to require a fucking effort. lol I laugh at myself for resisting the truth of it. Yes, surely things require effort. That’s just real. I sigh to myself and let it go. There’s no use fighting the effort required to do things. The best I can do is to make wise choices about what I am doing and where I’m putting my limited resources as an individual (even down to the effort involved).

…Fuck pain…

I sigh to myself and smile, thinking about yesterday. Nice evening. The Anxious Adventurer made lemon bars. Tasty. I made (a fairly simple, summertime) dinner. Nothing fancy. We enjoyed it together as a family. The weather was fairly mild and not hot, and we had turned off the AC, enjoying the natural breeze through windows open wide to the summer air.

I’ve no clear agenda for the weekend. Routine housekeeping stuff I guess. I sit watching the little birds at the edge of the meadow. I think about old friends and try to distract myself from pain. Maybe it is a good day to get out into the garden? There’s laundry to do, too. I chuckle at myself when I find myself daydreaming about doing housework as I sit here in the sunshine visualizing this or that task I know I am likely to do on a Saturday, and wondering what I can actually accomplish in practical terms. I’d rather sit with my feet up in the garden, sipping iced coffee and ignoring the tick of the clock, but time is a precious and finite resource and I have things to do. Another sigh breaks the stillness.

What next? I don’t know, yet. I’ve got options to consider. Choices to make. I’ve got my own path to walk. For the moment I am content just to be here, now, enjoying the morning sun without attachment to any particular outcome. Later, I can begin again.