Archives for posts with tag: just keep swimming

Sometimes It’s Complicated

September 28, 2026 //
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Morning. Another one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to see another sunrise. Life gets complicated sometimes, though, and it is a lot to take. It’s rarely “all on me”, or even about me (in many cases it’s nothing to do with me at all).

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

It’s not even daybreak yet. It’s quite dark on the trail this morning – clear starry sky, the full moon overhead.  I walk down the familiar trail with a measure of confidence, the bobbing circle of light ahead of me from my headlamp is plenty to see by. I walk with my thoughts, enjoying these moments of peace and quiet reflection; they may be the only such moments in a busy complicated day.

I get to my halfway point and take a seat on the nearby bench.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Chilly morning. I’m grateful for the warm sweater and cozy cardigan I threw on over it. I can see my breath this morning. Fall. The potential beauty of the morning is thrown off by concern for my Traveling Partner. I find myself wondering whether I should call out from work to take care of him today? For the moment my own pain takes a back seat in my awareness. I breathe deeply, and exhale slowly, working to stave off my stress before it can become a panic attack. My partner needs me to be capable and to provide care. I remind myself that I did it for two years, and I can resume doing so capably, now, when my beloved needs me.

Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Sometimes shit gets complicated. That’s just life. We all go through shit, and it is sometimes the worst we’ve ever been through. Resilience is built over time, but it can sure feel like it can be used up in an instant.

I sigh to myself feeling restless, and for a moment a little trapped and hopeless. I remind myself that change is, and very few moments last. Most things are pretty impermanent, actually, so I take another breath, exhale again, and do my best to relax. I’ll keep practicing.

Still not daybreak yet, but there is the faintest hint of something more deep dark blue than utterly black about the sky. A new day. I keep working to quell my panic (an inner voice snarls at me, “no one has time for this weak ass shit, knock it off”). Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat as needed. I struggle to get comfortable with myself this morning. My mind refuses to settle down or focus, like hearing a fire alarm I know is a test, and still feeling it is urgently necessary to leave the building. This is absolutely not a test – it’s life. Sometimes it’s complicated.

I sigh to myself and hope I get through the day with my perspective intact, and able to provide any caregiving my partner needs. I stupidly look at my watch in the dark. Pointless. I do know it’s time to begin again… I get to my feet and turn to head on down the trail and back to the car.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Just Keep Swimming

March 17, 2020 //
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I’m home sick with a head cold while the media feeding frenzy is feasting on COVID-19 stories. Grim. It is what it is. My Traveling Partner and I seem reasonably well-set-up to endure long stays at home. The pantry is well-stocked. Bills are paid. I’m fortunate to be easily able to work-from-home.

I woke early this morning, head stuffy and having difficulty breathing comfortably. It’s a head cold. Just a head cold. I sat down at my desk, with my coffee, and reluctant to work “too early” (which, when working from home, often leads to working “too long” as well), I put on a video, headphones on. It was strangely muted, which I attributed to being Macbook “gremlins”, in my pre-coffee state. I turned it up. Turned it up again. Finally gave up and just listened with greater care. After a couple of false starts, changes of video, and just giving up altogether after awhile, I noticed that my headphones were plugged into my personal laptop, not my Macbook Pro from work… First thought? “Huh, I wonder how it did that?”, thinking somehow my laptop was picking up the digital signal from the Macbook… O.m.g… definitely pre-coffee on a “working while sick” day. It took me a minute, but I finally got to that “you couldn’t hear it well because you were listening to it play into the room, through the muffling of your noise canceling headphones!” Shit. Embarrassing.

I hope I didn’t disturb my Traveling Partner’s sleep… or wake the neighbors. 😦

Like a lot of things that go a little bit wrong, I let it go and move on, ideally with new knowledge and deeper wisdom… often not so much. lol

Just keep swimming.

Here’s hoping my experience of the day improves from that moment, to the next, in a daisy chain of contentment and calm. 🙂 Maybe it does… maybe it doesn’t… there will likely be verbs involved. Questions to ask – some even to answer. One step down the path, following another.

The house is quiet now. I’m reluctant to make a second cup of coffee, feeling a vague sense that I’ve “already made enough damned noise”, and not wishing to disturb the peaceful quiet that now envelopes the morning, I make an instant hot apple cider. I watch the fish swim, awhile, as the new lighting creates a “sunrise” progression in intensity. Beautiful.

Getting back to work feels natural enough. I’m sick and feel ineffective, and drained. I focus on the routine tasks that are least likely to go awry due to the cognitive effects of being sick. One at a time, I complete them. I move on to the next. Maybe I’ll get an entire shift out of this…?

Either way, or, perhaps, regardless… it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Synonymous With Weird

January 9, 2015 //
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Today has been…strange. Peculiar? Sure, that, too. Perhaps a bit surreal, too, although bizarre would go too far. It’s late in the afternoon, and odd time to find me writing. That’s strange, too.

I slept deeply and well, and woke easily this morning – but woke thinking in the moment that it was during the wee hours. I felt discontent and off kilter to check the clock and have the alarm go off in my hands. My coffee was hot, and the household woke shortly after I did – only, I did not wish to interact with anyone. I heard beautiful music in the other room, and felt moved to greet my traveling partner, and the start of the day. He changed the music just at the moment I got to the living room. It was still a great track, not in step with my mood, but I lingered to enjoy it. Conversation developed, on a topic of shared-interest, and I didn’t really get to listen to the music. Then curious fact-finding questions resulted in de-railing the conversation, itself and I ended up being cut-out of the conversation. No one noticed, and I excused myself politely. Shortly after that I managed to turn a compliment into a contentious moment, making the mistake of trying to explain something that didn’t require an explanation, as it had gone unnoticed by anyone but me.

I’ve felt more than a little ‘out of step’ most of the day. Peculiar describes it well enough.

I don’t really have any enthusiasm (or interest) in troubleshooting circumstances; there’s really nothing ‘wrong’. I also don’t know that I have much more to say about it. I feel… weird. The weekend is almost here. The day is almost over. There’ll be another tomorrow. I don’t know what, if anything, I want out of ‘now’ – a connection; that’s as close as I get to understanding what I want.  A particularly intimate, deep, comfortable, reliable, loving, romantic, profoundly secure emotional connection…that I don’t know how to achieve, yet. (I will not be particularly surprised to find, on my deathbed, that this thing I yearn for doesn’t actually exist, but I am not convinced that it doesn’t…because I have the recollection of having achieved at some other time, what I yearn for now…which I also can’t count on being real.)

Inconveniently, the doctor put me on an Rx that may influence my thinking…so…what can I be sure of, at all? Yeah. Well…I’m sure it’s been a strange day.

A moment of illumination is sometimes not so easy.

A moment of illumination is sometimes not so easy.

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Categories Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words