(I began this post last night, on the train as I rode home…)
Today I hurt. I want to write meaningfully, thoughtfully, and there’s plenty going on in everyday life that is noteworthy, thought-provoking, or warrants further consideration, perspective, and critical thought…but I may not have what it takes, tonight.
I’m grateful for this broken brain. Well, less so for the damaged bits, but in general very grateful; it serves most brain sorts of purposes nicely, and although it lets me down on some basics most people take for granted, it wows me in some ways that few are fortunate to share. So… yeah. Grateful. This amazing brain keeps right on going, thinking, wondering, analyzing, imagining… long past the point of fatigue. The creative thing is awesome. Words are fun. Numbers, too. Emotions are also slowly becoming more of a playground than a trap, or betrayal.
Today I hurt. There are things to understand, and although they’ll wait if they must, it isn’t ideal. There are decisions, choices, opportunities, challenges… brain at the ready… but I hurt and I lose focus again and again with the pain. I worry about my knees… even to extremes, wondering if the end of walking is on the horizon. I take some deep breaths, I keep right on walking – slowly, with a cane – because if I wake up tomorrow unable to walk, I would surely regret not walking today.
Pain is such a personal thing. I don’t take many steps to ensure that people around me get it, really understand that I am hurting. I expect to be able to simple call it out once and have that be ‘enough’. That only works for strangers, though. People closer tend to forget in minutes or hours, because we’re having a good time, or because I’m in a good mood. I can’t see letting the pain make the rules all the time. I’ve learned something over the years, too; everyone hurts, and everyone’s pain is simply the worst they can imagine. Pain is not a friend of cognition, and while I may be able to salvage a good mood out of a day of hurting, between the pain itself and the medication for it, my senses and my intellect are blunted. I generally work on as little medication as possible… and because it is work, and I am a professional, I don’t say much about it. It seems weak to bitch (that’s my own baggage). I hurt, but I think better than if I were heavily medicated and didn’t hurt. lol. What a choice.
Choices. I know more about what I need over time, what I want – what I want, without regard to the desires of others, and in the context of my own values, my own needs, my own particular singular dream of a good life, based on sufficiency, contentment, and quiet joy. Getting there isn’t difficult because of the costliness of what I want and need, myself. Getting there is difficult because we human primates are as different one from another as we are similar, and I’m only just learning to set clear rational boundaries, and to observe and respect the boundaries of others. It’s a new-ish thing for me to both have an awareness of what I really want/need in life – and also have a clear awareness of what is in my way. (Which is predictably useful information to have, on both counts.) Newer still to be able to recognize, acknowledge, and even embrace what others want and need, and understand what I may be doing that could come across as ‘being in their way’.
I’m tired. I hurt. I want to write, and I urgently need to finish thinking some things through and make a clear choice and follow through on it. Have you ever observed how much more difficult that can be when the choice that seems most obvious carries with it some short-term negative experience? Choosing pain – even to experience profound positive changes – is difficult. I know pain hurts. Pain is quite a deterrent.
If I were offered many millions of dollars – and in return I would have my back and arm broken, a skull fracture, my ankle shattered, and oh… migraines, perhaps – would I take the deal? I’m betting if I had experienced those pains it would be much harder to go for those millions, while if I had never experienced those sorts of pain, I likely would opt in for the cash pretty quickly. I have not applied the scientific method to these musings, I’m just saying; it seems likely based on what I know of myself, and my human experience.
An uncompleted post. A night of uncomfortable sleep. The dawn of a new day.
I finished the evening with yoga, meditation, and crafting a birthday gift for my mother, after dinner out with my partner, who is headed to NYC later this morning for a few days reconnecting with friends and family. The meal was excellent and the service exceptional. What made the meal was definitely the company and the conversation. The remaining hours were spent gently; my knee just didn’t allow for more energetic recreation, and my evenings are usually chill time for study, writing, and quiet conversation, anyway. The pain didn’t change those things.
I woke this morning, after a strange night of dreamless, but brief sleep. I didn’t really ‘get sleepy’ until far into the wee hours, and woke ahead of the alarm by 44 minutes. I don’t feel especially fatigued by the short night, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be alert and still feeling sufficiently rested to enjoy my other partner’s homecoming from the his wilderness adventure. I’m eager to hear about it. Eager to share my own experience.
Right at the moment, life feels very good – and it feels very genuine. It’s a feeling and a context in which I thrive.
Simple things matter so much.
Today is a good day to smile back, and a good day to be kind. Today is a good day to step boldly into the world, open to adventure. Today is a good day for love, compassion, and joy. Today is a good day to change the world.
Evening Light 