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“Choose” is a Verb

July 11, 2021 //
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I’m sipping coffee and listening to videos in the background. Pleasant Sunday morning. Housekeeping on the agenda, not much else. I expect it’ll be a hot summer day. I’m okay with a couple hours of chores and a few moments for myself, and some pleasant hours with my Traveling Partner.

Our path may not always be level, the day may not always be sunny.

…Love isn’t “perfect”. Life either. Nothing really is. (Maybe this cup of coffee…) I make a lot of choices, and some of those are compromises, and some are just poor choices…on the other hand, I’ve got a lot of very cool opportunities to choose from, and fascinating people with whom I can choose to associate. Kinda neat, actually. Even our most intimate relationships are filled with choices.

We choose our path, and we choose what we consider our choices to be.

I chose my Traveling Partner a long time ago (11 years)… on a commute, I think. There was a hug involved. Hours of conversation, over time. A friendship developed. I adore this human being. He is “flawed” (inasmuch as he is quite human), as I am myself. There are days when one or the other of us seriously aggravates the other. (Just being real, and let’s be frank, one thing I know I can count on in life is that life will be, generally, quite “real”. lol) I enjoy him, as a friend, as a human being, as a partner… I smile when I think of him, and he is the person most easily able to unintentionally hurt me emotionally with a harsh word in a difficult moment. I still choose him, and yeah, even when I’m crying over a moment of hurt feelings, I still choose him.

He’s very dear to me. 😀 (bad pun intentional)

Why bring it up? It’s been a lovely weekend. This is all pretty obvious practical shit, right here, and hardly bears pointing out. Don’t we all go through it? Some moment that contrasts the wonderful qualities with the very human, sometimes much less wonderful qualities? Again – pretty real. Pretty ordinary. I dunno. I was thinking about it as I walked yesterday… “What matters most?”… “What builds a firm enduring foundation for love?”… “What does a healthy relationship look like, over time?”… “How does healthy boundary and expectation-setting look and feel in the context of a healthy adult relationship?”… “What part do I, myself, play in ensuring I am treated well based on my own understanding of “good treatment” – and how I do ensure I am skillfully, authentically, ensuring I treat my partner well based on their understanding of “good treatment” – and my own?” Big questions. (Long walk.)

Growth isn’t about what’s easy or comfortable. It’s often about hard questions, and answers that require rather a lot of real work. “Is the effort worth it?” is one question that is easy to answer, for me, in the context of this relationship: yes.

Sometimes choices seem so limited… or complicated… those perceptions are also choices.

I’ve had 3 other “long term relationships” of any notable duration. Two ran far longer than the quality of the relationship warranted. (Okay, well, all three of those, actually, were far longer than what was healthy, but I did manage to cut that last one short before my life or mental health were in complete chaos.) I’ve often been that person working at it longer/harder and loyally clinging to the carcass of a relationship that did not at all rate such a ferocious commitment in the first place. “I didn’t know better” doesn’t describe the goings on so much as “brain damage”, honestly. Yikes. That feels “too real”, right there. I sigh, finish my coffee, and let it go. 🙂 I’m rather happily in a very different place these days, different relationship altogether. “Learned my lesson”? Possibly not – more than I’ve been fortunate, and this particular relationship grew and developed largely in the context of ongoing therapy and other positive life choices (and changes) that took me down a healthier path.

Choices.

Don’t sit around miserable, is what I’m saying. You have choices. You don’t have to wait for decades of your life to slip by – you can choose change. Any time. You can begin again. Oh, I know, it’s a difficult sort of choice to make, but truly, it is yours.

Maybe what looks like a dead-end just isn’t your path at all?

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Reflect and Gain Perspective

June 26, 2021 //
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Heat wave. Already hot this morning. Slept well, woke refreshed. Felt… content. Balanced. Merry…

…Whole.

Off to a good start on a hot day. Things slide sideways, slipping gently, somehow inevitably tilting toward irritation in spite of a great starting point. Best efforts. Humans being human.

I put aside my coffee and go for a walk before the heat of the day might stop me, or just make the experience miserable.

A favorite park has finally re-opened after all the damage during that last winter storm.

Muggy warm air filled with the sound of mowers, small aircraft taking off from the nearby municipal airport, and swarming insects seemed to cling to me as I walked across the parking lot to the start of the one open trail. It doesn’t really go far enough to satisfy the need, but it has been a long while and I have missed this place. I walk the trail twice. I take note of the wild roses in bloom – there look to be three distinct species growing in this wooded area. I spot ripe thimbleberries, but none within reach – too fragile for commercial agriculture, they are a rare special treat, tiny, soft, and mild. The birds will get most of them. Piles of cut up trees give some insight into how much damage the storm caused. Every few feet, there’s a pile of logs and branches on either side of the trail. The forest is full of huckleberry bushes, but I don’t see flowers or berries, yet. On my way back down, before my second walk of the trail, I realize I haven’t stopped at a favorite bench… I never saw it! Weird… I begin to really look for that thing, that expected thing, as I head back up the trail. My focus results in missing other details. Something more to think about.

Oh. Reality is what it is. Expectations are shit we made up, and cling to.

It was a lovely morning for walking, in spite of the heat. In spite of the changes all around me. In spite of a less than picture-perfect lovely summer morning. Expectations and assumptions can so quickly undermine a potentially lovely experience. I mean… I even know that. It still trips me up more often than I care to count.

I put on some music. Sip my rather delicious iced coffee – I’ve been planning this iced coffee on a hot summer morning for days. Really looking forward to this moment. I made coffee ice cubes to go in it. I sip it thoughtfully, savoring the moment that is, instead of yearning for another. It may not be what I expected, but it’s quite pleasant, and that’s enough. Maybe I’ll finish it on the deck…

My Traveling Partner and I both hurt today. Pain sucks. Aging is a mixed bag of qualities, and pain is just one of many experiences… We both try to avoid taking it personally, or lashing out at each other in a short-tempered moment of our frustration with the limitations of these very human forms. He says “maybe you should just avoid me today” – right about when I was thinking of saying gently that I’d give him some space because I’m hurting that much today. lol It’s generally an exceptional partnership, even when one or both of us is in pain, or just generally not being our best selves, together.

I sip my coffee and reflect. I think about the walk, the summer morning, recalling the sights and scents, and the feel of the air around me.

Just because there’s sunshine where I’m sitting doesn’t mean I’ll find illumination.

I walked, reflected, observed, and gave myself that time I need to spend with the woman in the mirror. It’s good to get perspective. I mean… I find it so, myself. 🙂 I don’t always do a good job of making time for me, and for what I need from and for myself. I could do better there. More practice? Obviously. I know where I’ll start, too; a familiar place.

I am rereading the Four Agreements; a worthy starting point on any journey of self.

Funny thing about The Four Agreements? It was my Traveling Partner who first recommended it to me. Good basic practices to practice that tend to heal a lot of hurts and limit a lot of negative self-talk. That seems so long ago now.

Treating each other well has reliably tended to start with treating myself well, and as it turns out that has nothing whatsoever to do with buying things, and everything to do with reflection, perspective, and practices that build resilience and emotional wellness. Boundary-setting. Testing assumptions. Confirming expectations. Being flexible and adaptable in the face of change. Being there for myself. Being kind, and treating the world as gently as I am able to. Good self-care. Getting enough rest. It’s a lot to juggle, and I suspect that I half-ass a lot of it, just trying to do all of it… but…getting things ‘half right’ or ‘half finished’ is still a more useful result than never making an attempt to be my best self at all. Incremental change over time. I get better at something each time I attempt it… eventually. Learning is a process. Change is often a verb. I keep at it. Incremental change over time requires both time, and increments.

Feeling frustrated and challenged can sometimes mislead me into thinking I haven’t improved – a lot – on a lot of little things that had been far more problematic before this journey began. That’s a shame; it robs me of my chance to celebrate small wins. I think on that while I sip my coffee, gazing into the sunshine beyond the window.

I hear the A/C come on. Then I feel it. I recall the heat of the morning as I walked the wooded trail, and think about the apartment in which my partner and I first began sharing our lives… and that roasting, horribly hot all-drama-all-the-time summer some 11 years ago; no A/C. I feel grateful for the A/C, definitely… but the love matters most. We brought that with us, to this place, across years of shared challenges, growth, change, loving moments, and petty arguments – it’s a very human experience, and it’s hard to imagine spending life differently and still enjoying it as much. I sip my coffee thinking about my partner (my lover, my best friend), and the pain he’s in today. Maybe I’ll bake oatmeal cookies? Would that help? (I don’t know why it would, it just occurred to me to wonder – sometimes I have a mind like a child. LOL)

There’s enough of this coffee left to enjoy a few moments of summer morning on the deck before it gets to hot to enjoy… seems like a good time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Sometimes It Just Isn’t Enough

June 24, 2021 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and frowning past my monitor, looking beyond the “view” outside the window. Nothing impressive, just the fence, the pear trees that rise above it, and the wall of the neighbor’s house beyond – I’m not really seeing it, right now, I am in my own head. I am ruminating over the bitch of an inconvenience that is the very real truth that however much someone loves us, however much someone cares, no matter the level of consideration, empathy, or understanding – we are each walking our own mile, having our own experience, and there will inevitably be some detail that is simply not visible, or not recognized for what it is, or not understood with any clarity, or seems wholly miscommunicated to the detriment of a pleasant moment. Have a brain injury? Ratchet that up a notch. Grieving? This one too; it’s progressively more invisible over time, and people eventually reach their “you’re not over this yet?” point – sooner than you will, yourself. It’s just real. We feel our own pain most intensely. We understand our own circumstances more than we can understand someone else’s, generally. We filter every interaction through who we are ourselves, and how we personally understand the world, with little regard for the demonstrable reality that it legitimately is not the same for someone else. Sometimes I feel completely fucked over by that whole entire messy business.

I’m not pissing and moaning about this while mired in self-pity. I’m actually more… a tad angry about it. I earnestly want to do better by my friends, family, and loved ones than that, myself. I still struggle with it, too. Maybe it just feels easier to bitch about what someone else is doing than it is to attend to what is within my personal control? I could stop doing that, and redirect that time and effort into personal growth and change… that sounds pretty positive.

I take a breath, and a sip of my coffee. When I got out of the shower, my Traveling Partner had already made his coffee. I generally make coffee for the both of us. It’s one way I say “I love you” and start the morning off pleasantly. I enjoy the routine. This morning, he did not wait on that, he took ownership of needs and made his coffee. I can’t fault him for that. Good self-care. He did not make my coffee. (I could take that personally – it could even be possible that it was intended to silently signal his irritation with me, more likely he just wasn’t sure I’d be out of the shower before it got cold.) I don’t give it much thought beyond observation, and let go of any concern about “sending me a message”, because, frankly, he uses his words. He’s not the sort who goes around being under-handed or passive-aggressive with communicating his needs or feelings; it’s a pretty unhealthy approach. I try to avoid that sort of thing, myself; it’s very imprecise, and not reliably clear. I’m not even certain I’d “get the message” – I tend (more often than not) to be very “face value” about those sorts of things, in my interactions, and it’s likely that that kind of thing would “go over my head” anyway. 🙂

I’m working on taking better care of myself, generally, which I also generally suck at. It’s a lot of work. I enjoy spending time with my partner to the point that I overlook taking time with myself. It doesn’t take long before my background stress is evident, and becoming unmanageable. So… I reset, begin again, and work on building better habits, and practicing the practices that I know support my emotional wellness, best. It is, however, still an ongoing, challenging, messy, aggravating, frustrating, endlessly fiddly bit of bullshit and effort that will no doubt plague me to the end of my days.

…It could be worse…

I sip my coffee. I’m writing on a pleasant summer morning. I’ve got a partner who loves me and does his best, reliably, to love me well. I could say “that’s enough”, but I’m aware how much more than “enough” that really is; I haven’t always had it like this. My good circumstances just don’t happen to alleviate me of my burdens in life. (Why did I expect that they might?) The work day peaks at me from the clock… it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Turn Another Page

June 14, 2021 //
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I’m nearly at the end of an entire year here in this “home” place. My birthday passed gently, uneventfully, and infused with a certain chill bliss that I don’t think I can put into words – but it was everything I wanted for my birthday, and more (in a sense, by being less! lol). There are tomatoes growing in garden pots. Roses planted in the front landscaping, and nasturtiums sprouting in the flower bed under the kitchen window. The quieter environment that resulted from the acoustic treatments has eased so much tension day-to-day. The lighting changes my Traveling Partner made tend to ease my frequent headaches, and lighten my mood. Waking is easier without an alarm clock, and I’m pleased that I can rely on the changing light – a programmed sunrise – to wake me gently. I’m not cross with the world first thing in the mornings. It’s pleasant.

Time passes. Sometimes I notice. Mostly I don’t. It gets away from me. I don’t take that so personally lately. 🙂

Is there still a pandemic going on? Well…sure, there is; the world isn’t even 50% vaccinated yet. I’m okay with continuing to be cautious, personally, although I’m vaccinated myself. I admit; I really like not having a fucking head cold every other month. lol Still… things seem to be improving in our area, and more folks are out and about in the world, doing things, seeing people, shopping. I found myself “stuck in traffic” for the first time in this new community just yesterday.

…Is it still a “new community” if I’m nearly a year into living here? lol It still feels new; it’s been a year of staying home. Pandemics are weird.

I still have “ups and downs”. My Traveling Partner, too; he’s walking his own hard mile, as a human being. (Aren’t we all?) The pandemic was hard on us as lovers, we’re not alone in that experience – and frankly, I’m sure there were a lot of folks who had it much much worse. We’re fortunate that we really enjoy each other as human beings, and we’re friends. It gets us through some challenges, for sure. 🙂 I’m pretty fond of that human being living with me.

Here I am… 58. Doesn’t feel much different than, say, 47, or 35, or … yeah, even 27 doesn’t seem that different through the lens of remembered experiences. I feel like the same “self” – which is hilarious, considering how much I’ve changed. Would 27 year old me even like this woman I am now? Would she “get it”? Would she embrace the values I’ve embraced? Would she understand the changes I’ve chosen? The direction I’ve gone in life? Could we talk together as intimate friends about our journey, our choices, our changes? Would there be unresolved anger or “old business” that we’d need to work out? Would we even want to connect as individuals – or is there too much distance and time between us? Would she think me “old” or “out of touch”? Would I see her as young, ignorant, and foolish about taking risks? Are we really “the same person” at all? Probably not, in a great many very important ways, and still also entirely this one human being, living this one peculiarly complicated life, as the years roll by.

So, it’s time to turn the page on another year of living. I’m okay with that. It’s been a strangely eventful year, counting the days from one birthday to the next. Bought a house. Moved. Changed jobs. Discovered new places. Discovered new music. Discovered new depths to this love I share with my Traveling Partner. Healed some old wounds. Re-opened others. Walked new trails. Traveled roads I’d never traveled before. Found “my way” more often than I found myself lost.

I can say, comfortably and without hesitation these days, I like this woman I have become over time. That’s a pretty big deal… it has required quite a few beginnings to get to this place, and I’ve stumbled on my own baggage more times than I can count. It’s gotten to be pretty comfortable to pick myself back up, and simply begin again. It’s not personal; it’s my journey. 🙂 It could sure be worse.

My coffee is almost gone, and although my partner is no farther away that the other side of a closed door, I find myself missing him… it must be time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

I Had a Thought

June 7, 2021 //
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This morning I had what I thought was an excellent starting point for the morning, and had the intention of writing. I never got to it. I enjoyed coffee with my Traveling Partner, had a pleasant walk before work, and enjoyed a productive day of work. My partner has a project going that keeps him quite busy. I love seeing him deeply engaged, learning new things, and occupied in a way that puts his mind to use on something worthy of his talent; it’s profoundly inspiring.

I’ve been painting. That’s part of what kicked my intention of writing off to the side, actually. I sat down in my studio, with my coffee, but facing “the art side” of the room, instead of the “office side”, and found myself whiling away some minutes before work gazing at new canvases – time I’d intended for writing, consumed on nothing more (or less) than inspired daydreaming. I’m even okay with that, I just wish I’d taken notes – even just a word or two – about what I was thinking before my head was filled with colors and thoughts of paintings yet to be painted. I’m pleased to be doing creative work again. I’m not sure what pushed me into the creative zone again… I don’t think it’ll be helpful to overthink it, so I am just enjoying it.

Funny… I’m finding myself wondering if the updated lighting in the house has any part to play in my re-emerging creative energy? I know I’m sleeping better, and when I wake the very gentle middle-of-the-night lighting doesn’t prevent me going back to sleep at all. I’m waking more gently too, and feeling rested and less cross. I’ve known for a long time that I loathed the infernal beeping of my alarm clock for a long long time – any alarm clock, really, and it doesn’t have to beep, and for basically all of my existence that I’m aware of. Bells. Chimes. Ringers. Clangers. Clappers. Buzzers. Doesn’t matter. I have no liking for them. Now, waking to a soft fade-in of light (and not any shining directly into my eyes), and having done so enough to be quite confident I won’t “miss my wake-up” or oversleep, I sleep so… comfortably. I even slept in yesterday. 🙂 Nice. Is that what’s stoking my creativity? Is it the acoustic treatments all around the house that removed the annoying echo and softened the sounds, generally? Such a quiet house, now. I feel more relaxed even thinking about it.

…And also, thinking about the love that has gone into it. Time, sure. Money, too. Considerable effort by my Traveling Partner, too (I’ve been getting to mostly just enjoy the ride on this one)… More than any of that, though, has been the obvious real love and care my partner has put into these projects, each detail another conversation about what matters most, what I may need, how this or that technology can ease some challenge, or enrich our experience of each other, or our life together. It’s pretty mind-blowing to be so well-loved, and it’s a bit to live up to, too. The pandemic has been hard on each of us differently… I wouldn’t want to have had to do it with someone else, though, I’ll say that. I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad he’s been here. I’m fortunate to be so well-loved (and he’s said similar things to me). This evening, that love we share finds me in my studio, on the other side of the work day, writing in the evening – and smiling to think how well that worked out… he needed some time to work on some complicated details of the smart home stuff. I’m happy to write for a few minutes and give him that time – I know that supporting each other pays off in some pretty amazing ways. 🙂

I hear him in the other room, letting me know he’s done for the day. I breathe, relax, and smile. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being
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