Archives for posts with tag: love and lovers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

More This Than That

July 24, 2015 //
0

I woke this morning with some effort, and even after a (long) hot shower, yoga, meditation, and the first sip or two of an excellent cup of coffee… I still feel rather sluggish and slowed down. I have no idea why my morning is starting in slow motion – I slept well and deeply through the night, and went to bed at quite a reasonable hour.  My mood is… ‘quietly merry’ describes it best, I suppose, and I am not inclined to criticize my mood or the choice of words to describe it. Slow or not, the day is off to a lovely start.  That’s enough.

My heart is a temple to the Goddess of Love.

My heart is a temple to the Goddess of Love.

My last thoughts as I faded into sleep last night were of my traveling partner. My first thoughts on waking were similarly of him, inasmuch as they were of love, generally, and I find it difficult to think about love without also thinking about my traveling partner. It is one truth of my heart that the love he and I share has tended to redefine love quite a lot for me. It’s nice to observe that while the time we spend together (as in ‘in shared space’) is quite limited these days – every precious moment is also completely wonderful. It’s lovely. When we met it was also this way, and it remained so through the first many months we lived together. Our beginning was so natural, and such a wonderful fit, that we two beings disinclined toward matrimony at all would find our way to each other – and marry. Life’s hard knocks taught us both to doubt the value of a romantic contract…and loving each other changed our minds about that, and given us practical and emotional perspective that still colors our experience in a powerfully positive way. We rely on each other utterly – even when we don’t live together. What’s even better? We can.

"Cherry Blossoms" 12" x 16" acrylic on canvas 2011

“Cherry Blossoms” 12″ x 16″ acrylic on canvas 2011

I’m not bragging – we work at love, my traveling partner and I, and for a couple of years it wasn’t easy. Historically, our ‘others’ haven’t found the same profound value in the intense way my traveling partner and I love each other, that we experience ourselves. Real, significant, adoring, heartfelt love that works can be a tad threatening for those that don’t have it, that doubt it, or that didn’t understand that the work required is not diminished by the profundity of the affection; there are verbs involved – a tremendous lot of them, and far more of them than I had understood, myself (thus those couple of challenging years – I am still building needed skills, myself, and I know for my traveling partner, my TBI presents unanticipated challenges for him, too). Conveniently, although the work is not diminished by the depth of the affection – neither is the affection itself diminished by the necessity of doing the work – Love is ever a worthy cause in which to ‘mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor’. Yeah…I’m pretty sure that if I am not inclined to feel that way about someone, it’s not ‘love’.

"Communion" 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

“Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

I woke in solitude this morning – I’m okay with that. I enjoy it. The morning is still and calm, and pleasant. There is no stress. I smile thinking about the time spent loving, lately, and how wonderful it is to feel a cherished relationship deepen and grow without struggling to also figure out my own shit, work on me, paint, write, and exist along this peculiar trajectory – having my own experience is rather effortless without the minute-to-minute sense that everything is tangled up with having to be ever vigilant about what I am saying, doing, feeling… living with the TBI and my PTSD are difficult enough without having to constantly be on the look out for opportunities to ease the impact on someone else. The choice to move into my own place is continuously reinforced as being a good one through the day-to-day ease that has resulted. It matters a great deal that love feels renewed, restored, and once again the wellspring of my creative drive and the smile on my face.

"Contemplation" 11" x 14" acrylic on canvas 2012

“Contemplation” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas 2012

The unconventional choice to live alone – and apart from my spouse –  is working out pretty well; love is enhanced rather than diminished.  I knew when I was quite young (as early as 14) that living with others was problematic for me. I don’t crave continuous community, and my triggers are numerous and commonplace – but I enjoy being able to while away social hours with friends and lovers when it is comfortable, if I can easily disengage when the time comes (and be permitted full autonomy over determining when that time has come). I didn’t heed my own self-knowledge, and allowed myself to be persuaded (again and again, over many years and multiple relationships) that what I understood would be good for me wasn’t an acceptable choice. Decades later, I finally allow myself room to breathe, to grow, to be. I am realizing – and accepting – that it is okay to trust myself; who knows me better than I do? And in trusting myself, and taking care of me in the way that suits me most and meets my needs over time most effectively… I find my way ‘home’ to this place in my  heart where love resides, and I feel free.

"Lovers" 10" x 14" watercolor on paper 1992

“Lovers” 10″ x 14″ watercolor on paper 1992

Today is a good day to look my demons in the face with a smile and say “you have no power over me!” It doesn’t matter that it may not be true tomorrow – it’s true today, and that’s enough.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Strong or Bitter?

July 22, 2015 //
0

My coffee this morning is, perhaps, a bit of both – strong, and bitter. I can’t actually be sure…I don’t taste ‘bitter’ with any particular acuity, myself.  My own vantage point is that the coffee ‘tastes different’ in some hard to place way. It could be that it is simply a stronger cup of coffee than usual…

Bitter is not one of the flavors of Love.

Bitter is not one of the flavors of Love.

Strong versus bitter is something to consider on another level, isn’t it? The old adage that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger says nothing about what may become of our welcoming innocence along the way. Isn’t ‘bitter’ one opposite of innocent? The difficulty is that bitterness doesn’t typically serve me well as an individual seeking growth and wellness – it gets in the way. It is by far preferable, I find, to allow experience to develop over time in a gentler way, with a kinder (to myself and the world) outcome: strength. I still have a lot to learn about what develops strength versus what fosters bitterness…even with making coffee. 🙂

I was once far more cynical than I am now. More damaged. More wounded. More bitter. Experience had beaten me down, and torn my heart and my spirit to shreds leaving an emotional wasteland behind, and lacking any greater understanding that the journey could take me another direction if I chose my steps with care, I sort of trudged along…consumed by bitterness, ancient pain, and rage. That was a really long time ago. The first handful of steps in a different direction took so very many years…and the last handful of years have seen me take so very many steps in a better direction. The bitterness – the small bits that linger – are often simply a reaction from the damaged past to some “See? This shit, again??” moment within, before my brain can catch up with my emotions and remind me how far I have come, and that we are each having our own experience.  As emotions go, bitterness is every bit as fabricated as the rest, and just as illusory. The hurts in life hurt – they do – but the bitterness? I can choose differently. I can choose to raise my voice, use my words, and love the woman in the mirror by showing her the same respect, consideration, compassion, and openness I would show anyone else – and the reciprocity I need? That comes from using my words – answering circumstances with gentle reason, with awareness, with observation and clarity, instead of reacting with bitterness. Words may not change the circumstances – but I will feel heard. It takes practice to speak with tenderness, and vulnerability, about the things that set off a feeling of bitterness. It takes more practice to do so without letting hurt and anger become louder than the words – very few people, however much they love someone, can really ‘hear through the anger’ – we hear the anger itself, and earnestly wanting to be heard, I find value in learning to take a softer approach.

It’s a lovely  morning. A gentle, quiet morning that begins with a strong coffee, and an appointment, and will end with – no kidding – a baseball game! How peculiar? How delightful! How very different from the ordinary routine of the busy work week? I have never been to a baseball game. 🙂

Dinner last night with my traveling partner was quite relaxed and wonderful. I dropped him off at his place, still smiling, and headed for home – by way of rush hour traffic. It’s no wonder we spend so little time together on workday evenings – the traffic is nasty, and it takes 40 minutes to get from his place to mine! (It’s only 11 miles… 40 minutes seems somewhat excessive.) I can’t comfortably invite him to dinner much of the time, knowing that;  just the thought of the traffic in the evenings robs the idea of any fun. Why would I put him through that on purpose? It doesn’t sound very loving. lol  By the time I got home I was feeling on the edge of tears, and a hint of bitterness was creeping in. Rather than allow that to progress further, I reached for my handy self-care toolkit.

  • I checked my calendar – yep, due for my HRT; bitterness and other emotions on the darker end of the spectrum are often associate with fluctuating hormones. I take my hormones. This detail is not a safe one to ‘miss’ on – the consequences for my emotional experience can be pretty ugly.
  • I acknowledged how much I really just miss my traveling partner; this is an emotion that coexists with my day-to-day joy and comfort with living alone. Recognizing I have these feelings, I invite him to do something together this weekend (which both comforts me and gives me something to look forward to).
  • I take a shower and wash off the stress of the commute home through traffic; I rarely drive in rush hour traffic [or at all], and the scent of stress clinging to me could potentially continue to affect my mood. Besides…a shower after a hot day just feels lovely. 🙂
  • I meditate. Honestly, it takes the edge off, for me, in almost any trying moment.
  • I address other stressors that are in the background; there is paperwork for the appointment in the morning, and I had not yet found all of it. Taking care of that did a lot to ease my general level of stress.
  • I reminded the woman in the mirror that it’s okay to miss my traveling partner – he misses me, too – there is a greater purpose in living alone right now, a worthy one, a needful opportunity to heal and to grow. Taking the time to recall that this is a choice I am making for me, for my own sanity and longer term health and wellness, does a lot to ease the developing sense of bitterness.

Seriously? The bitterness was an illusion brought on by a little stress, a lot of love, and a lack of physical contact – it can be a challenge struggling with my libido in solitude, honestly, and that has been a thing that has held me back from finding my way through the chaos and damage more than once. The most important thing lacking in a solitary life [for me] is touch. An intimate connection with a physical component. Sexual romantic love. Going without that is super difficult for me, some days. Recognizing the simple primate mammalian truth of it allows the bitterness to subside – it wasn’t ‘real’ in the first place – and I move on with an evening filled with loving recollection of the excellent dinner I shared with my traveling partner, while I got myself organized for my appointment.

There is a lot of strength to be had in taking the very best care of this fragile vessel – and the being residing within it. Strength is…well… strong. And sexy. And nurturing. Bitterness? It doesn’t have those qualities at all. Given a choice, I’ll choose strength. I’m okay with not being so easily able to taste bitter. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Lingering After-Effects

July 16, 2015 //
3

I am fortunate that I slept last night. I wasn’t sure I would when I laid down to attempt it. An unexpected rise in the OPD [Other People’s Drama] levels in my life occurred on an order of magnitude sufficient to rouse my PTSD, and it hit me hard and derailed my pleasant evening.

I find myself making a funny face in response to calling it ‘unexpected’, when I consider the source; some people are OPD embodied, and once identified the only thing unexpected is that I found myself mired in it again.  It’s morning, though, and I did sleep, and my coffee is hot and tasty… it’s very tempting to stand in the patio doorway and shout into the dawn “You have no power over me!!” It would feel good. It would feel affirming. It would feel powerful. It would be dishonest – because I sit here, even now, concerned for my traveling partner and how he is treated by an entirely other human being than myself, and struggling to let it go. Truly, it’s not my relationship, not my drama, not my experience, and realistically I know the healthiest thing for me is to trust my traveling partner to take care of himself and make the best possible choices that meet his needs over time, and simply be here for him if he turns to me for help.

It’s hard to stand by and watch someone I love being chronically mistreated. I sometimes find myself feeling guilty for leaving a bad situation, myself… I know what long-term abusive behavior can do to one’s heart, mind, and soul – and there’s nothing of value to be had from that experience, besides leaving it behind with lessons learned. It is, of course, my own perspective on things, and because I have been more severely abused in other prior relationships and bear witness quite personally to the damage done, my testimony itself may be suspect – I am damaged, and it colors my perception. This doesn’t make me ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’ or lacking in ability to share my experience then (or now) – but it gives people who want to doubt me quite a lot of basis to support their doubt if they choose to. That’s more OPD in the making right there; putting doubt in my path as a sort of mirror of damage reflecting into another mirror of damage, and me sandwiched between defending my perspective and wondering what’s real.

I know some things from experience. I know leaving an abusive relationship behind doesn’t result in immediate cessation of suffering, nor guarantee healing – there are verbs upon verbs, and much practicing to be done to return to a state of wholeness and wellness. I know living in the context of abuse and mistreatment has literally no positive qualities to be had – and that people who are abusive may or may not ever change their behavior (or their intent), and whether they do or not, the damage is done. I know that I alone have the power to choose to walk away from being abused – and no one, however close to me, can make that happen, or ‘fix’ what doesn’t work on my behalf – and I know this truth is quite true for everyone who chooses to love someone who mistreats them. However much I love my traveling partner – I can’t rescue him from being mistreated in a relationship with someone else. That frustrates me, and the process of ‘being there’ for him when he needs emotional support re-exposes my own wounds, and my PTSD symptoms flare up with all the potential to wreck my experience – in spite of having walked away from the most recent direct source of that particular sort of chaos and damage. I know that my first order of business is taking care of me; I can’t be there to provide support to those I love without putting my own oxygen mask on first.

The lingering after-effects of emotional or physical abuse are quite lasting for me, reaching out from the distant past to strike me in my  present, taking me by surprise when I think I am safe. “You have no power over me!” is what I want to shout to the demons in the darkness – if I do, they will titter in the background, amused by my presumption; they are as powerful as ever, and every single day of joy I experience is taken from them by force: force of will, force of good practices, force of good choices, and the utter necessity to choose to turn away from them (whoever embodies them in my ‘now’) willfully again and again. The power they don’t have, though, is huge; they do not have the power to choose my response to their existence, and they do not have the power to determine my actions. I am free to continue to choose to walk away from OPD, and to decline to be mistreated; that’s always mine.

I don’t say much about the other person involved in all this, and with good reason; that person is not here to speak up in their own behalf, to offer mitigating information, to clear up misconceptions, or offer perspective – and we are each having our own experience. Most of us wander around fairly cluelessly hurting others, not by intent, but generally out of inattention, lack of skill in relationships, bad habits learned in childhood, or because we understood things differently after filtering reality through our own chaos and damage. I’m not sitting in judgement on someone else’s shitty behavior; I am entirely focused on taking care of me, learning from life’s curriculum, and distancing myself from people who mistreat me. I am distracted from those tasks by my concern for my traveling partner, and his experience…and I got sucked into the OPD by mistake last night, in the process of supporting my partner with kindness, compassion, and a ready ear, that’s all.

Enough.

Enough.

It’s morning, now, and I got the rest I needed last night, and woke feeling comfortable, rational, and content. It’s hard to want more than that, and it is more than I expected when I laid down to sleep last night. It’s enough.

Please take care of you, today, people – you are worthy of your very best care, your best treatment, your best manners, your greatest kindness. Please treat others well today, too; we are each having our own experience and you do not know what demons someone else may be dancing with in the darkness. (If your only way to treat yourself well is to treat others poorly, you’re not getting how this works – just saying.) Treat the people you love as if you love them; they deserve 100% of the best you have to offer the world, always.  It’s never too late to stop mistreating people, applying Wheaton’s Law is a good start.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, War and News of War, women, Words

Who’s Your Bestie?

July 12, 2015 //
3

If someone had asked me 5 years ago who my bestie is, I would have offered a name, maybe two. I would have made my choice from the few of my dearest friends of long-standing historical association that I recognize as ‘always being there’ for me, and figure that I had answered that question accurately. 3 or 4 years ago I would have answered that my traveling partner is my best friend, and even to this day those words feel ‘true’. If you asked me today my answer would be “me”, and sitting here in the cool stillness of a weekend morning, that feels very true indeed, although I have used a lot of verbs to get here from a very different place with myself on a journey that began not so very long ago.

The woman in the mirror and I have been through a lot together, and haven’t always treated each other well. I’ve found her actions (and her motives) suspect, more than once, and she hasn’t always ‘been there for me’, historically. We’ve worked hard for the past couple years to come to a better understanding, a ‘meeting of the minds’ that sweeps the chaos and damage aside, and it’s been worth it – because all my other friendships and associations have improved, where improvement has been an option. There is still free will to consider, and not all the choices to be made are mine. I’ve lost a couple of friends along the way, who did not find me suitable friend material as they got to know me through my growth and changes; I am not the person I once was, perhaps, or not the person they wish to know. I could take that all very personally – rejection does suck. It’s quite painfully, actually… but the woman in the mirror has a lot to offer me, and compromising that relationship is a ‘deal breaker’ in any other.

I spent yesterday wrapped in love. In the morning, I hung out with my new bestie – the woman in the mirror – and took care of me by way of mindful service to home and hearth. I enjoyed the simple practices of household chores attentively, bringing additional order to corners of chaos, revisiting prior storage solutions along the way and improving on them, doing some aquatic gardening to keep the aquarium in its usual day-to-day state of loveliness. I have at long last learned that while it is wonderful when the outcome appears effortless, this is not to be confused with any actual lack of effort. There are verbs involved in living beautifully. It was a lovely morning that finished with yoga and a shower, and plenty of time for meditation and study before my other bestie joined me for the evening.

My traveling partner joined me for the evening. We had talked about setting up the big TV, even wall-mounting it; the age of the apartment building, and the construction quality caused a change of heart on wall-mounting anything seriously heavy on that wall. (Something so permanent will have to wait for a home that is truly my own, next year sometime.) We had also talked about doing some upgrades on my laptop; the SSD for that purpose arrived safely just the other day. My traveling partner arrived and… we enjoyed the evening. That was what we did – enjoyed each other for a few hours. No work. No chores. No agenda. No planned activities. We did what I love to do with my traveling partner so very very much; we hung out, talked, and enjoyed the simplest of joys – the pleasure of each others company. It was quite delightful. It was…more than enough. I am still smiling.

I could wax rhapsodic on the topic of love and loving, my traveling partner, and endless delightful minutes spent wrapped in love…but…you had to be there. I linger on the recollection long enough to stall my writing and distract me, and I am content with that and uncritical, but there’s nothing more to say about the evening that doesn’t stray into overshare, or to details more personal that I prefer to share in such a public forum, or… writing dialogue, which I’m not skilled at. It was a lovely evening, well-spent with my bestie, loved and loving. It would be misleading to say we got nothing done – we did the one thing that truly matters; we loved each other, sharing our experience for a time.

“Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow 2011

Lovers come and go. In my own life, that’s been true of partners and spouses as well. Of my 4 significantly long-term relationships as an adult, 3 ended on such poor terms we do not speak (which makes sense since those relationships were characterized by chronic mistreatment of one sort or another, each contributing in some way to my chaos and damage). I am inclined to recognize all three has having been abusive, and damaging. Of those three relationships now behind me, none began as a friendship. My traveling partner, on the other hand, was a friend long before we became lovers. Many of my friendships are relationships that span decades – longer time periods than those ‘long-term’ relationships, by far. Some of my friends have been lovers along the way, without damaging the friendship we share. I have learned something about my romantic needs; I value the friendship, and having the foundation of future romances in a legitimate friendship with a firm foundation is a requirement these days. In principle, for me, meeting sexual and romantic needs has never required the ‘permanence’ of a long-term relationship, and I am not monogamous. In practice, over time it has become clear that monogamy is not the issue for me; I value, and need, a connection on a deeper level to enjoy everything I know sex can be, and those are the qualities I crave most from sex (and love). Lust doesn’t build the kind of connection I yearn for – friendships do; there are no short cuts to emotional intimacy, even for a woman with a disinhibiting brain injury. I no longer bounce from bed to bed, or fill my nights with hook ups, as I did in my twenties and early thirties; these are not practices that meet my needs over time. I am also not looking for ‘the one’ – I found her in the mirror. She likes to spend time with her friends.

It is an interesting journey, this ‘life’ thing. 🙂

Today I am enjoying my morning coffee with a smile, thinking of love, lovers, and good connections. Thinking of friends, old and new. This morning I will have brunch with one of my dearest friends of many years – a man of exceedingly gentle character who has known me since I was defending myself from the world by being permanently on the offense, emotional weapons of mass distraction set to kill, and existing as a land mine on the journey of other unwary travelers. He has seen more of my growth over time up close than most of my friends, and has been both encouraging and delighted to see me become kinder, compassionate, gentler with myself and others, and more aware as the years have passed. I am eager to hang out over a meal and share new growth – hell, I’m even learning to listen more than I talk, these days, and he may be able to get a word in edge-wise, himself. 😀

Today is a good day for brunch with a friend. Today is a good day for love. Today is a good day to hang out with the woman in the mirror – she’s a good sort, and she really cares about me. Today is a good day to treat the world as well as I am learning to treat the woman in the mirror.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

It’s Not a Competition

July 11, 2015 //
3

I slept well last night. I slept in this morning. I woke sufficiently early to enjoy the dawn. The kitchen is filled with the aroma of freshly ground coffee. The overcast sky promises cooler weather. The cool soft morning air fills the apartment by way of the open patio door. The morning is quiet, even serene.

Cooler weather and lovely overcast skies often come at a cost for me, and this morning this is the case; my arthritis pain is significantly worse after many days of not bothering me much at all. I shrug it off – at some points quite literally for the relief that movement gives – and wait on the kettle to put coffee nearer to ‘now’.

I look around my home contentedly, and without dissatisfaction, although it is Saturday following a week interrupted with stress; there are chores to do this morning. There generally are on Saturday morning, and I don’t offer myself any criticism that one or two things I could have done Wednesday or Thursday wait for me today. Why would I? My home is lovely and well-kept, and in any case, the rules are my own, the standards are mine, and the outcome need please and satisfy only me. I am enjoying this moment.

You see, it’s not a competition – until or unless I choose to make it one, of course. I don’t. I dislike competition [in life] rather a lot. I enjoy ‘game-ification’, and I don’t mind working to measure up to the standard I have set for myself, but frankly – there is no one else I compete with for my success, my sense of self, or my enjoyment of my experience. You can’t have what is mine [me] – and I can’t have what is yours [you] – on a level beyond mercantile goods, destination vacations, just the right schools or just the right neighborhoods; we are each having our own experience, and all the purchasing power in the world can’t change who we are. Of course, you could choose differently. You could choose to focus on what someone else has, what they enjoy, what their life looks like from an outside perspective, and you could make all your effort focused on getting there, being that, and doing those things. Let me know how it turns out? I haven’t seen any remarkable success stories on that front, mostly tales of frustration, discontent, disconnection and woe, instead. I have found that when I strive to be something or someone I am not, the less easily able I am to enjoy who I actually am – and the less easily able I am to grow or change. I consider my choice to fully embrace authenticity quite fearlessly to have been one of the most profoundly positive things I have ever done for myself.

Having said that I don’t find life to be a competition, myself, I admit that this is based on the choices I make, and what I enjoy in life personally. Perhaps you enjoy competition? I won’t [can’t] take that from you – but I won’t be keeping score with you, or making any effort to participate or ‘keep up’. I don’t invest in relationships in which it becomes clear the other person is ‘competing with me’, generally. I dislike it when people undermine someone else’s experience in order to get ahead, themselves, and don’t favor those sorts of people for relationships, either. It comes up a lot out in the world. Is your house bigger? (Probably – this place is small. And enough for me.) Do you make more money? (A lot of people do, it’s really not the focus of my goal-setting or effort, nor do I measure my own success in dollars.) Are you leaner, stronger, fitter, or more muscular? (I bet you’ve worked hard to get there! I’ve worked hard to get where I am, too. There are verbs involved, regardless of the goal.) Are you famous, expert, or highly sought for your opinion, or your charm? (Is that filling when  you are hungry? Does it secure better sleep for you at night? Are you well-loved and secure in the companionship of those you love?) I guess my point is that there is always someone with more, someone with less, and those quantities are not truly relevant to living well and being a skilled and loving human being.

Have I drifted off topic? I was thinking about housework on a Saturday morning. Ah! I was thinking about my Granny being, perhaps, appalled that there is hair in my hair brush, or that my bed is not yet made. I am thinking about my first husband as I notice that vacuuming is a thing, and that today is a good day to do some. I glance at the kitchen and recall other kitchens, in other conditions. For a moment, my thoughts turn to laundry. My wee home is quite tidy, but so small that any disarray whatever is very obvious – and I’m okay with a bit of disarray before dawn on a Saturday morning as I sip my coffee; there is no rush, and this is not a competition. There is literally, quite definitely, no competition at all – this is my home, these are my rules, this is my way. After coffee, chores – it’s a lovely Saturday morning and that’s enough.

I grin at myself thinking back to other circumstances, and being annoyed at getting sucked into the ‘housework rodeo’ because someone would be coming over; it is the antithesis of ‘being myself’ to radically change my environment to impress someone, or to measure up to my assumptions about their expectations. I can’t imagine any of my friends would be so rude as to come over to visit and criticize my housekeeping – it’d be the last time they were invited in and given a chance to do so. I feel pretty much the same about family – and every bit as willing to be very frank and to say out loud “how dare you be so rude and ungracious – get out.” lol Even my late grandmother’s spotless home filled with antiques from all around the globe lingering in my memory does not fill me with the drive needed to compete with her by cleaning my home to meet her expectations – and…um…why would anyone else’s expectations of my home be relevant to my own experience at all? Just saying.

More than the housework, the stacks of paintings not yet hung, and not yet stored, cause me some concern; I hesitate to paint because they are so very much at risk of damage stacked here and there, out in the open. If I lose myself in a creative moment, I could so easily find, later, that I have damaged existing work that I greatly love. My traveling partner is eager for me to get a loveseat, so we can cuddle and watch movies or talk. I’d like that, too. My own needs in the moment have more to do with finishing getting moved in…which means doing something about the stacks of paintings. One of the cabinets I generally use for that purpose is currently filled with my valued porcelain; I have no curio to display them in, yet, and the sideboard I lovingly hauled all over the world for 25 years is gone now. So…what is the most practical next step? What best meets my needs over time? That’s a tough one. I do enjoy cuddling my traveling partner… I also enjoy painting, and seeing my home in a very ordered state. (Stacks of paintings here and there do not seem especially ordered, to me. lol)

Enough.

Enough.

Needs of self. Needs of others. Needs of Love. Expectations. Unanswered questions. Well…it’s a good thing enjoying a pleasant Saturday does not require that all of life’s questions have answers. Today is a good day to be, unanswered questions and all. It’s not a competition, and this, right here, is enough.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »