Archives for posts with tag: love matters most

A Moment to Celebrate Love

May 1, 2017 //

It’s May Day. Maybe you are celebrating, too? Are you celebrating a festival of Spring? Perhaps you are marching for workers’ rights on International Workers Day? Personally, I am celebrating 6 years of marriage with my Traveling Partner. 😀 No idea if we’ll see each other today… likely not; it is also a work Monday for both of us, but our shared flexibility and comfort with living apart day-to-day prevents a lot of needless drama from erupting over those sorts of things, generally. I am okay if we get together over dinner or hang out awhile. I’m okay if we don’t; either way I am celebrating this delightful partnership of equals, today. 😀

Love.

Today I am listening to love songs, and smiling at memories of shared moments, flipping through photos of the past few years – those that we’ve shared as human beings, together on this bit of life’s journey. It’s enough to celebrate and honor the experience we share as lovers in my own heart this morning – there’s nothing about that which really requires us to throw money at each other, or deviate from our routines. What matters most is that we each feel it, and recognize this is worthy of celebration. Love is messy, tricky, and wonderful… and I am delighted to share it with this human being. Certainly, this is a partnership worth celebrating; I’m glad I have a day for it… I tend to feel pretty celebratory about this love every day, the calendar observation is sort of extra. 🙂

p.s. I love you.

Today, love is enough. 🙂

Tags 6 years, are you going my way?, be love, celebrating love, emotional self sufficiency, listening deeply, love, love and lovers, love matters most, love me do, love songs in my head, May Day, mindful love, p.s. I love you, relationships, sufficiency

Categories Love, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

This Works for Me

March 19, 2017 //

My morning is strangely… off. I slept badly. I got enough rest, anyway. I haven’t yet figured out my day. I’m sort of lazing around watching an occasional video, sipping coffee, and mostly just staring out the window rather unproductively. I find myself amused that I think I got enough rest; I am a zombie on my feet, shuffling through the morning vacantly, without purpose or direction… yet. The day is still ahead. I notice my empty coffee cup; this I know I how to deal with.

Staring into the darkness during the night. Sleep did not come easily.

My second cup of coffee wakes me up a bit more. I put on a lively playlist. Chat a while with my Traveling Partner before he begins his own day in earnest. We miss each other, and look forward to hanging out, later today. Maybe we do hang out, maybe we don’t; it matters most that we want to. 🙂 Co-dependency and unhealthy attachment build some very unhealthy relationships between human beings. Learning some emotional self-sufficiency, and letting go of attachment (to outcomes, to emotional states of being, to romantic hyperbole, to expectations, to assumptions…) did some amazing things for this beautiful love. It’s a journey still in progress. “The journey is the destination.” “The way out is through.” Love matters most.

I don’t know what else I am doing today, even now, but I do know one thing that will fill my day; love. It’s enough. 🙂

Tags are you going my way?, be love, be mine? be yours first, emotional self sufficiency, grown up love, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, love and lovers, love matters most, loving deeply, mindful loving, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, real love and romance, relationships, romancing the stoner, taking care of me, TBI, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5

Any Day Is a Beginning

December 26, 2016 //

I am up super early. No real reason, it’s just when I woke. It’s the day after Giftmas, I am home alone, the house is quiet, and I am unsurprisingly up early – about the time I’d usually be up on any ordinary Monday.

For now, the lights on the tree still shine.

Giftmas is over. Oh, there’s still fun and holiday to be had – New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are not yet played out. There’s something to be said for being accepting of other cultures – the holiday season becomes filled with celebrations of all kinds, and opportunities to connect with friends, loved ones, and associates of all kinds more deeply. What’s not to like?

Why the hell am I up so early on a day off work? I grin sheepishly at myself in the pre-dawn darkness. Perhaps I am just excited to get on with living these precious moments? 🙂 I’m already on my second coffee… it’s not yet 5:30 am.

I contentedly scroll through my Facebook feed again, cherishing holiday photos from faraway friends and family. It is a season when everyone puts their best moments and greatest delights ahead of all else. It’s wonderful to see. For a few days, most of the bullshit stops, people put aside most of their pettiness and drama, and just enjoy each other. It’s lovely. Let’s do more of that in 2017, shall we? I mean, really pause the clock to enjoy one another, to be in the moment, present, engaged, and deeply connected; these are the moments that linger in our hearts with the greatest warmth and healing presence. These are the moments that are the best of who we are.

Be someone's lighthouse, always guiding them toward their best self, in life's stormy weather.

Love is a lighthouse, showing the way to safe harbors in life’s stormy weather.

Last night as my Traveling Partner packed up his gear and his goodies to head home, I made sure to ready a container of fresh holiday cookies to take along for another partner. A moment of holiday goodwill, a moment when all the possible baggage and old business got set aside and my best intention – and my best self – stepped forward. Had she been on hand in person, she’d have gotten a hug and a smile, and a genuine well-wishing from me for a very good holiday, and a good year-to-come – are we not both human? Both mortal? Both very fancy fucking monkeys just doing our humble best, mostly, most of the time, as far as we each can tell, generally? I like to think so. Certainly, we’re each having our own experience, and as I am generally content with mine, and not invested in creating misery for others, why would I treat her differently? Holding old pain against her in the here and now does nothing positive for me.

Begin again. Love well. Love authentically.

Thinking it over this morning, I am more easily able to recognize how much healing has taken place over time. This seems a healthy thing. Oh, the relationship bridges were burned along the way, and there’s no going back on that journey – but why add to the chaos and damage after-the-fact? That seems silly. Has it become a Giftmas tradition in my home to waken afterward with just a little less baggage, a little more true to the spirit of the woman I most want to be in life, a little more easily able to live up to my values, even in those relationships in which my boundaries were tread upon, and my values not shared, or respected? I like the thought that it could be, and consider the verbs involved to secure its place in my ongoing holiday celebration each year.

Peace be with you, and Love, too. ❤

This morning seems a good one to begin again. Oh, any number of things could be beginning, and there’s no need to wait for the New Year (although, clearly it is a favorite date for new beginnings, generally, most particularly for the grand sorts of life changes we know we won’t actually see to completion). This morning, I’ll begin again, first, with another cup of coffee and a smile – and a merry “thank you” in my heart for the lovely holiday. For now, that’s enough.

Tags ACT, all in this together, begin again, do the verbs, every day could be like a holiday, giving, having my own experience, holiday cookies, love and lovers, love matters most, MBSR, peace offering, ptsd, re-gifting, setting down the baggage is a process, so very human, TBI, the human condition, the human experience, what is human?, what matters most?, where did all this damned baggage come from?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

Another Breath, Another Moment

September 15, 2016 //

He’s gone, now. Like a dust-devil on the open desert; approaching from a distance, I had an idea my traveling partner would likely head my way at some point, and probably need to stop by for this or that, but no clear expectation of timing. While that’s not my own preference for managing details, I am content to enjoy him when I can. He suggests, by phone, at some point yesterday, he’d be by right about… whenever he’s here, really, and that’s what I heard, regardless of what it was he said, which I no longer recall. I only knew he’d come, at some point, and I’d feel his arms around me for a moment, before – just as with that allegorical dust-devil – he’s quite gone again. I find myself smiling this morning, grateful for love’s moments, unconcerned over love’s lack of commitment to efficient scheduling. 🙂

Letting go of attachment takes practice. I’m still practicing.

His planning shifted with the day. He would be here… He might not make it… He definitely wouldn’t make it that day, but would make time the next… Then, quite late… “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about 8 minutes.” No argument from me, and no stress. Oh, sure, this level spontaneity isn’t so much my thing, but being bitchy about it tends to degrade the general quality of our experience together in the moment, and he is aware that I like a bit of planning, some structure, all that – if he could offer it in that moment, he would have, because when he can, he does.

Embracing impermanence requires practice. I’m still practicing.

Life is not a freight train on rails following a set, fixed, known path, with a clear schedule to which it adheres, not even “generally”. Why would love be constrained by a timetable when life herself can’t get her shit together enough to make and follow a workable plan, day-to-day?! LOL Planning and having a fairly clear idea of the day and week ahead, those are my wants, needs, and inclinations, and it absolutely makes sense to me that I tend to organize my time in a fairly firm way. Other people find less value in the routine and predictable, and seek greater spontaneity in their adventures. I’m learning to let go and avoid suffering in life when plans fall through, or reality refuses to comply with my expectations, which are very often upended by life, by love, by circumstance, by whim, by opportunity, by choice, by chance… Life is far more important than the schedule with which someone tries to regulate and manage it. 😀

I begin again. A lot.

Damn, I do miss him, though, already. That’s okay, too. The whirlwind moments of his brief visit were shared in the company of friends, dear to us both. He was here! His gear was quickly, rather sloppily assembled (also not my preference, and it had been planned differently lol). Conversation happening, his gear still ends up packed, somehow. Much fun was had in those brief moments together. Laughter. Hugs. Friendship. Warmth. Love. Tenderness. Kindness. Adulting. I’m still lingering on those precious moments, because I have learned they are by far more important and more worthy of savoring than the poignant quiet moment at the end of the day, alone in the darkness. Here I sit, with my coffee and my quiet smile, content and wrapped in love. 🙂