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

Feels Like Summer

August 28, 2019 //
0

Well… It definitely feels like summer, now. LOL In fact, it’s too hot, and it’ll be very nice to have the A/C back. 🙂

…Last night was lovely, anyway.

Here it is another morning. I managed to sleep, mostly thanks to the first rate job of keeping the house cool that my Traveling Partner managed, first cooling it off, then closing it up before the day began to heat up. I say a silent “thank you” – because it could have been much hotter in here, this morning. 🙂

I spend some minutes on my meditation cushion…”thinking cool thoughts“, aware things could be much worse than a couple summer days with no A/C, and appreciating how fortunate I am.

I sip my coffee and think about a friend whose life seemed to veer abruptly “off course” just as things were really turning around for him. I feel fairly helpless, a bystander on his journey, a fellow traveler who has walked a fair few hard miles; I would help, if I truly could. The choices, and the verbs, are his. I want more and better for him, and too see him choose wisely. I sit with my thoughts, remembering darker times, and the support and encouragement that were actually all around me, but that I could not see, and did not know how to accept. I wish my friend well, over coffee, and hope that he really understands I am here if he needs to talk, or even to just sit quietly in the sunshine. It can be a complicated journey to make alone, no map… I hope he remembers to begin, and then begin again, often. I hope he forgives himself.

I realize I’ve left a video of snow falling playing in the background. I grin at myself; I think I feel cooler. LOL

…Definitely time to begin again. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being

Love Rollercoaster

August 25, 2019 //
0

A morning with some challenges. I sip my coffee, finding my center through music. Love Rollercoaster feels appropriate. I take another sip of coffee, clean up my subscriptions in YouTube… astonished that I ever subscribed to that. What was I thinking? For real? Life and love, as journeys go, aren’t a smooth, well-lit, comfortably paved, straight broad path from this moment to the next. Like a lot of journeys, sometimes it’s gravel, sometimes it’s grassy, sometimes it’s a steep climb, other times it is so effortless is passes nearly unnoticed, caught up in my own unrelated thinking about it in the abstract. Like a rollercoaster? Sure, near enough, I suppose.

I’m not cross or unhappy this morning, and eventually I settled into a comfortable groove, feeling good. This Love Rollercoaster has many twists and curves, and I’ve learned much about love. The morning just got off to a bumpy start. It happens, and it’s not always about love. 🙂 There are other things going on. Let’s start with aging – and pain. Aging sucks in one or two regards – pain being one of those. I’ve got mine, my Traveling Partner has his. I woke this morning, with him, we each had our reasons for wakefulness to do with physical pain. Feelings were briefly hurt over unintentionally harsh words, because… pain. We both let it go, quickly, because neither of us wants to add to the other’s hurting, and we both mean to treat each other well. Affectionate reassurances, and loving heartfelt apologies, and the moment is behind us.

I had made coffee for us both, but we weren’t really up for coffee together; the morning started too early, and with too much discomfort. I sat down in my studio to chill with some music videos. I’d have gone back to bed, but had awakened feeling “triggered” and on edge by my own pain, and sleep wasn’t going to come easily (or, possibly, at all) – and I was near enough to “well-rested” to let that go, I just needed to restore that sense of balance, and begin again. 🙂 Eventually, my partner pops in to admit that he’s not really ready for coffee, after all, and shares his intention of attempting to go back to bed. Makes sense to me. I would, if I could. 🙂 He offers me his coffee, apologetically, appreciatively, and lovingly. I’m warmed by the gesture every bit as much as I would be by the coffee… sometime later, after I finished mine, I go get his – still warm. I smile, pleased to have a second cup of coffee without running the grinder and potentially disturbing my partner’s rest; I know he needs the rest.

I sit in the warmth of what an amazing weekend this has been for love and loving, without trying to analyze it – just enjoying it.

I think about our lovely evening the night before – dinner out with friends, hanging out at our place, afterward. It was nice. My smile deepens. Brunch with a friend at noontime – also quite delightful. Good weekend. I sip my coffee feeling content and satisfied. Fulfilled? Definitely. Happy? I think maybe, yeah. Feels good.

The difficult moments this morning weren’t personal, weren’t any sort of attack, really weren’t a big deal – just difficult, and actually, very very momentary. I can deal with that. I can also remember a time when a moment like that one this morning would not only have blown my day – it would have blotted out my recollections of this delightful weekend of love, affection, romance, and shared experiences with friends. I’d have drowned my heart in emotional “weather” – unable to enjoy the lovely “climate” in this period of my life, generally. I’m glad I have undertaken so many small practices that prevent me from becoming mired in a painful moment and unable to connect with a joyful life.

Quite a lot has gone into getting from “there” to “here”. 🙂

I sit quietly sipping my coffee, appreciative of how far my journey has taken me, how wonderful love is, and how pleasant it is to be so easily able to let go of the small stuff, and bounce back quickly. Basic mindfulness practices. Real actual practice. Verbs. Incremental change over time. Lots of books (have you seen my Reading List??). Lots of practice. My results have varied, and I’ve avoided taking that as a personal failure, beginning again thousands of times. What works, works; we become what we practice. 😀

…Well… It’s a lovely Sunday. Time to finish this coffee, and start the day. 😀

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5

Fearless Joy, Limitless Love

August 24, 2019 //
0

I’m sipping my coffee, and smiling. Profound joy, and great delight, fill me up this morning. I’m content. Well-loved. My coffee tastes good. I got the rest I need. It is simply a lovely morning, and I’m in love. 🙂

…The love, and loving, do tend to “light up” the day, most splendidly. 😀 I hear love songs in my head.

It’s a bit peculiar… I was so cynical about love as a younger person. I’d been hurt too often, too deeply, to “believe the hype” or appreciate the promise offered by real intimacy. It was a painful journey from that place, to this one, and I struggled for a long time to balance my tendency toward inappropriately deep (often undeserved)loyalty, with my lack of ability to form healthy attachments, or bond closely with lovers.

… I’m not there, now. Love feels so much different, from my vantage point, now, it is quite tempting to take a satisfied approach and figure “damn, I’m awesome at this love stuff!!” I’d lose a great opportunity to continue to grow my skills, and deepen my relationships, if I did. 🙂 I breathe, exhale, relax, and let go of my expectations and assumptions, and sit present on a lovely morning, feeling loved.

Last night I came home to work to a magical wonderland of being loved, appreciated, valued, and cared for. It was an evening of connection, intimacy, warmth, and an experience of deep, lasting passion – with a human being who is also my best friend. Wow. I’m still smiling. My Traveling Partner blows my mind with his ability to love, to demonstrate that love, to share it, to deepen it, to connect with me.

This morning, I sip my coffee, smiling at the world, and myself. Love is “all that“. Love really does “matter most”.  🙂 I’m grateful to have the chance to experience, explore, deepen, and enjoy the love I know. It’s hard to embrace the next moment (or begin again), just now… I’m very much enjoying soaking up the love in this one. 😀 I think I’ll do just that, for now, sit here, contentedly, feeling the love.

p.s. I love you.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories gratitude, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Too Hot

August 2, 2019 //
0

Too hot… Tooooo hot… My coffee’s too hot, Lady… 😉

Seriously, though? My coffee is too hot. lol …And it’s okay to be amused, to be silly, to be whimsical, to make jokes, to be merry, even in the morning, yes and all day, too. Lighten up when  you can, enjoy the moments that don’t weigh you down, and savor those, too. Even if – especially if – your heart is heavy with grief, pain, or trauma; those lighter moments can help us through some really dark times.

For clarity, because I assume by this point you are somewhat familiar with my whimsy (and word play, and over-use of metaphors), I’ll explicitly point out that this morning is merry and quite delightful, thus far. Neither the song I linked, nor the context of my experience right now, is weighed down by pain, or grief, or trauma – I’m just saying letting your heart be light when it will is a healthy thing. 🙂

Yesterday was as easy as the day before was difficult. It was a lovely day, summery, fun, fulfilling, exciting… did I mention the fun? And the fulfillment? A good day.

If you’ve made the whole thing about the job, you may be missing the point. 🙂

…Good days also end. They come around again. However dark times feel in one moment, it’s only one moment. There’ll be another. We can make choices, change choices, put verbs in motion, adjust our perspective, and even walk away from what doesn’t work. We have so much power over our own lives, often more than we use, certainly more than we recognize, when we feel hurt, trapped, or held back. How often is it our own choices allowing us to be hurt, trapped, and held back? (Sometimes it isn’t, let’s be real about that, and the harshness of our circumstances can be imposed upon us by bad lawmaking, by human nastiness, and by the choices of others, just as it can be by anything we’ve done, ourselves – also a thing, and yeah, even there, our decision-making can alter our experience of our circumstances to a greater or lesser degree, and we still have tremendous power to change the future.)

“This too shall pass,” applies even to the best of times. The best, sunniest days, eventually see the sun set. It’ll rise again. The wheel turns. There’s a new beginning just over the horizon. With this being the case, then it is also a given that it’s true of our darkest times. I mean, generally… there’s also death to contend with, eventually, no argument there. I don’t have much to say about that, and existential angst can get out of hand pretty quickly if we’re overly concerned about that.

Oh, nice… my coffee is cool enough to drink. I smile merrily. In this moment, that matters. That’s okay. I think all I’m getting at this morning is… be sure to have a good time, too. Enjoy living life. Enjoy the sunshine, and the rain. Enjoy this human being that you are – even while you work to become the person you most want to be. There is only practice, there is no “perfect” – enjoy the journey (you may not ever reach the destination).

The clock keeps ticking. It’s a new day, a new beginning, a new chance to be the woman I most want to be. It feels like summer.

…It feels like time to begin again. 😀

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Shifting Gears

July 30, 2019 //
0

Today’s the day. The return of my Traveling Partner from his weeks of travel. I’m eager to see him. I woke, this morning, ahead of the alarm clock, with Panic in Detroit left playing in my head, leftover from my dreams. There’s nothing mysterious about that; I love the bass line in that track, and the theme of revolutionary chaos sort of resonates with in these peculiar times. A few words are exchanged, over chat, when he stops for fuel, while I sip my morning coffee.

Life shifts gears almost imperceptibly. I live a bit differently alone, than I do living with anyone else. For one thing, I’m a tad weird about being very considerate, so cohabitation generally means that I slip out of bed in the morning darkness, and take care of most of my routine morning self-care in the hall bathroom, instead of the master bathroom – to avoid waking a sleeping partner, obviously. 🙂 Well, doing that also means laying out tomorrow’s clothes in advance, and placing them in my studio, where I get dressed, again, avoiding disturbing a partner’s sleep. I do the dishes after work, instead of before work. I am careful about noise, generally, closing cabinets and doors with great care, to avoid as many knocks, clicks, bangs, and bumps as I can. It’s to do with my own inability to sleep when other people are careening around shared space raising hell and carrying on (probably quietly, in perfectly ordinary ways, but making no specific willful effort to silence themselves) doing the things they do. I have difficulty sleeping through that. lol One of the many reasons I do enjoy a solitary life without regret or complaint; I struggle to deal with the general noise and chaos of shared living (it’s a struggle that is symptomatic of both my PTSD and my injury). Still… this human being returning to home me? I like living with him. It does change things a bit to do so, and I’ve no particular regrets about that, either. It’s pleasant and comforting to share life’s journey with someone dear, given a supportive relationship between equals.

So… I shift gears. I’m okay with that. It’s not as if life isn’t already in a constant state of change. lol This has been a deliciously luxurious, greatly appreciated, savored-in-the-moment, time to enjoy living life without shared context, and to lavish little freedoms on the woman in the mirror. I’ve particularly enjoyed cooking for myself, without having to consider other taste preferences. I’ve even taken time to shore up habits that may have slipped a bit in the utter chaos that was having my partner move in, and I’ve taken time to enjoy many small things that are peculiar to my taste and aesthetic, unreservedly, filling up on experiences I love without the challenge of working them into a shared routine of daily life, or explaining them, or excusing them. I’ve re-explored what it means to be this woman that I am, and where this path appears to lead. I’ve planned a couple camping trips, realizing I also need some time away.

…Fuck, I have been missing this human being, though. I’m glad he’s heading home. 🙂

I look around the apartment, once more, before getting my things together to head to the office. I think about what I could make for dinner, later. (Wondering, even, if he will be awake for anything like that? He’s finished the trip home with round-the-clock driving, eager to be done with it, and realistically, could just crash out once he’s finally home.) I shake my head and let that go; I’m prepared for whatever, and just happy he’ll be home, it honestly doesn’t require further planning. I look around… and smile. This place is worth coming home to. Tidy. Peaceful. Orderly. Relaxed. 😀

I finish off my coffee with a smile. It’s time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »