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Hand-Crafted Moments

August 30, 2017 //
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The commute yesterday was ugly. I was calm. People drove badly. I drove calmly. The trip home was slow, traffic density was high, and it was a hot, muggy day. I arrived home… still calm. New. Nice. It was almost a pleasant drive in spite of the shitty traffic and terrible driving behavior of some of the other drivers. This was not a coincidence, or serendipity; I built those moments myself, with mindful awareness, non-judgmental compassion, and frequent reminders that we each see ourselves at the hero of our internal narrative, generally, and are each having our own experience. That jackass ahead of me, weaving back and forth over the yellow line? Human. Like me. Probably trying to see ahead – past the large truck ahead of him. Perspective. (I was still super glad that he finally turned off that road, and it was most definitely a bit annoying to see him stray over that yellow line again and again, but my annoyance was my own to deal with, and literally nothing to do with him.) The entire drive passed in this fashion.

I got home. I spent the evening relaxing, doing a couple things around the house – but mostly relaxing. I may have needed that more than I understood; I also went to bed a tad early, and without reading, or meditating, or any sort of dilly-dallying, was fast asleep so quickly I didn’t have time to consider the day. I woke to the alarm, rested, and feeling mildly distracted, as if torn from a pleasant dream. It’s been a lovely morning. I’ve taken good care of this fragile vessel, and the day starts well. I think I’ve finally come to a comfortable decision about the change in my transportation resources (having a car) and what kind of commuting options I have (both the driving sort, and the transit sort), and I’m finally ready to update my budget and my planning with the necessary details.

This morning, adulting feels rather comfortable and natural. It’s a nice change. I smile and sip my coffee and enjoy the moment of acknowledgement, and the feeling of ease. My smile deepens as I allow the awareness that, yes, “this too will pass” – even the pleasant bits are really fairly temporary. Always were. It’s totally okay. They come and go, and holding on ferociously can’t prolong them, it only makes the pain of their impermanence linger. So. This morning I feel light. I enjoy this carefully hand-crafted moment, as I did the moments in commuter traffic, or standing at the sink washing the dinner dishes, or standing in the shower feeling the water flow over my skin, or looking through my closet for something to wear and feeling content that anything I choose – I am still this person that I am, and I am loved. It’s nice. I highly recommend enjoying moments – and making the choices that result in more pleasant ones than unpleasant ones. There may be some verbs involved. Your results will likely vary (I know mine do). No doubt, you will have your own experience.

I look at the time. I’m eager to begin again. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Go Ahead, Be Broken

August 22, 2017 //
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I woke with a headache and a snarl, and I also woke rather slowly and with great effort. I slept poorly, both restless and wakeful, I didn’t get the rest I need. It is a new day.

My pounding head reminds me that although there are no loose bits rattling around inside, this fragile eggshell is cracked. I smirk at myself, aware that some of my tendencies – things like linguistic complexity where none is required, “being deep” in casual conversations, the peculiar awareness of and communication via living metaphors, the likelihood that I will take something sarcastic at face value, the difficulty ending a conversation, oh, just a whole bunch of things, really… “quirks”, eccentricities, moments of weird – are complex outcomes of a brain injury, of PTSD, of surviving some nasty shit by learning to cope with it. I can say I’m “broken” with something like a comfortable feeling of familiarity. I used to let it define me… differently.

For awhile I fought it. I refused to define myself in terms of the chaos and damage. I refused to “be” broken. Other times, I wallowed in it. Yielded to the damage. Gave in to the chaos. Gave up on changing anything.

Time passes. Change is.

This morning I woke up snarling at myself. Frustrated by the headache. Annoyed by feeling so groggy. Eager to get to the coffee…

I am unsure whether it is the caffeine, the comfort of the hot mug, or the slow familiar waking ritual of making it, then drinking it, that serves so well to put the day on track. It does though. It does put the day on track, generally. This moment of warmth – literal and metaphorical warmth – enjoyed alone each morning, a moment to “get my head right”, and get past the headache, or the arthritis stiffness, or the stuffy nose, or the lingering recollection of a bad dream, or… well, whatever the waking moments of consciousness throw at me. I’ve got that cup of coffee to help me turn things around. Does it actually matter to me what the mechanism of action actually is? Not in the slightest.

Be broken, if it helps. Grieve if you are hurting. It’s not especially helpful to squash down all the feelings with a lot of “shouldn’t” and “don’t” and extra helpings of criticism taken from the words of others, and reformed in your own words and returned to your narrative as your own thoughts. No one needs guilt or shame on top of the things that already suck so much – and those things don’t only weigh us down and hold us back from going on with things, they also tend to stop us embracing what is authentically good about who we are – chaos and damage and all. Some of this broken shit frustrates me, daily. Some of this broken shit is part of who I am.

“Broken” 14″ x 18″ acrylic and mixed media with glow.

Some of my most cherished individual qualities are very likely specific to my brain injury – or my PTSD. Some are things I like most about myself, others are things that other people have indicated they really appreciate about me. I’ve no intention of “fixing” those things. Don’t want to. Don’t need to. What if fixing the rest would also, by necessity, fix those things as well…? This thought is one underlying my focus on “being the woman I most want to be” rather than focusing on “fixing all the things wrong with me”; some of the things I may think are “wrong with me” in one moment, or from one perspective, may actually be very “right with me”, after all. 🙂

I’m rambling. Sipping my coffee. Grateful to have taken the time to really wake up before going on to other things. I take time to appreciate the value in waking up early enough to let myself really become my best self before I go on with my day. I pause to wonder how I got through so many years of launching myself from bed first thing, and immediately dressing and getting out the door quickly; it seemed efficient at the time. It was a grueling and fairly punishing routine, in practice, and I often treated people who are unfortunate enough to interact with me very early in the morning fairly badly, especially in that first hour after waking. I’m not suggesting that getting up at 4:30 am to depart for work at 7 am would be “the right choice” for everyone, there are other needs, and other ways. This just works for me. By 6 am, I am feeling mostly human. Awake. Aware. More able to respond, and less likely to react. The headache has dissipated. It feels like a lovely morning.

It feels like I can begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

How it Works to Choose

August 18, 2017 //
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The news? Pretty nearly all bad. The song in my heart? Pretty much, most of the time, all good. The way I get that done? I choose. You can too.

But wait – am I so cruel and clueless as to suggest that people struggling with mental illness can just “choose” to be okay? “Choose” a happier song? “Choose” to get over it? Omg – no. Not really. When we’re sick, we need care. We may need appropriate medicine to treat our illness or injury. We may need a visit with a doctor, or a stay in a hospital. We may be offered a treatment plan to follow… and a different one when that doesn’t quite work out… and another after that… and then… more verbs. Fuck. And results will vary. We each walk our own hard mile. It’s so not as easy as “pick a different song to sing“… except… It’d probably help though, and why would we not, if we can make the effort, choose to do the things that help?

So… I choose. I am, myself, among the “mentally ill”. PTSD is a real thing. My TBI on top of that (or underneath it, as it were) complicates things. I struggle with anxiety. I struggle with emotion, generally. I’m very human. This is a journey in progress. I have hard days. I also choose better practices than I once did. Meditation really works well for me, helping me find that chill space in my own head that prevents me descending into despair on some spiral of tears and rumination. Taking better physical care of this fragile vessel has been of value; I am less likely to quickly exhaust myself due to lack of sleep, or poor nutrition. I have fewer nightmares, and I have learned better “sleep hygiene”. Developing better emotional intelligence has incredibly worthwhile; my relationships are more fulfilling, and less fraught with confrontation, because I am more able to take time to listen deeply, to avoid becoming fused with someone else’s emotional experience, or to be manipulated by their expectations and assumptions. I am more able to avoid coloring my experience with an internal narrative built on my own untested assumptions or implicit expectations. These things have value. All of these improvements required making choices, and changing some behavior and thinking. Turns out that isn’t so hard, in most cases – although it also isn’t as easy as just saying words, either. There’s been quite a lot of practice involved – there always will be.  I’m even okay with that. Incremental change over time is a real thing; we become what we practice.

It makes sense that choosing our practices in a willful way, understanding of our needs, and who we most want to be, would result in eventually getting to that place. It ends up also being very helpful, along the way, not getting overly attached to that vision. Outcomes don’t always look quite the way we planned them out in our heads. 🙂

I have an appointment with my therapist next week. Yep. It’s a journey. I still make choices. I still practice practices. I am still walking my own hard mile. Sometimes I still need help. 🙂 I’m okay with that too.

My “stay-cation” destination.

I sip my coffee and consider the short work shift ahead. Change is a thing. I’m back to Monday through Friday, but I have firm plans for today (at the start of the week, it was my day off), so the weekend begins at 11 am, and is a bit longer than usual. 🙂 I hear sleeping in is nice – I’ll try that sometime. Maybe tomorrow. 😉 The weekend unfolds ahead of me rather gently. It feels good to contemplate staying home, doing some more moving in stuff… maybe a walk to the Farmer’s Market (it’s time to start trying to put reals miles on these feet, again)… morning coffee in the garden on the deck… just generally saying “yes” to life.

I’m ready to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Stuck

August 17, 2017 //
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Crap. I’m stuck on finding a particular item, post-move, and it is most likely still packed in one of the few remaining boxes. I’ve been stuck on it since yesterday evening after work, and I woke with it nagging at it me. An old “day planner”…

Remember having a “day planner”?

It’s not what’s in that old day planner that I’m looking for, though. It’s the cover. I painted on the plain coarse fabric cover. I’m looking for that original piece. The ideas and inspiration behind it persist in my consciousness, even going on to become other pieces of work on those themes, using similar colors, similar compositions. Iconic. Metaphoric. Allegorical. I’d share a picture… but… that’s sort of the point just now; I can’t find it. LOL

Wait. Stop. I need “do over”! I haven’t found it yet. I will though. Or… I won’t. There’s always a slim chance that in some moment altered perspective, or left brain/right brain weirdness, I looked at it with new eyes, finding it lacking in value – being just an old day planner – and tossed it. Oh yeah. I totally do that shit. Regrettably often.

I keep looking in the same boxes hoping I over looked it. Fucking hilarious. It will take unpacking every one of the remaining boxes…but… I want it before Friday. I guess tonight I am at least opening those two boxes I just keep hoping I won’t have to open prematurely; breakables. It’s not time to unpack those. I may have to open those boxes nonetheless – just to quiet my mind. I’ll almost certainly be unable to refrain from unpacking the remaining boxes of books – in spite of the lack of shelves for them. Damn it.

“Stop it.” The sound of my voice in the stillness startles me. Right. Let it go.

I sip my coffee. Breathe. Relax. Let the music in my ears reach my attention. Remind myself that satisfying the compelling idea I’m stuck on is not actually the sole solution to this aggravation – and possibly only a second best solution. Letting go of attachment to finding that day planner is a first-rate solution, also, and doable. Meditation is the verb I could be reaching for there. Helpful. Yeah. I put myself on pause. I give myself that precious gift of time, my own awareness… and I let it go. Really let it go.

Maybe I find it.

Maybe I don’t.

Maybe I choose to open those boxes.

Maybe I don’t.

…And hey… Hasn’t the intention been, all along, to unpack all the fucking boxes, at some point? 😉

Imperfect circumstances and impermanence are part of the experience. I breathe, relax, sip my coffee and begin the day again.

My schedule is suddenly Monday through Friday again. Less than ideal for me, personally, but I adapt to the changes as they come, as comfortably as I can. There will be amusing moments when colleagues offer expressions of appreciation, relief, or recognition of some ‘good fortune’ involved (“Well, at least you get weekends off…”), but for me, this is a shitty change. Sure, sure, “everyone” I know (not everyone at all; it’s a misperception) has weekends off. I like having weekdays off and working the quieter weekend days – and the commute on weekends is definitely more pleasant. Having days off that permit doctor’s appointments, errand-running, and provide more retail options is just a better fit for my lifestyle. I don’t find it helpful to miss work to go to therapy – it’s adding stress to the process of relieving stress. It’s inconvenient to be in the middle of a large painting and discover too late that I’ve run out of a particular color that I won’t be able to replace on the weekend. Stuff like that. Monday through Friday work schedules? Keep my share. But… it’s what I’ve got, starting yesterday. Yeah, I’m kind of bitching about it. Sorry. I’m cross over the whole mess. I’ll get past it. Find the good in it for myself – the good that matters most to me, personally.

(It’ll make visiting my Traveling Partner a bit easier. That’s something.)

The point, really, is that there is work to be done; this affects all my planning for the next… 4 months. Yep. I’ve got plans on the calendar – shared plans – 4 months in the future. Damn, I’m glad I hadn’t yet planned the winter holidays. lol Another point? It affects this coming weekend, and the weekend after that; both weekends I’d made firm plans. Well, shit. So… some plans will change, other plans will require changes to my time off planning… it’s a good think I enjoy planning. lol

Was there really a point to any of this? I take a sip of my coffee, brow furrowed, acutely aware that my attention was on something else as I made coffee this morning, and I considered not writing a blog post in favor of writing to a dear friend… then, this. How strange.

…I really want to find that day planner…

I head back to my meditation cushion to begin again.

…

…

…Funny thing about meditation…

20170817_060419

… I couldn’t quite let it go… but… I also found it. 

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Beginnings and Endings

August 16, 2017 //
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Tough day at the office.

I put on a new playlist, one with beats and edges and emotions – all of the emotions. I let it carry me from here to there. It covers a lot of emotional ground, highs and lows and inbetweens. I dance. I manage some housekeeping along the way. I medicate. I cry a few tears that weren’t at all about me.

I dislike endings, even though they are no more permanent than the beginnings are, and with few exceptions, generally precede beginnings. I take time to feel the weight of the truth of it. This too shall pass – a helpful thought. Change is. We don’t always choose it, sometimes it just shows up to the party uninvited.

I don’t mean to be vague-book-y at all here, truly I don’t. There were some organizational changes made at work. I lost a team member. Funny thing about that, though; I’ve grown. Some of my colleagues are my friends. He’s one such, and so – my heart loses nothing. I dig working alongside this guy. He’s sharp. Get’s it. He’s got a good heart, and a lot of commitment and skill. It will suck not seeing him already working when I get in each Tuesday. I will have to go digging each Monday for the information he always provided me in his hand-off each week. But, and this is real and so important, we’re friends. There’s nothing lost there. I’m still here. He’s still here. We’ve got each other’s numbers. lol There’s nothing to see  here, besides change, and change is always with us.

I still cried. I did. Yep. (I’m grateful I didn’t have to break it to him. I had it easy.) Change is a thing, but fucking hell – we’re a fantastic team at this. I miss him already. I worry whether he’s okay. We are friends; I want to help. I smirk at myself in a moment of honesty; now I have to do verbs to maintain this friendship. I can’t just show up to the office.

Tomorrow will be different. It also won’t be the end of my work week. So much change for one week… I gotta get some rest, though. Soon I’ll have to begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5
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