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Hormones and Holidays

July 3, 2015 //
1

I struggled with a bad bit yesterday. It was the first significant experience with loss of balance, volatility, and my chaos and damage since I moved. The lovely morning began to slide sideways fairly early in the day, as I reacted to fairly commonplace work stress while also struggling with my hormones. I made choices that caused both to be more serious challenges than they might otherwise have been.

I realized where my state of being was taking me around mid-day, and made the choice to start the holiday weekend early. A hot day, no clear agenda, enough background stress to repeatedly find myself clenching my jaw…I followed up my early departure from work with the choice to head to the nearby mall…an odd choice for me these days, but I found myself wanting to window shop and consider my quality of life ‘to do list’ for home and hearth, and enjoy the colder a/c for a time.

Choices matter. This choice was not ideal for me, fortunately I still have free will.

Choices matter. This choice was not ideal for me, fortunately I still have free will.

Clenched jaw. Headache. Irritability. Backache. A persistent feeling of frustrated anger simmering in the background. Feeling disconnected – and unable to connect. I felt very aware that the issue was my own, and not something anyone else was causing. As I wandered the aisles of ‘retail paradise’ I repeatedly pulled my focus back to ‘now’, working to maintain awareness, and presence in the moment. I was not expecting to find myself unable to find joy in the varied colorful displays of merchandise offered for my consideration; “retail therapy” used to be something I could easily rely on for a diversion, if nothing else. It was not working yesterday; I am not the person I once was.

I got an icy cold creamy chocolate-y coffee beverage ‘for medicinal purposes’ (yes, in my experience the combination of chocolate and coffee does help with hormone challenges). I sampled some fruit teas, and bought a nice one for iced tea for the weekend. The mall had nothing else to offer [for me], unless perhaps I had a much bigger kitchen, and an unlimited budget for high-end kitchen gear – neither of which are the state of things. I felt irritated with the noise – I went to the mall while I was struggling with noise sensitivity, too? What was I thinking? I headed for home feeling pretty low, and rather dismally disconnected from self.  The heat of the day contributed to being so cross by the time I got home that I was near tears. I sent my traveling partner a heads up that I was dropping offline for a while to take care of me, and that I was not at risk of self-harm; worrying loved ones doesn’t help with longer term stress management.

As soon as I got home I reached for the checklist. Mine is personalized with some additions that are specific to my own needs. First things first – I went down the list and checked off what I knew I had already managed and discovered something I wasn’t fully aware of; there were some significant misses. I set the check list aside, and in a ‘first things first’ sort of way, had a leisurely shower to rinse off the stickiness of sweat and the heat of the day, and changed into ‘comfy clothes’ [for me that’s yoga pants and a loose tank top]. At that point I put down everything else – including my concerns, doubts, stress, and emotional weirdness – and took time to meditate, no timer. It was a struggle. My mind wandered, again and again, fussy over nothing, irritated with minutiae, distracted and out of focus, and feeling vaguely sad. Each time I came back to my breath it got a little easier, and I felt a little more calm. My headache began to ease. My clenched jaw finally relaxed.

Another look at the checklist, and I began working my way down the list item by item…a healthy meal…some exercise…music, dance, yoga…I picked up and completed a couple small projects, and planned the weekend around taking care of me, and enjoying some leisure time. I stayed away from social media, and video brain candy. I looked into the face of my anxiety fearlessly, and allowed myself to consider that I might go completely to pieces that evening and find myself in crisis management mode, and affectionately accepted that I have challenges to deal with, even now, and that life isn’t about ‘perfect’ or ‘happily ever after’ and that the variability and intensity of my emotional life is also part of how I feel the intensity of the love, passion, and delight that I do in other moments. I reminded myself this would all pass, as things typically do; the intensity is not really sustainable.

The hormone piece is a real bad-ass as challenges go; I’ve passed menopause, and the tendency is to think this means I am done with complicated mood swings and whatnot resulting from the reproductive hormone cycle, but that’s a gross oversimplification, and this week I had screwed up the timing on my HRT – which means hormones became a factor that needed acknowledgement, attention, and self-compassion. The disinhibiting qualities of my TBI contribute to my volatility; I have trouble managing intense emotions, however fleeting, and the stress caused by my fears that I may ‘lose my shit’ unexpectedly and lash out in a socially inappropriate way doesn’t make it any easier.

Over the next few hours of taking care of me with my whole attention, and nothing else on my mind, I managed to find my way to a more comfortable place. I didn’t stop when I got there, and enjoyed several more opportunities to meditate, to treat myself with compassion and tenderness, and to restore order to my thinking through the living metaphor of restoring order to my experience, and my environment.

This morning I woke at the usual time, without the alarm, and got up long enough to take my medication on time, and return to sleep for a delicious additional 2 and half hours. I woke easily, feeling content and comfortable in my skin, and in my head. I overslept my original plans, but didn’t feel disappointed; I have a plan B. I enjoyed a few minutes of conversation with my traveling partner, in the digital world, and made coffee. I took time to enjoy my coffee without distraction, feet up, listening to music. Meditation, yoga, and dancing got my on my feet and enjoying the pleasure of movement. I took on a couple small household projects, like reorganizing the pantry for the shelves that will arrive next week, and making a home for the bin in which my journals remain packed (I once needed to see them displayed all around me to feel secure). The additional living space and order feel very good, and I recognize that the lack of order was causing me stress; these were details that felt very much that I wasn’t finished moving in.

Blooming in my own time, when conditions are right; I am learning to tend the garden of my heart more skillfully.

Blooming in my own time, when conditions are right; I am learning to tend the garden of my heart more skillfully.

It is one truth that I will face my demons until they are vanquished. It is another truth that although I have taken many steps, there are many more ahead of me. It is yet another truth that I am okay right now, and right now that’s enough.

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

Quiet Mornings

July 2, 2015 //
0

I feel sure of quiet mornings. I don’t know why. I do know that serious disruption of a morning that starts well puts me at high risk of a crappy day; I don’t recover easily from having a quiet morning blown with OPD, emotional baggage, residual angst from unremembered nightmares, or anger. It has been awhile since I missed out on the simple joy of a quiet morning – and quiet mornings may be reason enough [for me] to live alone.

What is more representative of a quiet morning than my cup of coffee?

What is more representative of a quiet morning than my cup of coffee?

I’m not “a morning person”. I say that because it is true. It doesn’t show at all, here, alone on a quiet morning. I am content, and enjoying my coffee. A soft smile lingers on my face; it arrived while I showered, resulting from the innocent sensuous pleasure of water over skin. I feel good, and calm, and generally wrapped in a sense of well-being. How did I get here? Is that a question that needs an answer? There are choices and verbs involved. Some of them matter more than others. Emotional self-sufficiency – building it, and enjoying it – is an important piece of my puzzle, and I continue to work on it with the attention of a craftsman, and the commitment that results from a passion for living well. I am not yet sufficiently skilled, or strong enough, to be so sure of myself and my choices when I live with someone I care for deeply, and reaching that place is one of my challenges – not necessarily to then live in shared domesticity, but rather simply because it is a healthy goal that gives me more options.

One very important choice I have made along the way is to refuse to wallow in regret over small things. There are a lot of little things I enjoy greatly that I am choosing to do without day-to-day, in order to take care of me with greater skill over a longer time. I miss morning coffee with my traveling partner…I don’t miss arguments over small things, or emotional storms, that sometimes resulted because I just wasn’t yet quite awake enough to make sense, or to communicate easily, or needed a few more minutes for me. I could allow myself to focus on the regret and the loss, and sit idly by while resentment and hurt builds over time…I could take it very personally and blame him, her, them, the world, circumstances… oh the sorrow and the tears! It would get ugly fast, and then… where would my quiet mornings be? I might wake every day feeling only the losses. That sounds like a very poor quality experience. I didn’t understand, years ago, how much of my experience – and my emotions themselves – is chosen by me.  It isn’t forced on me. There are verbs involved. It matters not one bit if I refuse to recognize my choices, or the power of my will (or my won’t) – they remain steadfastly what they are. The outcome is generally quite predictable if I allow myself a moment of clarity to consider circumstances calmly, with awareness, compassion, and non-judgement. Meditation has been a tool with great value for me where perspective, awareness, compassion, and non-judgement are concerned; just ‘thinking about’ things takes me very different places than meditation does.

Begin at the beginning, it's a very good starting point.

Begin at the beginning, it’s a very good starting point.

I’m not saying that I ignore things that hurt me – emotional or physical – doing so tends to cause damage, and the wounds fester over time. Still, considering quiet mornings, why does acknowledging an experience I miss require me to raise hell with my traveling partner over it? What does my sense of loss actually  have to do with him, at all? My emotions are my own. Considering how much of my experience – and my emotions – are chosen, how does the hurt-angry-blame game even factor into it? Where is the utility? If drama and emotional weapons of mass distraction seem appropriate (or irresistible) in some moment, I will find that I have failed in some obvious and elementary way to clearly and effectively communicate some element of my values, my needs, or failed to share my expectations explicitly – or have callously forgotten that he has his own. That’s some bullshit right there, and it can be relatively easily managed, in the sense that there are choices to be made, that can be made – and it’s not that damned difficult from the practical perspective of making one better choice after another. (It does require practice, and your results may vary.) One of those choices [for me] is investing in the small victories, versus wallowing in the small losses; I enjoy quiet solitary mornings, smiling over my coffee, without regret, doubt, or insecurity – because quiet mornings please me so much, and nurture the best bits of who I am so well.

It's hard to go wrong with good basics...

It’s hard to go wrong with good basics…

This morning, I quickly backed out of Facebook after briefly checking it… my feed is filled with fear, hate, intolerance, doubt – did I mention fear and hate? Oh, and the anger. I don’t need it. Change is scary for people, and between marriage being legal, people who don’t want to see an antique flag with racist overtones flying over centers of government, and people in Oregon being allowed to smoke pot, there is a portion of the world just freaking right the fuck out over the terrible decline in society – I’d like to laugh, but frightened, cornered animals act aggressively, and there are few things more dangerous than feral humans acting out their aggressive impulses righteously in the name of their god, or ideology. That shit is damned scary. They are, however, human – we can’t just put them down, forcibly medicate them for their own good, or exile them for the good of society. When I have the energy for it, I do make a point of blocking all such relayed hate in my feed – regardless why it was shared, regardless which friend of mine that I know and care for may have shared it, I block the source (it’s easy to click ‘don’t show me stuff from ___’). Doing so certainly improves my feed over time, and I can’t be stopped from making the choice not to participate in hate. I even hope, in some small way, that perhaps I am ‘breaking the chain’ just by stopping more of it from reaching me; people who post hate often post hate regularly, people who post intolerance often post intolerance regularly, people who engage in trolling are often… trolls. Block. Experience improved.

A helpful practice, indeed.

A helpful practice, indeed.

Choice is a powerful tool. Making choices deliberately, with thought, with strategy, with commitment to my own values, unapologetically, frees my choices from the web of coincidence and happenstance; then the outcome is mine to enjoy, to be accountable for, to celebrate – and to change. I like that kind of power…the power to be. In circumstances where events are inflicted on me by others, I still have that power to choose, that power to be – because I can choose my reaction and choose to continue to live my own values. Viktor Frankl wrote a very important, rather depressing although enlightening book on the subject.

It’s a lovely quiet morning. Today is a good day to enjoy being and becoming, and to enjoy my power to choose – how vast and unlimited is that power?! Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

More or Less, and Enough

June 30, 2015 //
0

This morning I woke gently, slightly before the alarm clock. I got up feeling nauseous, which is odd; I often feel ill after my morning medication, but I hadn’t had it yet. For the first time in decades unexpected nausea in the morning doesn’t cause me to wonder if I am pregnant. (Yay, menopause!) I lay down for another minute or two to let the nausea pass, if it might be due to getting up too quickly and making myself dizzy. It does pass; I exchange it for hiccups.

It will be a hot day according to the forecast, so I wear cool summer clothes; in the chill of morning I am chilly and feeling a bit underdressed. I know the feeling will pass when I begin the walk to work, and it has me thinking about the a/c in the office – perhaps I should take a light sweater to leave at work for these hotter summer months?

I have worked out the theme and selected the canvases for the long wall along my living room. Many of them have never previously been hung, they do not yet have hanging hardware on them, and some of them are unframed (and clearly meant to be framed). I have a vision, and I am not yet ready to proceed. The lovely sheers for the patio window, too, are ready to hang…only the bracket to support the curtain rod is not quite long enough to reach past the vertical blinds in the intended way.

It isn't always clear where my path will take me.

It isn’t always clear where my path will take me.

In other times in my life any one of these somewhat frustrating circumstances could have blown my day, my experience, or at a minimum my mood. Instead, and seemingly without effort, I feel more or less prepared for each circumstance facing me, and that’s enough. I have forward momentum. I am not stalled in my tracks by other steps, small delays, or minor detours; these experiences are also part of the journey. I didn’t do significant work on this directly – although managing my frustration (rather, my lack of skill at dealing with it) has been on my ‘to do list’ for a very long time. It’s another bit of internal change that is going on as result of other practices, and day-to-day reductions in stress. I didn’t understand the degree to which managing day-to-day stress would improve things that didn’t seem directly stress related in my understanding of things. It’s very efficient, and I smile at the recognition that I am getting a lot of good results from a few simple changes, a handful of good practices, and a commitment to some verbs.

Well, sure, that makes sense...

Well, sure, that makes sense…

There is more to do. It feels a little awkward lately how often I sit down to write and find that few challenges speak up to be spoken about within the quiet of my thoughts. That’s no great tragedy, obviously, it just seems a bit unsettling to be so content – happy? – for so long. More than a month with so little drama that drama seems not to exist, and so little stress that I can count on one hand the number of times I have wept helplessly since I moved into my own place – and it doesn’t require all my fingers. I get more moved in every week, and the small details matter. Once I evicted my arachnid roommates (they were not paying rent, and biting me all the damned time), I settled into contentment, and life, on a new level. I don’t know that I have words for it – or that there is any way to share the experience in a comfortable rational way without sounding like I am bragging, or being smug. It is a humbling experience because I am both challenged to express it, and a little frightened by it – if I stare into the face of contentment, will it take its leave of my experience? It’s silly, but I have never been here before and I just don’t really  know.

I have lived alone a couple of times previously (it never lasted long), and never found this level of contentment for more than hours or days. My first exploration of living alone was when I left my violent first husband. I moved into a tiny partially furnished apartment in low-income housing. I spent most of my time anxiously peering through the curtains to check if he was still parked outside, sleeping in his car, or looking over my shoulder to determine where he was, somewhere behind me (he often was). It was not ever an experience characterized by contentment. I was trying to survive. The next time I made an attempt to live alone I had left my first husband permanently, and although I loved my quiet beige and white apartment, I spent most of my time anxious that my ex was still stalking me, worried about money, and struggling with my libido. Living alone didn’t last long, and it was not an experience characterized by contentment; I was still looking for ‘happily ever after’, contentment was not an idea whose time had come for me.  I don’t consider experiences with barracks life, or shared living, any sort of ‘living alone’ – there are just too many people outside those doors to qualify in any way as ‘solo living’ in the same sense. I also can’t realistically count circumstances where I was alone for a time when housemates, family, or partners were away for however long; not my house, not my rules, not my way.

I didn’t know what to expect when I moved into Number 27. I love this place. Oh, sure, it’s a rental and it’s an older one. The carpet is worn. The appliances (whether new or not) are modest, fairly sturdy and commonplace sorts. The kitchen and bathroom are small, on the edge of ‘cramped’. It is in a largish community, and my windows look out onto the lives of others. Generally speaking, it’s an ordinary enough sort of rental of (as it turns out) minimal square footage to be comfortable for me. I moved in prepared to struggle with sorrow, loneliness, frustration, privation, isolation… and I’ve had brief moments of sorrow, usually hormones or fatigue are involved, the loneliness turns out to be less about whether I am alone and much more about the quality and nature of interactions I have with lovers, however remote. Frustration? I don’t know, now and then I guess, in a very ordinary way, hardly attention-getting. Privation? Not a thing here. Isolation? Also not a thing here. This is my home. I love it here. I don’t mind that it is an older rental and a bit run down; I keep a tidy well-cared for home, and it is mine, and it is lovely and welcoming. The small ordinary details that fall short of ideal teach me what I am looking for in a ‘forever home’… which may turn out to be very like this wee place that is so very much home to me now (perhaps a bit larger in the kitchen, bath, and living room…) only situated somewhere a bit more private.

I once spent a lot of time daydreaming about ‘the perfect home’, and in my daydreams it kept getting grander, larger, fancier, more remote, more secure, with more interesting luxuries, more features, more gadgets…turns out, in real life, all I really want and need is… enough.

The path branches, forks, detours, and the way is not always clear - but the journey is what it is, I am my own cartographer, and enough is enough.

The path branches, forks, detours, and the way is not always clear – but the journey is what it is, I am my own cartographer, and enough is enough.

Today is a good day to let events unfold with an open mind. Today is a good day to coast through the small challenges on a smile. Today is good day for ‘enough’.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Dishes in the Sink

June 27, 2015 //
1

This morning I slept in. This morning I slept in so hard I missed a couple phone calls from my traveling partner. I woke hours later than usual, although I had gone to bed at a fairly normal adult hour sometime shortly after 10 pm, even taking that into account, I slept in far later than usual and managed a bit more than 9 hours of sleep. I woke with a stuffy head, a bit dizzy, and too groggy for the speed and dexterity I seemed to expect to have. I slowed myself down, answered the phone and enjoyed the sound of my traveling partner’s voice first thing in the morning – a lovely treat –  and afterward turned on the stereo, and eased my stiffness with some yoga.

Coffee time! Oh…hey…who  left dishes in the sink over night? Oh. Right. Me. I feel real irritation on the edge of anger surge through me, requiring a moment to breathe, and slow things down again.

Damn it.

Damn it.

I have some baggage around dirty dishes, associated with domestic violence at a point in life when my injury was relatively recent. Dirty dishes in the sink resurrect all sorts of chaos and damage for me, beginning with irritation and resentment, and moving through a spectrum of negative emotions. There was an emotional moment, hands clenching the edge of the sink, body trembling – I just want to make my coffee, now, but the dishes commanded my full attention; the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, and having forgotten to unload it right after work, and also putting off the dishes after dinner was made – promising myself to handle it ‘soon’ which became ‘after __’, which then became ‘before bed’, then didn’t happen at all. I’m irked at myself. I dislike disorder on a pretty powerful level – the disorder in my kitchen screams at me about the potential for disorder in the rest of my experience, and in my thinking.

I take a deep breath. I give myself a moment to recognize that nothing in the sink is actually an impediment to making coffee and enjoying it. Hell – it’s not even a lot of dishes, and they were rinsed before being placed in the sink. I am over-reacting. Still, my own perspective on the dishes is that taking care of me means an orderly tidy clean kitchen – for me. Because I said. (No other reason is really necessary – although honestly, a dirty kitchen is a health hazard.) I treated myself poorly by not making a point of taking care of the dishes last night. It’s necessary to recognize and accept both the circumstances and my feelings in order to take better care of me going forward – and to make amends and let it go. Yes, of course making amends is relevant even when I disappoint myself. I will face lingering irritation every time I look in the kitchen – and it may even stall my enjoyment of other parts of my day – until I make things right with me. It’s not about domestic servitude, obligation, the expectations of others, or rules – I really dislike dishes being left in the sink, and most particularly overnight. Why is not relevant to the moment.

This is not really even about dishes, specifically. I bring it up because it illuminates a particular point about self-care. How so? Well… in shared domestic experience dishes can quickly become major drama – because like a lot of small details, how people treat each other really matters. Being considerate of each others values is a big deal. That’s so obviously true when I think about my relationships with others…but what about my relationship with myself?  This morning I find that it’s also true within my experience of myself. I am annoyed with myself for treating myself poorly. I like waking up to a very tidy kitchen, a clean bathroom, soft vacuumed carpet under my bare feet, and details well-managed for beautiful living, and I know this about me…and rather inconsiderately still let myself down last night. So…now what? I have come far enough to know that continuing to mistreat myself by moving on from something as small as leaving a couple of rinsed dishes in the sink over night to berating myself for having done so is not ‘treating myself well’. Emotional self-abuse can take up a lot of valuable time on pointless bullshit. (I’m still annoyed, though, and I’ll be doing the dishes once my coffee is finished.)

I yearn to treat myself 100% as well as I would treat my most adored lover – and to do so as well as I would strive to do in the first precious weeks of connecting and investing in love. Seriously – why wouldn’t I treat me the very best I know how? That doesn’t mean Affogatos every morning – that would be mistreatment through over-indulgence. It doesn’t mean spending my disposable income on enticing frivolities – that would be mistreatment through failure to manage my resources for long-term comfort and success. It doesn’t mean refusing to spend another dollar on groceries to be frugal, at the expense of good quality nutrition and health – that would be mistreatment through a false sense of economy. (I can hear my traveling partner laughing and saying “well, what does it mean?”, and pointing out that I am phrasing things in the negative.) One thing it definitely does mean is practicing practices that build and maintain the quality of life in which I personally thrive – with a commitment to practical tasks and habits being established that keep a good household running well, however small. It means doing the damned dishes promptly. It means running the vacuum cleaner every day. It means – for me – making the bed in the morning, adjusting the curtains for the lighting I like, and keeping my home tidy at the standard that satisfies and pleases me, unapologetically – and also without treating myself badly by berating myself when I miss the mark. I am human, and this is a human experience. Highs, lows, successes, failures – my results vary.

I am feeling ready to stand out - unapologetically precisely who I am.

I am feeling ready to stand out – unapologetically precisely who I am.

I made my coffee, and I am taking time to enjoy it while I write. It’ll be a lovely day to catch up on a few things, and to take care of me by taking care of home and hearth – mindful service, not indentured servitude, because I can rather than because I must. Gracious delight and investment in self is a lovely approach to taking great care of this wee home I have made, and resentment is not an element of that experience. Like a child ‘playing house’, I have a clear idea of ‘home’ and what it takes to maintain that feeling – and it’s fun to do those things for myself. Even the dishes – although damn I wish I’d done them last night. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Perceptions

June 26, 2015 //
0

This morning the alarm seemed to go off much earlier than necessary. I laid in bed a few minutes – very unusual for me – lingering and waking quite slowly. I got through my morning routine faster than usual somehow, and my coffee was in front of me earlier than I expected. I danced through some videos…caught up on Facebook…now it is somehow ‘later than I thought’. Perceptions are funny things. My experience of the passage of time is my own, and it varies with circumstances, activities, moods – the clock ticks away (metaphorically, that is; I prefer a very quiet clock, myself) and I guess time passes at the same continuous rate, more or less – I have trouble thinking of it otherwise, but don’t actually know. There is a lot of science about time, or relevant to the matter of measuring time, and certainly the consideration of time was once a preoccupation of mine to the point of obsession…but what do I really know about it that actually matters? I know time passes, can be wasted pointlessly or taken advantage of, or used skillfully with planning, or enjoyed blissfully in moments of presence…regardless, it passes; that much I do know. For any one of us there is only so much of it available. Like a bad navigator giving directions (“it’s the last left turn before you get to…”) I sense that my time is finite, but have no ability to know precisely how much I’ve got…only how much I have used.

The uncertainties of time remind me how important it is to live – really live – every moment of my life right now. ‘Now’ is definite and real and here, this very minute.

My coffee has gone cold, I had sipped it once or twice while it was hot…and lost interest while contemplating time, timing, and perceptions. Yeah, that’s me. 🙂 I want the hot and the cold of it – similarly I want to wring every moment of living out of my life, without hurting myself or others, or behaving in ways that might potentially damage this fragile world, or this fragile vessel, in unexpected ways. How do I do that on a Friday morning, when my brain is still struggling to fully wake? Well…I guess this morning I’ll have an Affogato with local artisan ice cream…espresso ice cream. Yep. I’m an adult and I can have dessert coffee for breakfast if I choose. I like choices. 🙂

I take my time, frosting the glass and softening the ice cream while I brew fresh coffee with great care. The delighted smile it gives me makes my face ache, and I laugh at myself tenderly; I enjoy things with such whole-hearted (dis-inhibited) enthusiasm that it sometimes surprises others, or discomfits people. I have been told it is ‘child like’ (or childish).  This morning, alone in my small kitchen, I am entirely free not only to have an Affogato first thing in the morning on a work day – I am free to be utterly delighted to do so, without reservation or concern for the emotional experience of others. It’s lovely. It’s also thought-provoking. How much of my day-to-day experience do I keep harnessed and squashed down to a manageable, ‘appropriate’ or ‘acceptable’ dullness specifically to avoid discomfiting others? (and with such limited success…) How old is that baggage? I grin happily, take a picture of my coffee – because the picture will later delight me again with the memory of the moment – and dance my way from the kitchen through the living room, to sip my coffee looking out the patio door, across the lawn, watching the dawn unfold, with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a child, before returning to words.

Tasty tasty self-indulgence on a Friday morning.

Tasty self-indulgence on a Friday morning, and a celebration of self.

So much of my individual experience is tied to my perceptions, my assumptions, my thoughts – and so much of that is (or can be) chosen, and crafted…how much damage do I do to myself by twisting my heart and soul in knots trying to provide some ideal perception to others – who are also 100% entirely free to choose their thoughts, their understanding, their assumptions, and similarly exist in the context of their own experience? It actually looks pretty silly from this vantage point to bother, ever, tweaking my behavior to give someone else a particular sense of who I am; I have no control over their perceptions, regardless. How much simpler to rest comfortably in my own heart, living my own life, and being this woman who I want most to be? Some people will like me, love me, and find a place in their heart with my name on it… others…not so much. How much does that matter? Enough to undermine my own joy in life? It doesn’t seem like a good value to trade my own powerful positive experience of self for a shell of existence crafted to suit the needs of others that ultimately cuts me off from the connection I seek.

Does that sound terribly ‘selfish’? What definition of ‘selfish’? Yours or mine? Do your own assumptions suggest that living my experience as my whole self would be a bad thing? Mine once did – for a long time I even felt that being myself might be some kind of ‘misbehavior’ or bad act. What a crappy way to treat myself! I am fortunate that I no longer harbor a sense that making the choice to fully be who I am undermines the good treatment I provide to others, or prevents me from investing in my relationships… actually… I think it may be necessary in order to find real satisfaction in the arms of another that I be wholly myself.  (Here’s a moment finding me thinking kisses and love to my traveling partner; he knew I needed to spend more time with me, and less time with everyone else for a while – he ‘got it’ before I did, and said as much, before we ever moved in together, 5 years ago. It was, in fact, one of his first observations of how I was living my life at that time.)

The tasty creamy Affogato didn’t last long, but the entire day is still ahead of me to be savored, and enjoyed. The weekend is almost here, and I am inclined to treat this woman I love so much very well. I feel inspired and energized (Coffee and ice cream at dawn? It could be my blood sugar surging. lol). I think I will enjoy the A/C this weekend and paint, and enjoy what time I can with love, Love, and lovers – and myself. 🙂

Today is a good day to enjoy me as I am. Today is a good day to love – and be generous with my affection, there is even enough for me! Today is a good day to treat myself as well as I strive to treat the world. 🙂

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