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Undefined and Uncertain

September 19, 2015 //
0

I woke this morning, but I’m not actually sure when. I checked the clock at 2:38 am, but didn’t get up. I may have slept more, I don’t recall being wakeful, but I recall many moments of being awake. I don’t know whether they are consecutive (and I was awake until I got up) or separated by sleep (resulting in sleep, however restless it may have been). I got up at 6:38, 4 hour later, when I next checked the clock. If it had been, say, 3:11 am, I’d have gotten up to pee and gone back to bed afterward – and perhaps that would have been a good choice at 2:38 am. 🙂

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately.

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately; time to get back out on the trails.

I’m not sure what sort of morning this one is, so far. I’m still sore from more than usual miles of walking yesterday (a reminder to get back on the trail). I woke in pain, stiff from my arthritis, and since that’s primarily in my spine, it affects most movement, even breathing feels subtly impaired, as I fight the pain to find posture that allows deeper breaths. (Many of my headaches source with a damaged cervical vertebra (C7) and its adjacent arthritic siblings, rather than with my TBI.) I put on music first thing this morning, even before I turned on the aquarium lights, which is unusual. More unusual still, I didn’t do so with deliberate purpose and awareness, it was the action of someone just being and doing, action following impulse without intent. I’m not unhappy with the choice, but the ebb and flow of my emotions seems more connected this morning to the music than to my experience. Highs and lows come and go with the changing tracks on my playlist. I made my coffee, and forgot about it on the counter in the kitchen. My memory seems very clear on details that are often sort of vague and challenging – but I am peculiarly inattentive to other sorts of things I generally track well. And… Yesterday there was this moment when it was entirely and rather publicly clear that I had entirely lost any ability to manage simple math – I couldn’t calculate 44 days from the current date for a simple forecasting scenario, even using a calendar, and the calculator on my computer was beyond me (cognitively), at that moment. It could have been an embarassing moment – it wasn’t; I was frightened, and felt very vulnerable and insecure. The feelings passed, the concern did not. I’m sort of … following myself around observing myself in the background today, with concern and curiosity.

I write awhile. I retrieve my forgotten coffee. I change the playlist when I find myself feeling some borrowed emotion that doesn’t fit the circumstances of the day. And I wonder. I try to avoid worrying, but find myself thinking of things like “Flowers for Algernon”, and the neuroscience of cognition, and the progress on A.I., and how fragile this meat vessel really is, and how many people in my family have died of strokes… and my injury. Suddenly my fears become liquid and the tears are quietly slipping down my face, and I weep to face my mortality so starkly. 52 isn’t old. Neither am I a child. I carry enough damage to this fragile vessel from years of punishing circumstances, trauma, casual thoughtlessness, and mischance that I probably ought not expect it to be without consequence where longevity is concerned. It’s a good call to take care of myself if I earnestly want to stay around – but, realistically, so much of whether I stay around isn’t actually up to me in the moment, at all. Strokes do happen. Will I know, when the time comes? Will it be like some of the TIAs I’ve had, looking out through my eyes as windows, aware but unable to say – but for longer than a moment? What’s next? Will everything just… end?

I didn’t understand yesterday how profoundly affected I was in that moment, with a colleague, utterly unable to do the simplest math, looking up from my desk so helplessly – and asking for help. That was hard. I didn’t lose face, and the moment passed. I’m open about my issues, and learning to ask for help when I need it has had a lot of value. I’m frightened, though, and that’s harder to be open about. I let myself cry, and face the fear. I am okay right now. My coffee is hot, well-made, and tastes just right. The morning is a pleasant one. The music is all music I like very much. I live well, comfortably, and meet most of my day-to-day needs easily. I am human; emotions like fear and uncertainty are part of the experience. I guess I’m just not ready to go now, and the fear hits that yearning for more time – now that I seem to be sorting some things out. It’s a complicated feeling.  Tears and more tears, no sobbing or hysterics, just this momentarily ceaseless flow of tears, blurring my vision. And this fear. I have so much more love to give…

The tears slow, and eventually stop. My head aches from the crying… or…was the headache already there? I’m not sure this morning. This morning I lack certainty about a great many things. Will I see my traveling partner, or is he still sick? Will my housewarming later today be fun and relaxed, or will I mess with my head foolishly getting overly worked up over small things and stress myself out? Will I continue to find, over the course of the day, that other things ‘aren’t working’ as I expect them to, in my ability to think, to do math, to spell, to write,  to reason, to recall, to plan, to communicate, to feel…? Will I rise above the small challenges to engage this lovely moment, or find myself faltering and failing to find any secure emotional foothold? Will I take care of me, quite tenderly, and recognize that at any age being reminded of one’s mortality can be ‘a tough  moment’, or will I treat myself callously, with disregard, self-deprecation, and mockery? Will I “be okay”, or can I find sufficiency in being okay right now? I momentarily feel as though I might trade actual death from whatever nasty virus my traveling partner picked up for 15 minutes in his arms, feeling comforted, cared for, and alive. Fear sucks.

My playlist comes through for me in the most amazing way some times. My heavy heart starts lifting listening to Atmosphere remind me how human life is. I remember, again, that I am okay right now, and that – truly – there is nothing in this moment right here that warrants these tears. I start letting it go, and gently finding my way; mortality isn’t really something we can fight skillfully (yet) as human beings. I may not live to see us achieve near-immortality through the advances of science. I have ‘now’, and it can’t be taken from me. Today isn’t a bad one. The morning isn’t difficult. I didn’t sleep badly. My coffee didn’t disappoint me. I am not out in the cold, or without nutritious groceries in my pantry. I am not lacking in love. I don’t have to go into the office today. I am, in fact, okay right now. “All is well” is approximately accurate – at least as far as any details I can be clearly aware of in my own experience, myself, in this moment.

As suddenly as they came, the tears – and my fear and uncertainty – dissipate. I am okay, right now. It’s enough, isn’t it? 🙂

I clean my salt-spattered glasses, sip my remaining now cold coffee, and notice again the lovely morning ahead of me, requiring only that I take care of me, practice good practices, and live well and mindfully in this moment, on this day. Now.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Nightmares

September 18, 2015 //
1

I woke during the night, in a panic. Drenched in sweat, shaking, heart pounding, sobbing – a nightmare. I still have them, although they are far less frequent. I am immobilized while I get my bearings; my bedroom is hung with paintings that remind me I am safe, and are characterized by the use of glow-in-the-dark paints, too, so that in the literal ‘darkest moment’, I am still illuminated softly by love, by hope, by inspiration, and all manner of gentle reminders that life is quite a separate experience happening outside The Nightmare City. I remember to take deep breaths, and fold myself into a comfortable cross-legged position (I can’t quite manage Lotus posture unless I have been doing yoga for some minutes). I meditate for a few minutes until my heart slows, and the trembling stops. I check the clock – I managed only about 90 minutes of sleep before the nightmares hit. It happens. It used to herald hours, or days of nightmares to come.

How will I

How will I “find my way home”?
“Daytime in The Nightmare City” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter and micaceous oxide. Indoor light, charged. 2014

I got up long enough to get a drink of water – a childhood ritual of wakefulness that still soothes me – and walk calmly through my small home; there are no places for monsters hide, here. I am quite safe, even within this fragile vessel if I allow myself to be aware of how much of content of my conscious mind is chosen, and created. I am not empowering my nightmares by considering them in detail after I wake, and they slowly dissipate. (Seriously, they do. It does require literally letting go of thinking ‘about’ them; thinking about them in the moments after waking only gives them significance and power.) I think of my traveling partner, sick at home, hopefully sleeping. This, too, helps calm me. I don’t focus on the distance, or that I can’t just crawl into his arms for comfort – I breathe, and consider him sleeping comfortably, himself, safe and undisturbed, and allow my own feeling of security and safety to continue to build on the awareness that much is right in the world, in the quiet of night, here, now. I am okay in this moment.

I stand in the twilight of my kitchen, lit by the walkway light just outside my window, filtered by the closed blinds, and finish a second glass of water and smiling, thinking it would be likely to wake me later needing to pee. I don’t give that another thought, instead feeling the cool water in my mouth, and enjoying the awareness of indoor plumbing and running water, and being in the moment. That’s another thing I find very calming after bad nightmares; savoring the awareness of the comforts of life, whatever they may be. Don’t they have more real substance than a nightmare? 🙂

I returned to bed, filling my thoughts with things that feel good, but perhaps not intensely so…things that would be gentle on my consciousness: clouds drifting across a blue sky, soft autumn breezes, the sound of peeping frogs, memories of fireflies… I woke at the sound of my alarm, feeling rested and undisturbed.

It has been rare for me to have just one nightmare, and follow that with restful sleep. Incremental change over time is a thing – and  yes, there are practices to practice and verbs involved. I expect my results will vary. Hey, my results do vary and there are verbs involved; living in the midst of stress, drama, and turmoil resulted in nightmares almost nightly, and weeks of disturbed sleep at a time, and terrifying isolation because there was no safe outlet for discussion, with no particular emotional support available, interrupted by just days of restful sleep. Yes, the choices matter – and they are not always easy ones. I now live alone, because at least for now even living with other people presents enough additional stress for me that I find managing my symptoms more challenging, and they are far more likely to flare up (much of my PTSD is related to trauma in the context of relationships, and domestic violence). (And no, I’m not saying everyone with PTSD should live alone – that’s ludicrous; I’m just one person, making my own choices, and following my own path. This is what I need for me. I don’t even know that this is what I will ‘always’ need – since ‘always’ is incredibly unlikely, ever.)

Even though I am having my own experience, I'm not really alone in this; music reminds me how much of this experience is really shared.

Even though I am having my own experience, I am not alone.

Turns out to be a lovely morning. I’ve got my favorite playlist on, because sometimes the demons need to be reminded that I’m going to bounce back, and I need to remind them they don’t tell me. lol Yep – the songs on my playlist aren’t just catchy tracks that I enjoy dancing to – they tell me stories, remind me of truths, and help me drive my demons back. Mornings after nightmares are best with music. 🙂 [Your results may vary.]

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Experiencing Change

September 14, 2015 //
2

The weekend was an exceptional blend of meditation, study, growth, inspiration, and relaxation. Now it is over. I’m okay with that; it puts me one day closer to seeing my traveling partner again. His weekend is over, too. Soon we’ll get together, and linger over the sharing of individual experiences, telling tales, reflecting on growth, laughing, commiserating, and cheering each other on in life. Funny thing about good weekends and my brain, I slept very restlessly last night, waking every 90 minutes or so concerned that I might somehow miss the alarm, checking the clock, and returning to sleep. By 4:15 am, I was done talking myself into more sleep, and went ahead and got up to take on the day.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

Something ‘clicked’ for me yesterday, and I find myself on what feels like very firm ground, as an emotional being. Calmer from deeper within, more centered, more patient with myself and the world, and capable of acting from a place that leverages the full measure of my 52 experience-rich years. Something a step beyond comfortably me… and I wonder if it will ‘last’, and what it requires to nurture this feeling and build on it? I sip my coffee and quietly contemplate all the many sorts of changes human beings experience in a lifetime, those that are evident to everyone, and those that are less so. I find myself wanting to greet Monday differently… something like “How was your weekend? Mine? Oh, I’m changed…”  That’s not the sort of thing one generally does. I find myself wondering why not…?

Between the practicing and the studying, the growth happens. Sometimes it is something I can feel, or be specifically aware of, sometimes it is more subtle. There are no rules about how this thing called life must progress, or how we grow as human beings, or what kind of time and effort that takes; we are each having our own experience. We can fight it off, if we choose. I’ve tried that, too, and found it frustrating, unsatisfying, and in some cases more than a little damaging. I’ve learned over time that growth isn’t the result of forcing myself to trudge through life from one externally imposed goal to another, or working my ass off to achieve some vision of me someone else holds. Growth is the result of waking up and realizing I don’t need someone else’s goals or guidelines to find my way – understanding why that is, and becoming my own cartographer. Growth is finding satisfaction in the experience I am having, myself, and learning to enact change based on my own vision of who I am along the way. Growth is waking up to how much of the baggage I carry is self-imposed, and setting at least that much down, and walking on. And doing it again when I noticed I’ve picked it back up, and repeating as needed until, over time, I’ve left it behind. I’m feeling pretty good about growth this morning. 🙂

Seems to be very effective so far... probably doesn't hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Truth is, I feel pretty good in general this morning, except for the pain – which I haven’t mentioned, because I ‘didn’t notice it’ (meaning only that it wasn’t prominent in my consciousness, and I wasn’t giving it any attention). The alarm went off a moment ago (I got up early, but didn’t think to turn it off) and, in movement, the pain and the stiffness of my arthritic spine shifted to a more obvious place in my awareness. Aging has some pretty annoying elements to it; the pain and stiffness of my arthritis top my list of things that annoy me about aging, this morning. I am confronted with an irrefutable demonstration of the difference between ‘growth’ and ‘aging’.

I pause to reflect on growth and aging, and wonder if medical science has advanced enough to rationally consider 120 a realistically achievable lifespan… If so, I’m less than ‘half way’… that promises so much more growth, so many more experiences, so much more learning, and so much more love! I’m not even having to start the second half with a completely unformed consciousness – it’s like a head start! Only… what if this is the ‘completely unformed consciousness’ with which we do approach our mature years? I mean… I am significantly different in thoughts, values, and experiences than I was at birth, and it seems likely that I will be a similar order of magnitude different at the other end of this experience, given continued growth, learning, and experiences. Is ‘getting old’ more a matter of stopping growth, or slowing it down, than it is additional years of age? There seems to be some support for that in the science…certainly there is very firm encouragement to keep walking, to keep reading, to keep learning, to keep loving…all these things slow cognitive decline. (Are you still quite young, and reading this? Plan ahead! Live now. The future will come to you.)

Meditating, sketching, writing... feeling loved along the way...

A weekend spent meditating, sketching, writing… feeling loved along the way…

...taking time for study, and reading for pleasure...

…taking time for study, and reading for pleasure…

...taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence...

…taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence…

The weekend seemed almost eternal, and still it manages to be over too soon – but my needs are met, and that is a wonderful feeling. More wonderful still, I met my needs myself, with some lovely sprinkles of affection and connection with my traveling partner and friends. There are things to learn from that, and I face the week feeling more emotionally self-sufficient, and what is becoming, over time, quite typically content. Two years ago I would not have dared set expectations with myself of being in the place I find myself today…a year ago, it might have seemed possible in some remote theoretical way, but self-doubt, insecurity, fear, and stress were not just holding me back – they made it tough to see further down the path than tomorrow. Even Thursday, I might have said ‘someday, sure…’ and didn’t realize I might feel the way I do as soon as ‘now’. It’s very much a ‘now’ thing, too. I’m comfortable not making assumptions about how I will feel tomorrow, or whether every day of my future will feel similarly; this is a human experience, and change is part of that. There will no doubt be opportunities for future doubts, fears, and insecurities, and surely I will find myself, now and again, at a loss for words, feeling awkward, or just fucking clueless in some moment when certainty would have value. I’m okay with all of that. I have more room to grow, to learn, and to experience life’s curriculum. I am okay with only being as wise as I actually am…and I am ready to embrace being every bit as wise as I have grown to be, without second-guessing that, or being discouraged by other voices. (Yes, there are verbs involved, and yes, I expect my results may vary.)

Today is a good day for being, and for becoming. Today is a good day to accept the woman in the mirror precisely as she is, without holding her back from change and growth in the future. Today is a good day to build on the strength of experience, and to recognize that there is room to grow – always room to grow. Today is a good day to treat every being well, including the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to change the perspective from which I view the world.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Journey Ahead

September 12, 2015 //
0

I woke early for a Saturday. I woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night.  I most particularly woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night during which I danced, laughed, painted, studied, meditated, and did yoga – did I mention the dancing? I enjoyed an evening filled with movement, music and delight, and tumbled into bed quite exhausted and ready for sleep, just a bit past midnight. I woke at 4:00 am, awake, alert, and… awake. I took my morning medication, and managed to coax myself to sleep another hour or so, finally getting up on the internal promise that naps are a thing, if I need one later. 🙂

I broke out in a sweat, trembling, while I was making my coffee. A hot flash? Maybe… without warning I quickly went from sweating to nausea to being quite suddenly and very efficiently sick. The kitchen sink is not the ideally appropriate culturally typical receptacle for vomiting, and I was far more uncomfortable with having been in the kitchen at the time, than I was with being sick so suddenly. Any symptoms of illness were gone as soon as the vomiting ended, and that wasn’t an agonizing experience. As I said – efficient. I put making coffee aside, and cleaned the sink… then the kitchen… Yep. Uncomfortable with being sick in the kitchen puts it mildly. Well… the kitchen just sparkles this morning…now.   (I’m pretty sure it would take a forensic team to tell anyone ever got sick in that sink, or this kitchen, at this point. lol)

I had a ‘date night’ planned (with myself) for last night, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly, although it wasn’t entirely about pleasure or self-indulgence. I was a woman on a mission: get to know the woman in the mirror even better, understand her needs more thoroughly – and understand what holds her back from… whatever. Stuff. Or something like that. I have notes – it was all very organized. lol My honest intent was simply to reach a little deeper into the chaos and damage and tease loose a detail or two worth holding onto, and letting some of the baggage go. As evenings in general go, it was lovely, and I suppose successful. Sometimes the positive results of developing emotional self-sufficiency are pretty subtle, and don’t come in the form of grandiose visions of change, or profound epiphanies. Last night was rather like that, too. Deep, moving… but somehow also quite subtle. More affirming than radically changing anything, which is significant all on its own.

My weekend is entirely solo this week, and I need the space to work on me. I am spending the weekend writing, and painting, and meditating. I built a playlist for last night intended to stoke my creativity, and be thought-provoking…I ended up dancing more than thinking. I’m okay with that, too. Life is movement – there are verbs involved – sitting still is a very slow suicide (at least for this fragile meat vessel I reside within).

I started the weekend in the most delightful way, with three packages. I brought them into the house, but left them unopened until later in the evening, when I finally sat down to enjoy the night. One said ‘gift’ on it, and I opened it eagerly. A present from my traveling partner…

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned.

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned or worn.

I eagerly put a photo in the locket; the same photo that sits on the nightstand, where I see him smiling, relaxed, and enjoying my good company (I remember the day I took the picture very clearly). I touch the locket gently, where it rests on my collar-bone. I smile when I think of it, and of love. Because I generally don’t wear necklaces, I was very much aware of the sensation of it resting on my body through the evening, and the sensation was rather as if my traveling partner was with me. I feel loved.

Later I opened the other two packages – both from me, to me, both relevant to the experience of being me, of being a woman… both are books. Both are first editions (no idea why that matters at all, or why it delights me so – I’m still going to read them, and it’s all I would do with them, regardless; they’re books). One is an old book that I love dearly, written by a favorite author about a favorite strong female character: “Friday” by Robert Heinlein. I am eager to read it again.  The other is “Fear of Dying” newly released by Erica Jong, and I am eager to read it for the first time, and finding myself tempted to reread “Fear of Flying” now that I have some life experience of my own to understand it with (I first read it in 1973…I was 10, and didn’t identify with the characters or circumstances even a little bit). I find that reading adds to the intimacy of a quiet evening. I yearn to sit wrapped in comfort with my feet in my traveling partner’s lap, reading aloud for our enjoyment, and talking it over together.

I’ve been working on treating the woman in the mirror with more genuine affection, respect, and consideration – and one of the ways I ease her suffering and silent fury is to give more time to the voices of women, generally. Bringing Erica Jong to my library is one way of doing that. Certainly, she’s one of many strong female voices ‘of my generation’. Subtle signs of implicit gender bias in our culture exist literally everywhere, even in my own experience as a woman; I had no idea how many books Erica Jong has actually written over the years, or how many of those are non-fiction. It was an eye-opening moment reading the list of her work, and to understand how easy it is to dismiss female authors without realizing the error in the moment it occurs.

I didn’t paint much last night – I spent far more of the evening on meditation, writing, and dancing. I didn’t do any reading at all, although I had planned to. It was a night for love. If it had been a night out with another person, my feelings this morning would be as they are; I have a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips, and I feel valued and filled with joy. It’s nice to find that I can deliver that experience to myself now and then. It’s powerful to discover that these feelings are not specific to sexual love.  🙂

Taking care of me comes in many forms. I am pleased to learn how much I do have to offer myself, and what an array of choices there really are. The weekend continues… Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror.

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

Taking a Moment

September 9, 2015 //
0

I got home yesterday with a well-developed list of things I felt needed to get done, after a weekend of painting, mostly mundane things like vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom – housekeeping basics that got pushed to the side because I was painting. I got home feeling decently energetic, and somewhat enthusiastic about getting these few things done…

I didn’t touch my list of chores last night. Oh, I know what I like, and waking this morning to small reminders of what didn’t get done last night is mildly annoying, but not worthy of self-deprecatory internal dialogue, or beating myself up emotionally. I enjoy living beautifully, and each moment being its own opportunity to be a beautiful moment… last night I enjoyed the moments quite differently than I had planned to. I blame the figs. 🙂

A metaphor, a connection to a larger history, a tasty treat.

A metaphor, a connection to a larger history, a tasty treat.

I got home in the usual way, on foot. Having taken a comfortable seat long enough to take off my hiking boots, socks, and relax a moment, I quickly lost interest in doing housework. Rather than be evasive about my change of heart regarding the evening, I took a chance on me and a dove head first into ‘now’, just as it was then. “Softening my tone” toward myself is sometimes a challenge, and I paused to consider needs over time versus needs in the moment, and made a light snack to stave off low blood sugar later, in case I found myself meditating for a long while.

I spent quite a time simply enjoying the small green figs, actually. I took my time with them, enjoying the scent, the flavors, the look and feel of each one, individually. Each sweet bite reminding me of late summer figs, fully ripe, carefully selected of those that had fallen, enjoyed with my Granny as a young girl. I remembered that summer that we got rather drunk off those naturally fermented fruits, warmed in the sun, and found ourselves giddy with laughter, on the ground (she, being the adult, rather appalled to have gotten her young grand-daughter quite drunk on summer figs). My mind wandered. I contemplated figs and humanity. Figs have been available for eating, substantially as they are, since before the dawn of human kind…that’s…wow. Historical. 🙂 I nibbled at the lush sweet flesh, thinking about a paper a dear friend once shared with me, about the humble fig, and it’s symbolism, and it’s appearance, and as I recall also its place in biblical lore. I thought, too, about nature shows, and the many sorts of primates and mammals that eat figs. I recalled a friend recently saying she wasn’t sure what a fig is, and hadn’t eaten one… and how peculiar that seemed to me, as though somehow I expected figs to be part of our genetic memory as primates (if that’s a thing). Sweet, tempting, delicious figs…their flavor and the scent of their sweet flesh lingered in my memory long after I had eaten the last one. Twilight had come.

A small plate of delicious figs easily distracted me from planned chores, and I chose to care for myself differently.  I spent the evening meditating. What was left of the evening after that was spent on small pleasures, and self care – catching up with friends, doing yoga, having a shower. It matters greatly to treat myself well, and as much as I enjoy a tidy home, there is indeed a great deal more to life than housework, and I am a higher priority for me than the vacuuming is. Finding the balance is an ongoing process of questions, answers, and verbs being applied. Last night was well spent; after a weekend painting I needed to spend some quiet time simply being in my own company, and didn’t recognize it until the moment was in front of me.

Still, there’s the matter of home and hearth, and self-care isn’t at all the same as self-indulgence – and that list of chores isn’t going to do itself. Definitely some verbs involved, and tonight the music at home will be the sort to carry me, dancing, through the tidying up. All that will be later. It is morning, now, and I am sipping my coffee, and considering the day ahead. I have dinner out with my traveling partner, tonight, and I am eager to enjoy his company, and charming conversation. It matters little where we go; the point is to enjoy the time together. He is away this weekend, and any time our paths diverge for a few days I make a point to enjoy his company before he goes, even if only for a few brief minutes snatched from a busy work week.

lighthouse

However stormy life may be, love is a lighthouse guiding us safely home to calmer shores.

I have my own weekend plans, painting and meditating, and I’m eager to see where the weekend takes me.

Today is a good day to get things done. Today is a good day for loving embraces, and warm greetings. Today is a good day to celebrate small successes, and to value what works well and easily. Today is a good day for appreciation, and a good day for joy. Today is a good day to be fully present for my own experience; I, too, am part of the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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