Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness matters
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Sometimes All You Get Is The Sunrise

December 17, 2023 //
2

I’m sitting in my car, waiting for the sunrise to illuminate the trail, preferring not to walk it in the dark. I slept poorly, completely pwnd by my nightmares. My head aches ferociously and I feel as if I am stressed to a breaking point in spite of so recently having a few days away. I find myself on the edge of tears over and over again, and awash in vague feelings of frustration. It’s shitty.

I breathe. Exhale. Regain a sense of calm. Then I lose it again. The experience is very much as if I am completely “disregulated” for some reason. My thoughts come back to this fucking headache. Going on 9 years, in January. No relief. No diagnosis that feels trustworthy or useful. I’m still here, though, that’s something. For now it has to be enough.

The beginning of a sunrise.

My Traveling Partner pings me a greeting. He’s up early. His injured condition is vexing and worrisome for both of us. Worse for him, obviously, living with it. The visit to the ER earlier this week seemed somewhat reassuring but the feeling hasn’t lasted and he’s struggling more than seems reasonable. No doubt this is weighing more heavily on my heart and mind than I was prepared for.

The sun begins to rise and the horizon is on fire with intense reds and oranges, and a hint of pink. It’s gorgeous. I sit watching it evolve over some minutes, half an eye on the trailhead. Soon the path will be light enough to walk quite safely.

I try to let the sunrise be enough. The tears start falling. I let them. I don’t really know what else to do with tears. Right now is hard. Sometimes that’s how things are. The world seems like a pretty terrible heartless place right now, which adds to the feeling of senselessness, futility, and frustration. Subjectively, I feel very alone and ineffective, powerless to prevent this mortal vessel from breaking down, powerless to help my partner, powerless to help my dearest friend. Powerless to change the world. Mortality comes for us all, and these fucking meat suits are more fragile than they seemed in younger years. Fuck.

I cry awhile, sitting here alone, watching the sun rise. Sometimes a sunrise is all we get. Sometimes it has to be enough. I sigh and wipe the tears off my face before I get out of the car to walk this favorite trail. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, grief, health, loneliness, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, turning 60

Enough for Now

October 15, 2023 //
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I’m sipping what is left of my first cup of coffee. It’s mostly gone cold and I think about that new mug my Traveling Partner got to keep his coffee warm while he is working… yeah… do want. lol Another time; it’s on my wishlist. 😀 This coffee, right here, is good enough.

It’s a quiet moment. Lo-fi playing in the background, the soft sound of the A/C (or is it the heat?) running in the background. Laptop in my lap. Morning. My Traveling Partner was up when I got up. He went back to bed shortly after I made my coffee and sat down with him. I figure he was most likely up during the night, based on the peculiarly affronted tone of voice to his reply (he declined) when I asked if he’d like me to make him a cup of coffee as I went to make mine. I hope he gets the rest he needs.

…I guess this means we’re not going out to breakfast, though… lol

I give myself over to enjoying the quiet. Later, I’ll do laundry, dishes, vacuuming and dusting, and all the assorted housekeeping I just don’t have energy for during the work week. I make a grocery list, also for later.

Yesterday, I went shopping for jeans to replace the tattered overly-worn (worn-out) jeans I’ve been shlumping around in for a year (longer). I don’t enjoy shopping for jeans – it’s often quite difficult to find any that fit, are comfortable, and also look good to me. This time, with some effort and a lot of trying things on, I found some I liked and it didn’t even feel like an unreasonable expense. After I got home, I did the step that I so often fail on; I went through every pair of jeans I had in my closet, tried each pair on, and put it through the same test as when shopping for new ones; do they fit, are they comfortable, do I like the way they look on me? Everything that failed even one of those tests went into a bag to go to a local donation center. Clearing up the clutter always seems to also “free my mind” from the sludge of chaos.

This morning, I woke, showered, and put on a pair of new jeans. Feels good… and a little weird. A well-broken-in pair of jeans has a certain familiar feel that is hard to describe. These don’t have that, yet, but they are very comfortable, and I am at ease. I remind myself that just because something is familiar that doesn’t make it also good.

Why does any of this even matter? I’m not sure it does. It’s just a quiet Sunday morning suited to self-reflection, and I happen to be aware of my higher than usual feeling of personal comfort and contentment in this moment. I’m making a point to be aware of what has gone into creating this moment, and really making a point to savor it; it won’t last. Moments don’t last. They are fleeting. Brief. Transitory. They are… momentary. Eventually, I’ll have to begin again. 😀

For now, it’s me, this quiet moment, the lo-fi on the stereo, this feeling of comfort and this cup of almost finished, almost cold coffee… and it’s enough.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, turning 60

Scales, a Pendulum, or Dancing?

May 3, 2023 //
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I am sipping some iced tea with lemon. I didn’t make it. It is a canned commercial product. It’s okay. Mildly carbonated, which seems pretty unnecessary for iced tea, but it is available, it is cold, and it did not require me to make iced tea to have some. lol I am thinking about what that says about my desire for “ease” vs my desire for good quality of life. It seems the sort of thing worth thinking about.

As I made the drive in to the city this morning, I was also thinking. Mostly about “work life balance” and what that actually seems to mean, and what that can (or has)(or does) look like (for me). I have tended to mostly think about “work life balance” in terms of … a scale. Two opposites in equal measure, you know – balanced. It has not generally been the case that I have been able to make that work out quite that way. I mean… there are 7 days in a week. I work 5 of those, most of the time. The common assumption is 40 work hours in a week, divided more or less into 8-hour days (when we’re fortunate to enjoy working conditions that preserve an expectation of employee leisure being respected). That’s a pretty big chunk of our life time, so… where’s the “balance”?

Fairly often, in my own experience, any appearance of “work life balance” has been more like a pendulum swinging between extremes, some weeks mostly work, some weeks a bit more leisure than is typical, and back and forth pretty endlessly. There have been notable exceptions where the “routine” wasn’t routine at all, and finding any “balance” was more like a dance than a pendulum’s steady swing. In other cases, any hint of “work life balance” was purely linguistic, and not to be taken at all seriously by anyone involved. Those are commonly pretty toxic experiences, and I avoid those.

I continue to look for a better balance, though; more life, less work… it gets tricky when the conversation turns to pay. I definitely still want to get paid. LOL

I sip my tea and reflect. I think about how tricky it is to balance all the elements of a life well-lived… the living, the loving, the working, the resting… and I think about how often one or another detail feels “just right”, while literally everything else seems to be going to shit. lol How very human. Certainly it’s been those “just right” experiences that have often been what has “kept me going”, avoiding despair, keeping up practices, breathing through the emotions, and accepting that “this too will pass” – because it will, and it does, and it’s on to the next thing.

My Traveling Partner has got the truck set up for camping and off-roading and overland adventuring. Exciting. I’m expecting that any day now he will calmly advise me that he is going to “hit the road and check everything out” in preparation for camping together for my birthday. I’m super excited about the camping trip we have planned. I’m also excited to have a couple days home alone… by July we’ll have been in this little house for 3 years. I’ve never spent a night at home alone in all that time. I guess I’m fortunate to be able to say that, given the quality and good character of this love of ours. I’m still looking forward to it. 🙂

…And every time I think about being home alone, while my Traveling Partner travels, I miss him with an incredible ache in my heart that feels just a bit like… withdrawals. lol I’m pretty crazy about this particular other human being. Like a teenager with a first crush…

The minutes tick by. I sip my tea and think my thoughts. I breathe, exhale, relax… soon enough, I’ll also begin again. It’s a new day ahead. New options. New choices. New circumstances. There is room for improvement. Room for change and for growth. All it takes is a new beginning, and a handful of verbs.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Jigsaw Puzzle

March 7, 2023 //
1

I am sipping my coffee and waking up from a deeply restful, rare, uninterrupted night of actual sleep. I woke befuddled when the lights slowly came up (silent alarm clock). I felt disoriented, and uncertain why I was waking up…? It took me a minute to “place myself” in the context of day, date, and time.

I managed to get dressed and out the door without crashing into something or dropping something, or making a ton of noise; this surprises me. I’m grateful though – it likely means my Traveling Partner also got to sleep without being wakened by my departure.

I sat down at my desk with my coffee this morning without much thought about what to write. My thoughts were still filled with fragments of dreams, scattered about, disorganized, and fairly random seeming. I found myself beginning with those pieces… like a jigsaw puzzle. Individually they don’t amount to much, just the many details of a life being lived, you know? Assembled into a coherent whole, they begin to form a picture of this human being that I am in the context of this life, this location, and this moment in time.

…so many little details…

Like… I tried out my newest batch of shower steamers yesterday. Pleasant. Here’s a thing I noticed about both batches, though; the scent is a bit too subtle and understated (for me). I ended up doing a bit more homework trying to find something more measured and specific for the amount of fragrance needed than “X many drops“. Are they kidding with that shit? We’re grown folks here, I can take it; give it to me in fucking milliliters, please!? 0_o LOL I finally found a source with a clear measure; I was using about a third what I actually needed. Well. That explains a lot. lol

…I’m a human being still learning things. I hope I always will be…

Then there’s also my continued efforts to lose some excess weight, and regain some lost fitness. I’ve been logging my steps. Logging my meals. Logging my sleep. It’s not much effort; my wearable does a lot of it for me. There really are a lot of verbs involved nonetheless… I tend to enjoy “easy” when I can find it, though, and that sometimes results in far too little actual effort exerted than would be wise (seeing how I’d like to be fitter). I keep resetting and beginning again, and I keep making slow progress. Faster progress would be sweet to see, but the slow gains are more likely to be ones I can hold on to for the long-term. Again and again, I look my frustrations in the face and remind myself that incremental change over time can be … super slow.

…I’m a human being still trying, and still working out how to get things done…

I’m starting to feel more confident and secure in my new job. It’s good to feel more “settled in” and comfortable. Making a change of career so late in life feels a bit… awkward. Unsettling. Scary? Maybe scary, yeah. Feels good, too – more to learn, more opportunities to grow. New skills developing. New understandings of things I hadn’t previously been exposed to. It’s pretty wonderful in some respects. I sip my coffee and smile; it felt right at the time, and it feels right, now. 😀

…I’m a human being willing to change…

Being back in therapy has been good for me. It’s given me a sort of “safety net” for dealing with deeper traumas, and for talking over shit that’s on my mind that would only serve to disrupt the harmony of my relationship to bring it up casually along the course of a day. My Traveling Partner is not (and cannot be) my therapist.

…I’m a human being willing to seek the help I need…

I remember the leftovers in the fridge from dinner last night; I’d planned to have those for lunch today. I forgot to grab that container on my way out this morning. LOL

…I’m a human being, being human…

I smile and yawn, and sip my coffee. I feel contented on a Tuesday, and filled with a certain hopefulness. Feels good. It’s a nice starting point from which to begin again. 😀

…Don’t forget to make time to appreciate the small things that make you who you are on the journey to become the person you most want to be; it’s a nice way to begin a day.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

The Here and The Now

February 28, 2023 //
0

I am sipping my morning coffee. It’s already mostly gone cold before I ever thought to put a sentence together, this morning. I started the morning thinking about far away friends, and the vagaries of the job market, and the likelihood of further lay-offs, and the nature of greed. That was pretty grim shit, and I shifted gears as a responsible adult, and did my payday budget and sent that to my Traveling Partner for his review and contribution to our planning and “household wellness”; his suggestions and planning are an important part of us getting where we are together. It’s a team effort. A partnership. Once that was done, I found myself still feeling restless and distracted, with elevated background anxiety lurking in the general “quality of the day”.

…It was as I typed those words that I noticed; I’m not “here and now”, just now – I’m “then”. Some of it is old baggage, and I’m snagged on some past moment. Other details are the pitfalls of worrying over a future that is not now. Doesn’t even matter whether it ever will be; I’m all over the worrying about it, already, well ahead of any need to do so. lol Fucking hell.

I take a breath. Then another. I let my shoulders relax. I drink some water. Another breath. I exhale, relax. I get up and stretch for a moment, breathing. I walk over to the windows and look out, down “main street”, taking in the sparkle of the lights that festoon the trees, and the way they are reflected off the wet pavement. The morning is relatively mild, for February. The snow is gone. I step outside, breathe the fresh cold morning air, and feel the hint of a chill that immediately begins to soak into me. I breathe. Exhale. See the fog of my breath expand and dissipate. I relax, again. I repeat the experience, before I return to my desk. Better.

Here. Now. Just this.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter
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