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What I Was Trying To Say

July 11, 2017 //
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I woke this morning to the alarm. I don’t feel particularly well-rested. I am over-excited about moving, now, distracted and restless with the eagerness of getting to the next point in the journey; keys. Keys to a new place, a new adventure, a new home, a new drama-free zone, a new haven from the world… a place to feel safe, and content, and inspired…just a few hours still out of reach. lol The summer meadow beyond the window already exists as a memory. I inhale the cool pre-dawn breeze, scented with flowers. I listen to a symphony of birdsong and commuter traffic, wondering what the morning will sound like… there. I sip my coffee in the cool stillness of morning, waiting.

Any number of the stray thoughts that have filtered through my consciousness today would be something I could write about…only… I’m pretty focused on this move. Instead I make some notes for later, which I will doubtless overlook using, and in the rare case that I actually do follow-up on one of those ideas, it will become something entirely different than what my notes suggest it might have been becoming. lol Sometimes I am rather irked by that. Today is not that day. Today, I’m merry and mildly distracted, looking forward to a moment that is not now – which has its own risks and limitations. I take a deep breath of cool morning air and let that go for now. (By that, I mean quite literally “in favor of being here, now”.)

So what about today, then? What about now, then? What about being right here, in this moment, in this place? It isn’t new, or exciting, it isn’t “the future”… it’s been a decent place for a while, though, and I have been content here. Much of the time I have felt safe. I’ve often felt happy. It’s been enough – sufficient for the purpose of housing me. I smile thinking about my eagerness when I was moving into this place, as the sun turns the horizon a lovely tangerine shade moments before it will rise into view. There’s been a lot of personal forward momentum since I moved into my own space, and even some adventure. Few regrets. The past couple of weeks have been a slow good-bye, and an opportunity to linger on pleasant recollections, and cherish details that mattered most.

I notice that I’ve shifted from the future to the past. I take a few deep breaths, look out over the meadow, and return to this moment, here.

Tomorrow is filled with plans, events, and moments. The final walk through, keys, and then… a few quiet minutes filling up on the sense of the new place, alone, before returning to this place to load up the car and begin moving things I prefer to handle myself, and other such odds and ends as will make the moving generally easier (trust that indeed a way to make a cup of coffee goes with me in the very first car load! lol). Then…the joy and camaraderie of friends helping when they can, a long time friend arriving late in the day to help over the weekend, the discovery of all the things I thought I moved, hadn’t yet, and realization that there always seems more to do… and… another day of moving things… then the movers come and handle the big, heavy, awkward stuff… then… Certainly the work week (which will begin on Sunday) will come too soon, and although just 3 days in the office are between me and getting fully settled in at the new place over another long weekend, they will likely seem an eternity. lol I know me.

…Then, at long last, there will be that Saturday morning… perhaps even sleeping in… mostly completely moved in… quiet… still… waking gently… sipping coffee on the deck, listening to the birdsong and squirrels rustling in the trees… new pictures to take, new memories to make, new moments to enjoy…

…And I notice, again, that my consciousness has shifted into that future moment. LOL Silly primate, bring that brain back here! Now is where I am… for now. 😀 I begin again. It takes practice. We become what we practice. I smile at the woman in the mirror as the sun climbs above the horizon.

Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment… it sounds easier than it is. I keep practicing.

It’s a very good moment to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being

Almost There

July 9, 2017 //
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Just three work days to go. It was my first thought as I woke. My second was “damn, morning already?” My enthusiasm balances against my obligations for the week. Eagerness balances against fatigue. I take a few deep breaths. I meditate before I write, enjoying the slow lightening of the pre-dawn sky.

I chuckle at my self for a moment and enjoy my self-directed merriment while it lasts; life has far too few such moments, and I find them well-suited to being savored. Every one of life’s destinations, goals, and benchmark moments, seem also to be beginnings. Endless beginnings, even though from the moment we are born, our clock is also winding down. It’s definitely felt more stressful to view life through a filter of being goal-focused and purposeful; the frustration that often results is an emotional kick in the groin every time things go a little sideways. Viewing life more as a journey, a solo hike through time, across experiences, with the “purpose” being to make that journey, nothing more, feels much less stressful (to me). Your results, of course, may vary.

My plans (and my alternate plans) are made with as much care as I can bring to that process. I’m eager to be able to take other actions. I am bored with packing things in boxes, perhaps. lol This morning, anxiety creeps in around the edges, and I second-guess myself over my morning coffee. I remind myself, for perspective, that getting the keys is not the end of the journey (by far). It’s a good idea to keep it in mind, to prevent ending up feeling frustrated and lost, or overwhelmed emotionally, by the very predictable challenges of moving to a new place. Some shit is going to go wrong. Definitely. No idea what, but this is still happening in the context of real life, so… it’s a given; something will go wrong. lol But… It isn’t necessary to deal with whatever that is in advance, because I won’t know what it is until it happens. 🙂 I take a deep breath, sip my coffee, and let it go.

I look out over the meadow. 3 days until I have the keys, but there is another count down happening in the same head space… 7 days until this is simply no longer (ever) my morning view, as I sit and write, or while meditating on a cushion in front of the patio door. The short expanse of lawn, the summer-tall grasses of the meadow beyond, the park, the playground, the trees on the horizon… I pause to really soak it in. I listen to the red-wing blackbirds greeting the day, and the crows, ducks, geese, and doves, and the early morning commuter traffic on the not-so-distant freeway. I watch a neighbor’s cat stalking something along the edge of the meadow. I watch the sky change colors as dawn approaches. I breathe the breeze filling the room with the scent of meadow flowers. “More ‘and’ than ‘but’…” I hear myself think, rather oddly and apropos of nothing particular. I like the way the phrase sounds in my head.

I glance at the clock. Mornings are shorter on Sunday (from this address) due to the hours I work, and limitations of public transportation. I smile and remember that I have the car. I smile more thinking ahead to getting home earlier in the day; there are a few more things I can box up, a few more boxes…and all I need to get that done is a little more time. 🙂

The sun begins to peak over the horizon. It seems a good time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer

One Week of Waiting

July 6, 2017 //
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I woke this morning to a cooler apartment than usual after such a hot day; I’d fallen asleep with all the windows and the patio door wide open, without meaning to. I’m sort of glad I didn’t notice. It’s lovely to feel the cool morning breeze and the apartment refreshingly comfortable instead of stifling and oppressively still and warm. I’m even more glad that no passing stranger noticed the opportunity to quietly slip into my utterly unsecured dwelling and take all of my (conveniently packed) belongings while I slept (rather more soundly than usual). I wake feeling comfortable, grateful, appreciative, and relieved all at once. I sip my coffee wondering if this particular mix of emotions has a name of its own.

Another good day to begin again.

The dawn sky is shades of peach and a watery pale blue. Another hot day ahead. Peculiarly, I have my headphones on… no music. I must have meant to put some on… I didn’t actually do it. Even noticing this, I don’t actually pause to remove the headphones, or to put on music. I sip coffee. I write. I am content in this moment and the headphones are simply not relevant, nor are they uncomfortable. So… there they sit. On my head. Without purpose. lol Funny human primate.

I’ve still got a week to go before I have keys in hand, a new address, and a busy long weekend of getting moved out of here. So many boxes, in stacks and groups and piles and pillars and arrangements in spaces… and still a week of waiting remaining to be waited out. I still have more stuff to go into more boxes. A few more evenings and a weekend will take care of that.

I chuckle to consider a faraway friend making the journey to help me move; we’ll be basically “camping” in this space by the time he arrives, and then in the new house after the movers do their thing. I’m pretty blown away by the affection of friends who will help with moving. Friends who not only help with moving but will also travel more than 700 miles to do so, and do that with the expectation that there will be no comfortable convenient hospitality of the sort I usually provide is absolutely a treat, a wonder, a rare delight – and appreciated on a whole different level, that involves more than a little awe, and perhaps a tiny bit of bewilderment, and a sense that I need to step up my own friend game… because… I am not sure I’m that person, myself, and just… wow. I could be, though, right? Choices. I am fortunate indeed to have such friends.

What next? I have so much of the next few days tightly planned, centered on this move… I make a point to also take care of this fragile vessel. The hot days are difficult. I make a point to slow down a little bit, to drink a lot more water, to attempt to get adequate rest – even if that means laying down while evening is still daylight, windows and doors wide open to breezes, and at risk of falling deeply asleep without securing the premises. lol I finally got a really good night’s sleep, in spite of the heat. 😀 I really needed the rest.

The “hard part” of the packing comes next. It is time to box up all the books, and take down all the paintings. This also means having to work a little more to manage my anxiety as it comes and goes; bare walls reliably fill me with anxiety and a subtle continuous stress – “you don’t belong here” is the message of bare white walls, to me. It’s fairly important to my mental and emotional wellness that I not subject myself to unadorned walls any longer than necessary.  Still, it is time, and it must be done. The weekend will be a good one for it. 🙂 Once the keys are in my hands, and that first car load is unpacked, there will be at least one small painting along for that trip, and it will go up before I even head back for another carload of household goods. No kidding. If it fits in the car, I may very well simply take the big painting that is most likely to be hanging above the fireplace. It’s a touch that makes me feel very at home, and the message it sends becomes “I live here”. Comforting. Safe. Real.

Gnothi seauton. “Figuring out my shit” turns out to be less about changing it, sometimes, than understanding it, and working with it instead of fighting it all the damned time. 🙂

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

Bad Math

July 3, 2017 //
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[Oh hey, I’m talking about emotion and domestic violence in this one. No surprises. Please take care of you. <3]

Think about this carefully; anger doesn’t solve very many relationship problems. It’s not that anger is “powerless” – it isn’t. It’s a dangerous force for change, particularly in the context of lost self-control, lost perspective, and a righteous sense of entitlement, possession, or justification. Tragedies happen by way of uncontrolled rage. Clearly, anger can be quite powerful. “Violence never solved anything” is both true and false – and very much dependent on what we mean by “solved”. If we end an argument with violence, we’ve ended the argument certainly, but whether that counts as a solution depends on whether everyone walks away undamaged.

There was a time I didn’t understand emotional violence as violence – primarily because I lived in a messy tangle of both physical and emotional violence, served up with a hearty helping of military life, as well as gas-lighting. Emotional violence was the least of my worries. I didn’t understand my experience. I lacked the emotional intelligence to understand that I had options – and choices. It’s hard to look back comfortably on the choices I did make. Like a barefooted journey across hot asphalt and broken glass, every step did more damage. I lived with continuous fear and anxiety. I rarely slept. The emotional violence in my relationship was the least of my worries; I just wanted to survive the physical violence. I eventually got out of there, safely away, and sadly still unaware of the worst of the damage that had been done, because that wasn’t physical at all.

Physical injuries heal in a physical way. Bones mend. Scars fade. My arthritis follows me everywhere, but as a consequence of earning my freedom from fear it is a reminder that I live…still…it fucking hurts. I never forget how I got here. Tomorrow is 22 years since a nightmare ended. I ended it. I walked on.

…I took the chaos and damage with me…

The worst of the damage was emotional. I didn’t understand that for a long time. I understood “symptoms” – complex PTSD has many – diagnosis in hand, I recognized that I seemed to have no ability to manage my emotional volatility, as a symptom – as something that happened to me. I didn’t understand how accountable I actually was for my actions, though. I didn’t really “get” that like it or not, when my feelings become choices that become actions that affect other people, I am responsible for my actions. There’s no argument there, so just don’t. “Hormones”, “PTSD”, “a terrible headache” “a tough day” – none of these things actually make it okay to be emotionally violent with someone (most especially and particularly someone I say I love). I didn’t understand that I could – no, seriously, I totally mean this – I could choose to behave differently. My experience is my own. My emotions are entirely mine to feel. My choices are mine to make. I am responsible for my actions. Not one moment of personal misery really excuses treating someone else badly.  I was slow to learn this lesson. I carried the violence forward into my future with me, woven into the damage I’d survived, and expressed it as uncontrollable impotent rage, meltdowns, tantrums and frequent loss of rationality. I’m done making excuses for emotional violence – few people die in a literal way from emotional violence, but the life they are left with is changed. It’s really not okay to behave that way. (Nope, PMS, PMDD, they don’t excuse it either. Get help. Make amends. Say you’re sorry, for fucks sake. Do better over time.)

I’m glad to be moving. Escalating domestic violence next door is uncomfortable to live around. It fucks with my head when I hear the yelling through the walls, the slams and bangs, vague and undefined. There are no good guys. Only human beings unwilling to choose differently and calling it “love” (it isn’t).

Look around. There’s a lot of that going on. We can choose differently. All of us can do better. I can. You can. That person pulling out a gun on the highway to shoot a teenager can choose differently, too; they chose their actions. Think about what that means. Feel your feelings. Behave well. Treat others well. Recognize the subjective nature of your emotional life, and don’t inflict weaponized emotions on other human beings. Fuck your hormones. Fuck your PTSD. Fuck your anger. Care. Care enough to choose better behavior. Care enough to be the person you most want to be. Care enough to seek help if you need help. Care enough to take care of you – well. Care enough to take a step back from a difficult situation. Care enough to understand that each of us is having our own experience – and it’s ours, not to be taken from us. None of us belongs to another.

I say that, then sadly spend minutes contemplating the very real continued existence of slavery and violence around the world. I don’t really know what to say. I am saddened by the constant awareness that there is so much violence loosed on the world. That we wear the face of our own destruction, as a species.

We can all do so much better to treat people well than we actually do. What will you do today to become the person you most want to be? We become what we practice. What are you practicing?

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Another Dawn Comes

July 1, 2017 //
2

I woke slowly, resisting the end of the night as long as I could. I felt comfortable, content, and rested – I just didn’t want to wake up quite then, although I could see dawn was imminent by the lightness of the room, generally. I woke. Wandered around the place in an unhurried way opening up the patio door and the rest of the windows to let in more of the cool morning breezes. Today won’t be as hot. I find myself smiling; I’ll get more done. There’s more to do. This works for me.

The night ended gently.

Yesterday was a good day. I’d planned to do more, including go enjoy dinner with visiting friends from out-of-town. I wasn’t up to it after all. I didn’t let that blow my general good spirits or fill me with guilt or shame or disappointment, and since I took a different approach than all of those things, I also avoided becoming mired in hidden resentment, irritation, or defensiveness – the sort of things that are, while very human, so capable of wrecking a perfectly good time, and frankly so easy to avoid, by choices that I make myself to live authentically, and take good care of this fragile vessel.

This morning we have it in mind to get together over brunch. 🙂 Fun! I love brunch. My traveling partner is of a mind to join us, and it all sounds quite wonderful. 🙂

Today is another day of packing, boxing, and sorting things out for the move. Laundry, too. Fuck – this doesn’t sound like a day of leisure at all. LOL I take a deep breath as my anxiety level attempts to rise, and as I exhale I feel myself relax. I chose this. I’m eager to proceed with it. This means it will be most easily done if I am also able to embrace the realities of the effort involved. There’s really no dodging the verbs, and life has a lot of them to offer.

I remind myself that this is a move that is only 11 days away at this point. (What?!!) That’s okay – I have boxes, a list, packing tape, sticky labels, a sharpie, tissue paper, and bubble wrap! How much more prepared could I be? Yesterday I got a thoroughly excellent start on having Day 1 items ready to move, and placed in an expedient “staging area” that I suppose could also be called a “dining room”. I made sure to provide the landlord my new address, and my firm move out date, and in return she provided me with the specifics of my pro-rated July rent. This is real. This is happening.

I take a few deep breaths of cool meadow breezes, and pause to listen to the wind chime, the call of the crow in the little pine outside my window, and to sip  my coffee. There remains much to do. It only feels overwhelming when I find my consciousness stalled in some future moment, while standing in the midst of all of the things yet to be done, and feeling rather as if that future moment is now, a now in which I am clearly not ready for it to be that future moment, then. lol Well, that’s easily remedied, is it not? I return my consciousness to now as well, and I’m just fine.

My anxiety comes and goes as I move through the work and details of managing yet another move. Some of my anxiety is merely baggage, the remnants of my chaos and damage lurking in the background of every moment. Some of my anxiety is real enough, but also that fairly natural impotent sort of not-very-helpful anxiety that crops up in the face of adulting at full speed, and suddenly noticing “I don’t have training wheels”; I feel less skilled at all of this than I most likely actually am. I’ve moved before. I’ve moved recently. I’ve moved myself with minimal help. I’ve coordinated moves when I’ve had a lot of help. I’ve got this. Anxiety is liar.

It’s a pleasant morning, and the day has yet to reveal its many delights. It’s enough to enjoy the moment, to enjoy the breezes, to enjoy my coffee, and to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being
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