It was an interesting weekend. Hormones, a homecoming, and the fun of a traveler’s tales wove a narrative with some ups and downs, some challenges, and some real delights. Spring in the garden and along the shorter walks I can manage on this knee gave up some wonderful pictures to enjoy, and some perspective on what matters most that helped me stay balanced and grounded as much as I could manage with the choices I made.

The loveliness of spring is, whatever else may also be.

I am an imperfect being, human, alive, and more fragile than I expect to be. I suspect we all are.  I don’t make my best choices under stress; more stuff causes me stress than seems rational, necessary, or wise. From a distance it is comical, up close it is as likely to provoke tears of frustration. Hormone hell? Yeah, I still deal with it. I’ve got just 55 days now until I can ‘officially’ say I have ‘gone through menopause’. More hilarity; that doesn’t actually offer any real guarantee I won’t ever ever ever have a period, or that my hormones won’t turn some invisible corner and wreak havoc in my life for hours or days… just that it is less likely by far, and I am easily labelled ‘past my child-bearing years’. lol.  Not a great demonstration of medical precision. Still… 55 days left, and I am eager to be done with it.

A single raindrop doesn’t say much about the weather.

I’m excited that my partner returned from his getaway with restored enthusiasm for getting out into the world, into the wild, for hiking, camping, fishing… and I’m jealous, more than I want to share, more than seems fair.  I’d like to share those experience with him.  Arthritis. Knees. Ankle. I’m struggling with pain and mobility on a level that would likely make any sort of challenging hike not even a little bit fun for either of us to ‘enjoy’ together, at least for now.  The irony of it seems more than a little cruel to me. Damn, though, I love seeing him interested in something fun and energetic, and ‘all his own’. Newness and learning open the doors to fantastic conversation and connection; everyone needs to have their own thing, their own experiences, otherwise – what is there to ‘share’?

We serve love best when we are more than a reflection of each other.

I approach life more fearlessly these days… which apparently has a down-side I had not anticipated.  For so many years I’ve kept my anger in check with fear… so… now what? It’s a scary question with some amount of urgency behind it because… I’m angry a lot.  I’d like to think not abusively so, but… anger is nasty shit. How is anger ever not at all abusive? I don’t know many people who don’t find someone else’s anger at least uncomfortable, and often ‘too much’ or ‘inappropriate’ to the circumstances or magnitude of the event. So… it’s now time to work on anger, and not just that, time to work on Anger, too. The big A. The anger that doesn’t die. The Anger that has festered over years. The Anger as a meta-emotion.  Rage. Fury. The thing that takes over and escapes my control; now is the time to unchain the beast and teach it some manners.

Stormy weather…

It’s a little scary to know that it’s time to face the Anger, best it, and move on to other things. Like a fearless hero in a legend, I am facing a foe and uncertain of the outcome – this is the big one. This is the demon I must conquer to take a next step to healing the worst damage, because that ‘worst damage’ to which I refer is the source and well-spring of that vast untamed sea of Anger. To set foot on that damaged shore, I must find a way to safely navigate that sea.

Vast, but sometimes not everything it appears to be.

I wanted a more relaxed, gentle, calm weekend than the one I had, however as a student of life, and perpetually a beginner with practicing mindfulness, I value the lesson. I benefited from the opportunity to examine old problems from new angles.  I appreciate the real experience of being supported by my partner, and also seeing what that demands of my partner and that there may be more I can do for myself to alleviate the burden. A weekend with less easy delight and charm that I allowed myself to look forward to (and expectations are the motherfucker of all good times, without question), and a lot of intimacy, vulnerability and depth of connection, and opportunities to share, get close emotionally, and talk through hard stuff.  I’m inclined to call it a ‘great weekend’ in spite of the opportunities for tears.  Anyone taking the quantity of my tears personally, who wasn’t around in the 60s, 70s, and 80s is probably missing the point of my tears.

In general, life is quite lovely.

I miss my other partner, and it’ll be nice to have her home and hear her tales of adventure in the big city.  I allow myself to look forward to it with real delight, in spite of that wee demon whispering in my ear about things and other things.  We choose so much of our reality. Today is a good day to choose joy. Today is a good day to choose compassion. Today is a good day to remember – every time – that we are each having our own experience, and the irritability of that person over there (whoever, wherever) isn’t about us.

Perspective. Mindfulness. Sufficiency. Savoring the small delights more than I rail about the disappointments makes an important difference.

I feel pretty close to understanding something…