Archives for posts with tag: pain management
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Versions

October 4, 2025 //
0

I reached the trail before daybreak. I walked down the path in the darkness, the bobbing half circle of light cast by my headlamp lighting the way ahead of me, but obscuring anything I might have seen beyond that bit of light. I consider that metaphorically for some distance, until my thoughts wander on.

Daybreak, and a new day.

By the time I get to my halfway point on the trail, I am thinking about the many “versions” of “myself” I have been over a lifetime. Each of the many jobs, addresses, relationships, traumas, and triumphs, have left their mark on the woman I am today. Steps on a path. A journey that is its own destination. I find myself asking some questions as I reflect on my life and the changing context(s) in which I have lived it. I think about the “here and now”, and the changes that brought me to this point.

  • In what version of myself have I been happiest, most often?
  • In what version did I most respect myself?
  • In what version did I enjoy the greatest sense of consistency between my values and my actions?
  • In what version did I seem to be most likeable?
  • In what version was I most likely to compromise my values for personal gain?
  • In what version was I villain, hero, or “NPC” in my life?
  • Are there versions of me that I regret so thoroughly that I am ashamed of the person I was?
  • How do I hold on to the best bits of all of the many versions of the woman in the mirror, and discard the worst, to become truly the woman I most want to be? (And is that version truly worthy of the effort required?)

I find self-reflection a worthwhile practice. I sit with my thoughts, listening to the sounds of an autumn morning between marsh ponds and meadow, breathing the chilly air carrying the scents of fall flowers and some hint of…mildew? It is a gray morning. The sky lightens slowly revealing a cloudy sky. The threat of rain exists in the scents on the mild breeze, and also in my arthritis pain.

The pain is annoying. I think (and write) about it too much, probably. It sometimes feels inescapable.

My Traveling Partner and I both deal with chronic pain. I do my best to manage my pain. When we’re hanging out, in pain, we each do what we can to take care of ourselves and each other. Our efforts are not reliably successful. Last night was difficult. I’d find some position in which my pain was lessened, and hold myself rigidly trying to hold on to that bit of improved comfort. He perceived it as “tension”, which I guess it was, in a sense. My tension is uncomfortable to be around, for him. He wants to help if he can (but he can’t really, it’s not that sort of thing).

His experience of pain had him squirming in my periphery, trying to get more comfortable, which I find uncomfortable to be around. I’d very much like to help, if I could (but I can’t really, it’s not that sort of thing). We do our best to be kind to each other, compassionate, empathetic without fusing with the experience of our beloved partner. It’s difficult. Pain “shrinks our world” and we’re sometimes terse with each other, when it’s actually the pain itself that is annoying us.

We ultimately ended the evening early, withdrawing to separate spaces to seek some kind of relief, if only from dealing with each other’s pain on top of our own. Seems a harsh and rather isolating approach to take, but it’s probably better than hurting each other’s feelings or taking out our discomfort on the person we love most.

I didn’t sleep well. Pain, again. I struggled with falling asleep, and once I had, I was awakened multiple times by one noise or another, or light, or the sound of angry voices, but each time I woke, the room was dark, and the house was quiet. It was weird. I woke abruptly, around 02:00, feeling a sense that “something wasn’t right”, but again all was apparently well and quiet. I returned to sleep and dreamt that I was awake… really thought I was, until my artificial sunrise woke me from a deep sleep. I had forgotten to turn it off for the weekend. I was still feeling groggy and a bit out of sorts even as I began my trek down the trail, some time later.

Saturday. No hurry, and there’s certainly ample time for self-reflection, and this is as good an opportunity than any – better than most. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let my awareness of my pain recede into the background (for as long as I can). Daybreak becomes dawn, then daylight. I watch from my seat on this fence rail. A soft sprinkling of rain falls briefly.

I sigh to myself, suddenly missing old friends far away, and yearning to sit down over coffee and conversation. I’m momentarily overcome with a poignant feeling of nostalgia… Annapolis… Killeen… Monterey… Augsburg… Fresno… Times and people, long ago and far away. My eyes tear up a bit. The moment passes. My thoughts move on.

It begins to rain softly. I look down the path toward other places and new experiences. I admit to myself with some reluctance that it must be time to begin again… and I get to my feet, and walk on.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, women, Words

Feeling the Chill

September 25, 2025 //
0

It’s a chilly morning out on the trail. I’m okay with that, I’ve got a warm sweater on. The afternoon is forecast to be cooler, too. It definitely feels like fall now. I walked briskly, hands jammed into my pockets. I forgot to grab my cane, but so far my ankle is not failing me. I get to my halfway point still steady on my feet, and the pain I am in is “only” my arthritis. That’s not stopping me – it’s not even slowing me down, it’s just annoying.

I stop and take a seat on this rock that is “my usual spot”. It’s still fairly dark, though after I turn off my headlamp, I see that daybreak is here. The sky is a hazy gray, a combination of cloudy skies and distant wildfire smoke. It’s been a pretty dry year. I find myself wishing it would rain. I sigh to myself. Wishes aren’t worth much. Yearning doesn’t take me farther along my path unless I also put in the necessary work to walk it. There are reliably verbs involved. Choices to make. Actions to take. Will and effort and follow through required. We each have to walk our own mile, and no amount of yearning or daydreaming or wishing will take us to our destination.

I sit with my thoughts awhile. Daybreak becomes a hazy gray dawn, with a streak of orange on the eastern horizon as the sunrise begins. I’m grateful to see another. For a moment I wonder how many sunrises have there been in all of human history, and whether our earliest conscious cousins among primitive people also watched the sun rise with eyes wide with wonder, enjoying the rare hues and splendid colors? Surely they must have…?

I exchange a few words with my beloved Traveling Partner as the day begins. I feel relaxed and merry in spite of pain. It is a pleasant day, so far.

The trees are green now, with hints of yellow and russet, instead of appearing as dark smudges alongside the trail. The sky is a softer hazy pale blue. The trail is clearly visible and the start of the work day is on the other side of this walk… It’s already time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Words

Hanging Out Between Moments

September 24, 2025 //
0

It’s rare to begin a day “on empty” without something else going on. I woke feeling a bit dizzy, and vaguely nauseous. I arrived at the trailhead before dawn, nonetheless, ready to walk… for most values of “ready”. There’s a work day ahead of me, and I face it with the strange sensation of not being certain how many days of work I have completed this week, nor am I certain how many remain, at least not initially. Eventually, out on the trail, I get my bearings. Now, having a clearer sense of what day it is, I proceed down the trail with more confidence.

… Am I just tired?…

Not “just” tired, I’m also in pain. As I walk, silently urging myself to continue down the trail, I begin to wonder if my fatigue and weirdness are all pain related…? Seems more and more likely as I walk. I sigh to myself. Pain is aggravating, and tends to shrink my world. I’m halfway down the trail and get to my resting point before continuing on, and I’ve no particular recollection of the walk so far. Rough. I sit down on the rock I find convenient for the purpose and look around me without much enthusiasm. It’s hard to focus my attention on other things, this morning. If it weren’t a work day, I’d just go back to bed.

Now, I’ve annoyed myself by emotionally giving in to pain. I frown for a moment, irked with myself for “making it so easy” for pain to get the upper hand this morning. I remind myself that it’s only a moment, and to avoid taking it personally. I’m still irritable over being in this much pain – and also for being so ridiculously sleepy. I catch myself being unusually unkind to myself over the pain I’m in, almost to the point of cruelty, and I work on letting that go. I’m already doing what I can to manage the pain I’m in, there’s no excuse to also be cruel. I’m human, with human injuries, human damage, and human limitations. I’ve also got extraordinary human will, better than average endurance, and I’ve learned to value and demonstrate compassion – surely I can trust myself to provide myself with care and consideration? Pain isn’t a joke. It isn’t something we seek out. Pain is not entertaining. This morning’s pain is way beyond “discomfort”, and taking care of myself is an important step to take. I sigh to myself again. More practice? Definitely.

My Traveling Partner pings me a greeting. He’s in pain this morning too. I’m grateful to be easily able to work from a different location. I’m having enough trouble managing my own pain. I’m pretty confident trying to work from home when we’re both hurting so much would be a poor choice. Still, I feel loved and I am grateful for his affection, and his good morning greeting. I hope we both find our way through the pain to the other side.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s time for meditation before I finish my walk. There’s time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, health, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Thinking About Words

September 10, 2025 //
0

I walked the first “half” of the trail thinking thoughts about words. I started with the word “open”, and thoughts about open doors, open minds, and open questions. I finished as I reached my “halfway point”, which isn’t typically actually halfway – it’s more to do with a convenient stopping point, or a particular view. I still call it halfway, which is sloppy and inaccurate. These thoughts are inconsequential noodling as I walk, neither amounting to worthwhile thinking, nor meditation. Just chaos and noise in my head, really, and it’s been quite difficult lately to quiet the noise.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and hope that meditation may provide some calm to the inner chaos. I turn off my headlamp. It was necessary when I started down the trail, it is less necessary now. Daybreak is here, and the sky has begun to lighten, revealing a cloudy sky.

My mind wanders. I pull it back to this quiet moment and my breath. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. The air conditioning of some nearby building is almost loud enough to drown out my tinnitus, even at this distance. I pull my attention back to my breathing, which I hear as somewhat louder than either my tinnitus or the building AC. It’s relative and a bit peculiar that these three things seem so nearly the same loudness…they definitely are not, at all. I’m momentarily distracted by that thought, and gently let it go and refocus my attention on the moment, and my breath.

This morning meditation is hard. It’s been like that for days now, and getting worse. I struggle to calm my mind. Even my sleep is more than typically disturbed by strangely “busy” dreams. I wake not feeling rested. I work feeling constantly on the edge of being completely overwhelmed. I get home feeling sound sensitive and unable to “hear myself think”, but thinking isn’t even the goal, at that point – I just want to find rest.

I’m scrambling to consume as much information as I can as quickly as possible in my new job, and I’m doing so in the context of a ticking clock in the background (a 30-day trial period is a standard practice at this company). It’s working on my mind a bit, I guess. I sigh and look out into the dawn sky. Cloudy. Looks like rain. My head aches ferociously. My arthritis is giving me grief, too. I feel a bit “tense and weird” and wonder whether I just need a vacation – seems premature, considering how new the job is. I’m so tired, though…

I let all that go with my breath as I exhale, and I pull my attention back to this moment, here, as I inhale. Meditation helps. Maybe it helps a lot? I’m not losing my shit over dumb stuff or making everyone around me miserable. That’s something. I could do better with the self-care, clearly, and that’s a manageable detail. Even the work is entirely manageable. I definitely do need to figure out the cognitive fatigue before it breaks me, but as problems to solve go, it is also pretty manageable.

My mind wanders to dinner, to household chores that need doing, to the note on my calendar reminding me to make more tuna salad for my Traveling Partner, to make a quick grocery run… there is more to do than I can keep up on. I sigh to myself as the thought spikes my anxiety. I pull myself back to my breath and do my best to let all of that go, again. It can wait. The work day is ahead, and for now I can let that go too, and simply be.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. My mind wanders, I pull it back. I begin again. I repeat the sequence. Again. Yet again after that. I keep practicing. We become what we practice… eventually. I take another deep breath and exhale as a sigh. I watch the dawn becoming day.

… It’s time to walk on, already. A new day, and there’s work to be done. Rest will have to wait for later…

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Weather or Not

September 5, 2025 //
0

I am waiting for the sun, at a local trailhead. I’m not in any hurry, and it is a calm, quiet morning. The forecast says maybe it’ll rain, later. For now, I amuse myself wondering if that’s lightning I just saw. What I definitely saw was a brief very bright diffuse flash of light somewhere beyond the clouds obscuring the predawn sky, and then, later, another. I didn’t hear thunder, so I guess that if it was lightning (what else would it be?) it must be quite far away.

In the darkness, before dawn, it’s easy to wonder.

Another work day. Nothing much to say about that.

My tinnitus is crazy loud in my ears. My spine is a column of pure pain; I tell myself it’s “only” arthritis. It’s an unhelpful bit of exaggeration, but I count on it to persuade me that the pain can safely be ignored. I take my morning medications, which include prescription pain relief. It helps some, but only serves to “take the edge off”. It’s been a long time since it was any more effective than that.

I sigh to myself and grab my cane. I’ve got enough daylight now to walk this trail safely. I get started…

… I walk, lost in my own thoughts, and find that I’ve gone down and around and back to my starting point, already. It’s still early, barely daybreak. I decide to walk the loop again (it’s only about a mile and a half)…

I stop at a favorite resting point, when I reach it. My mind wants to dart ahead, to focus on work, but it is not yet time for that, and I pull myself back to this moment, here. The sky is gray, and cloudy, with the look of a sky that might rain, maybe. The air smells of rain, too. Another flash of distant lightning, another hint at rain.

Weather…or not.

The hills far to the west are hazy, looking more like a watercolor impression of hills on the horizon, and a bit unreal. This moment even feels a little unreal. Too quiet. Too still. The darkness of the trees between me and the river beyond seem vaguely spooky, although they have no secrets. It’s just a row of trees along the river bank. I walk here often.

I watch the sky continue to lighten, as daybreak becomes dawn, and an unseen sun rises somewhere beyond the clouds. The sky shifts from night black, to the deep blue of dawn, to the gray and cloudy sky I see now, and hints of pale blue behind the clouds peeking through where the clouds shred slowly as they move… north? North. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Somewhere nearby, the noise of a trash truck interrupts the stillness.

I sigh to myself as I get to my feet to finish my walk and head to work. Whether or not it actually rains, there’s still weather of some sort. Whether or not my path takes me where I expect to go, it still leads me somewhere. Having the experience is what matters most – the being and doing are the point. The journey is the destination. Isn’t that enough? I think about that as I stretch. The clock is ticking, and it’s time to begin.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »