It’s early. I’ve got this moment, and this fresh cup of coffee. In a sense, everything is new and the entire day stretches ahead of me, all potential, untouched by turmoil or hard feelings. I love this time of day; it reminds me how real each new opportunity to begin again really is. I sigh contentedly. I sit quietly, just enjoying the moment without needing to change it at all.

My heart is filled with love, and I’m thinking of my Traveling Partner. I ping a “love note” in the form of a digital “sticker” to him, forgetting for a moment how early it really is. I hope I didn’t wake him… He generally does not take his phone into the bedroom when he retires for the evening, so… it’s probably fine. (I reliably do, and have more than once been wakened because I’d forgotten to silence notifications, or left the stupid thing face up too near to my face.) Yesterday had some difficult moments, but they were illusions born of emotion, in most cases, and the practical details did not need all that drama. Human primates and their messy emotions!

Love is strange and wonderful stuff. Anyone who has ever seen my Traveling Partner and I together recognizes (and often comments on) how obviously in love with each other we are…but… as wonderful as Love is, it doesn’t do much to make someone a better human being than they actually are. We’ve each still got to work on that for ourselves, every day. I’m a deeply flawed human being, marked by trauma, sometimes mired in my chaos and damage, dragging my baggage around with me like I really need that shit close at hand. lol Messy. There’s so much work to becoming the person I most want to be. Putting down the baggage sounds so easy… it isn’t. There are verbs involved. Practices. Study. One might expect cleaning up the chaos and damage would be a relatively procedural matter involving some clear steps and reliable outcomes, but that has not proven to be the case in practice. My results vary. The outcomes often seem to change the path ahead and my understanding of myself changes over time.

I sip my coffee. I feel pretty okay today. I got some sleep last night. I slept until my “alarm” brought the lights up to full brightness. I “finished my dreams” – which nearly always finds me waking feeling that sleep is “completed”. I didn’t stumble or drop anything as I dressed and readied myself for the day. Traffic was light and the commute was an easy one, in spite of the drenching rain that accompanied me along the highway. The day has had a promising start and I feel optimistic. I’m not even in much pain. My tinnitus is relatively mild this morning, mostly fading into the background. My cervicogenic headache is a barely noticeable 2 out of 10 or so on a 1-10, and my occipital neuralgia seems to have – for the moment – diminished. My arthritis isn’t bothering me, today, yet. A good start to the day, feeling good, sipping coffee, and looking out the office windows on the rainy pre-dawn cityscape below me.

My results vary. However easy or difficult the journey, yours will as well. No point taking that personally. I breathe, exhale, relax, and sit here with my coffee and my thoughts. I make shit too difficult, sometimes. I mull that over while I drink my coffee. There’s something to learn there.

I yawn unexpectedly, finish my coffee, and prepare to begin again.