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Taking a Breath

December 23, 2024 //
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My sleep was disturbed and restless and the night seemed to pass slowly. My dreams were unsettling, but not actually nightmares. I went to bed in pain after an unproductive day struggling to manage pain and still get some housework done. The Giftmas holiday is almost here and I’d like the living room to be quite presentable in photographs. Seems reasonable – my pain and energy level may have the last word, in spite of my intentions.

I woke still in pain. (Fuck pain.) I started my day in a routine way. It’s the last work shift for me before the holiday. We settled on fried rice for Giftmas eve dinner; I remind myself to make rice after work today so I have that ready to use for tomorrow evening. After some discussion, we decided a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, link sausages, and toast would be lovely for Giftmas morning. We all know we’re likely to over-indulge in rich treats and favorite sweets, and a hearty protein-rich breakfast will be a nice balance. My Traveling Partner spoke up in the evening, yesterday, and asked for roast beef for Giftmas dinner. Looks like I need to make a trip to the store for a roast, and some potatoes (for mashing), and a vegetable… and maybe some nice dinner rolls? (I could bake, but fucking hell, I’m just one woman.) It all sounds lovely.

I sit quietly for a moment, just thinking it over. Not planning, or “walking myself through it” in any sort of tactical way, just imagining the moments, the flavors, and the warm sentiment. Family at home for the holidays. Wholesome. There won’t be any shootings or violence at our house over the holidays; that’s not who we are. Hell, there may not be any harsh words or impatience, though we’re human and there certainly could be. There will be love and joy and humor and gratitude and fun. There will be celebration and looking ahead to another year. There will be tasty meals and delightful treats, and gifts to enjoy once opened.

… Here’s an important question; in a household of adults only, is it coffee and breakfast first, or gifts first? I chuckle to myself. I’m like a child over Giftmas and often forget we can easily wait, easily take time with all of it. We can even sleep in, if we can sleep. There’s no rush…

A wonderful Giftmas time

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m excited for the holiday, but recognize how easily excitement can become anxiety or irritability. I remind myself to put love first, to listen deeply, to be mindful of social cues and patient with those around me. We’re enjoying this together, but we’re each having our own experience. I sit with my feelings of contentment and quiet excitement. For now, that’s enough.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Pain, Vertigo, Errands to Run

December 21, 2024 //
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It’s the day of Winter Solstice. Happy Solstice.

I woke during the night, and it was the strangest thing. I turned over, and the vertigo that washed over me woke me abruptly. I thought it was near time to wake up anyway, so I laid still and quiet, and quite straight and flat on my back, waiting for the vertigo to pass. Once it did, which seemed rather a long while later, awake in the darkness, I checked the time. 02:55. Definitely not time to get up. I made myself more comfortable and went back to sleep. There was a Billy Joel song stuck in my head, which seemed peculiar enough to wonder why, as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke again later, properly time to get up and head for the trail. My vertigo spun my senses as I tried to orient myself. Damn it, why now? It passes and I sit up, aware of the intensity of the pain in my neck and back. Rough. I’m feeling pretty fucking mortal this morning and find myself worrying about making things as easy as possible on my Traveling Partner should my mortality catch up with me unexpectedly… Time to focus on paying off debts and fattening up savings and having things properly in order… But… For fucks sake isn’t it always time for those things? I sigh quietly and get up. I’ve got shit to do, and the morning begins here, now.

My day begins in earnest with the kitchen sink backing up first thing. What the absolute fuck?! Are you kidding me with this shit?! I snarl quietly to myself, aggravated with someone’s carelessness. Eggshells jammed into the drain, but not down into the disposal, and the strainer cup placed over those, so it wasn’t evident that they were there. Of course they didn’t go through the disposal that way. G’damn it. I try so hard to be quiet in the morning but I definitely can’t walk away with the fucking sink backed up. I roll up my sleeves and clear the clog. So gross. First fucking thing in the morning, too; I’m barely fucking awake and I’m not ready for this bullshit. Fixed. I wash my hands and head out, still annoyed.

The drive to the trailhead is quiet and pleasant. By the time I get parked I’m over being mad about the sink, but I definitely wish the Anxious Adventurer would take a little more basic care moment to moment, particularly in the fucking kitchen and in the shop. That kind of careless bullshit gets shit broken, or gets people hurt, or creates risk of injury or food-born illness. It’s too easy to get it right. It irritates me that he makes extra work for me so often. (I know he doesn’t mean to.) I sigh quietly. It begins to rain. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. My neck and back ache ferociously, a column of pain rising from my waist to the base of my skull. Fuck pain. I don’t feel much like walking in a drizzle in the pre-dawn darkness, uncertain whether my vertigo may flare up again, so I meditate, and write a bit, and wait for a break in the rain.

I’ve a couple errands to run for my Traveling Partner this morning, and think about stopping in town for a quiet coffee and a visit to the art supply store… No reason, really, it just sounds fun and satisfying. It’s a nice day to do something for myself, too.

The rain continues to fall. I listen to the raindrops on the car roof and sit quietly with my thoughts until it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter

Well That Was Weird

December 20, 2024 //
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Mid-morning. I pause work for a break. I refresh my coffee (by pouring cold brew over the ice left from my iced espresso this morning). I breathe, exhale, relax… and re-set. Strange busy morning. I woke early, waited through a moment of intense vertigo. Breathed through some intense early morning back pain. Got my shit together and left for work – and my walk. I kept my walk short and careful in the pre-dawn darkness; the vertigo always spooks me a little bit, and I felt insecure out on the trail away from help if I fell. I headed on in to the office… which was… locked. Weird. Not just, you know, locked in the usual way requiring me to use an app to validate my access and unlock the door for me, nope, it was properly locked with the physical deadbolt. Super weird. I couldn’t get in.

I sat down on the hallway floor by the door, switched to the work profile on my smart phone and alerted my team that I was not able to get into the office, and therefore also not able to log into my computer (I’d left my laptop set up overnight, a rare – and in this instance unfortunate – luxury). Shit. Well, no super early calls, and I could access the team chat and my email from my device. All good. I messaged the co-work space management about the locked door, and hoped that some other early bird with access to the side door might happen along (it has a numerical keypad, for which I don’t personally have a code – never needed one). No such luck; the last Friday before a mid-week Giftmas holiday? Lots of folks are working shorter hours, coming in later, leaving earlier, enjoying the season.

Eventually I lucked out; the co-work space owner responded to me on Slack. She tried to unlock the door remotely, but of course, that deadbolt was the problem. New cleaning crew, apprently. lol We had a laugh, before she gave me a code to access the side door. I headed to my desk and logged in for my next call – on time. Nice. Since then, the day has felt rushed but routine, and I’m fine. No meltdown. No particular stress over it. No harm done. I, too, am enjoying things a little easier, and didn’t really need to be in so early. I lost my “slack time” for reading the news, or writing for a moment, but quickly caught up on the work details, until this later moment – when I often fail myself during the day by not taking a break. So, I’m taking the break I know I need. 😀

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a good day in spite of the oddball moments and unexpected circumstances. I’m fine. It’s a cloudy gray morning. Tomorrow is the Solstice. Today is Friday. It’s all fine. I’m okay for all identifiable definitions of “okay” in this moment right here, now, and it’s enough.

I sip my coffee and get ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Frustration, gratitude, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being

A Little of This, A Little of That

December 19, 2024 //
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Odd morning. Not a bad one at all, just a profound departure from the routine. For one thing, I overslept my artificial sunrise, and woke to the full brightness of the lights in the room, 10 minutes or so later than intended, and far later than typical. I woke in considerable pain, and very stiff, feeling like I’d been sleeping in the same strange position “all night”, with a stiff neck and back. Awkward. I moved slowly through my morning routine, almost leaving the house without putting my shoes on. I arrived at the trailhead emotionally prepared to walk, but feeling less than ideally eager to do so – the crick in my neck was still really super painful (and still is). Rough. I got a short walk in, then headed to the office to… work?

First I sipped coffee. Then I read my email. I watched a couple videos without really paying attention, then listened to some music. It’s been a weird morning. I pulled my attention back to work, and got some things done, now I’m distracted and a bit irritable because somewhere, someone is vacuuming something rather loudly, and the noise is carried through the building – a high pitched whine that I could seriously do without. What a peculiar morning.

I make another cup of coffee. The noise of the vacuuming finally stops. My neck still aches, but I’m not in a bad mood over it. I look at the picture of the Giftmas tree that I snapped this morning on my way to work for some reason – just pure childlike delight, I suppose. I grin to myself happily in spite of the pain in my neck. It’ll pass, eventually. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Only two days to the Winter Solstice. Only a week until Giftmas. Just 13 days to an entirely new year year. Wow. 2025 already here? How the hell did that happen “so fast”? Was I just distracted with the work of worrying and caregiving all year long? Damn. Life feels pretty good right now. This moment right here? Quite a nice one. I smile and take it all in, and sit with these positive hopeful feelings awhile. Soon enough, it’ll be time to begin again, practicing practices, and walking my path. For now though, this moment is enough.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Perspectives and Meaning

December 18, 2024 //
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Damn, yesterday ended up being a tough one. It wasn’t that anything particular went wrong, or that there were challenges I couldn’t face. Hell, I wasn’t exactly in a bad mood, even. The day went askew in a strangely emotional way when the office background music began to play “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in the holiday music mix. Multiple times. Multiple versions. Various singers. No question, an American holiday classic, and it reliably comes up this time of year, sooner or later. For me, it’s simply the saddest and most poignant holiday song ever. It’s a war era (WW II) song, and I reliably hear it sung in the voices of those who will never come home to another holiday. It’s mournful (for me). It’s one holiday song I can’t sing along to; I choke up before I even get the first line sung, and the tears come. I missed an entire holiday season deployed to a war zone myself. We sang this song together, and others, around the diesel stove on winter evenings, fighting off our blues, hoping that we would indeed one day go home for those holidays once more. Some of us don’t ever come home from war. Some of us who do make it home are forever changed by experiences no civilian loved ones can share or truly understand. War is horrible stuff, and the price paid along the way in lives and limbs and souls is far too high. I thought of Gaza. I thought of Ukraine. I thought of Syria. Global conflict. Genocide. The horrors of war. We should maybe stop doing that shit – and I’ll probably always cry when I hear this song. It has real meaning for me. Soldiers kill. Soldiers die. I’ve lost people along the way. My nightmares persist.

…It “broke” my yesterday…

By the time I got home from work, I was pretty much a mess (emotionally) and feeling really low. My Traveling Partner did his best to lift my mood, and together with the Anxious Adventurer we sat around watching “fail videos” and little bits of comic this-n-that, and taking things lightly. I gotta say, my beloved partner’s “emotional slight of hand” was masterful, last night. I had tried to say something about being set off by “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, and the Anxious Adventurer tried (in a well-intended way) to commiserate by sharing how annoying he finds that one particularly notable Mariah Carey holiday song. Understand me, please, I was not “annoyed”, I was grieving and feeling heart-broken over experiences few civilians share, and that I can’t seem to forget. Before I could flare up, irritable and angry over misperceptions of being “dismissed” or not understood seriously, my Traveling Partner put things on a comic footing in a wholesome loving understanding way, easily distracting me long enough for my unreasonable anger to be defused, unnoticed. No harm done. Fuck I love that man. He can make me laugh when I’m hurting. He can make me cry when I’ve grown jaded.

This morning the first words from my Traveling Partner were words of love and fondness and adoration. He tells me I am precious to him. He tells me he loves me. I feel it. I’m moved and my morning feels… merry. A new beginning. He understands, better than most people, where I’ve been and what I’ve been through. We’ve shared a few years together. We’ve had shared experiences, separately, that are not so commonplace for people generally. He “gets me”, mostly. More so than anyone else has. I feel loved.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m in a different place this morning, although I am sitting in the same chair. I’m wrapped in love. It matters.

Be kind to the veterans in your life, and the survivors of war – you don’t have to know the details of what they’ve been through to care, and to be there as a friend. It matters that you care. It’s enough. Help each other begin again, when things get tough. Share the journey. Hell, just be kind, generally – we’re all going through some shit. It’s a very human experience.

I look at the clock. It’s clearly time to begin again. 14 days to a new year – already? Damn. The time passes so quickly…

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, War and News of War
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