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Arriving “On Time”

December 26, 2017 //
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I got home precisely on time; the time I arrived. It wouldn’t have mattered what time that happened to be when I stepped from the icy winter cold into the comfort of this strangely almost-not-quite-perfect-and-definitely-not-really-mine little duplex in which I reside. For a moment, it felt like “home”, perhaps simply because it is comfortable here (both temperature and environment), and it so is not anything like “comfortable” outside, today. Is that really what a feeling of home is all about? Comfort? That seems surprisingly practical – and attainable; determine what is not comfortable, make the adjustments necessary to achieve comfort. Repeat. Home! …It’s a thought worth considering further. I make myself a note.

I sit down, here, and make still another note… then find myself writing, after a couple days of just… not. I must have needed the break from all the things, and every routine, because I certainly woke to the morning, today, with plenty of enthusiasm for all the things, after 5 days of utterly willfully leaving all my routines in tatters. Planned spontaneity. lol My favorite sort.

I begin the holiday with a lovely stack of books to read.

I continue to consider comfort – both the practical details, and even as a metaphor. Certainly, I spent the weekend quite comfortable here in this small space in which I live. It was a wonderful holiday. Tender. Connected. Relaxed. Restful. Joyful. Warm. It was definitely in my top 10 Giftmas holidays ever – which still strikes me as a bit odd, since I spent it more or less entirely alone. (Alone aside from a relatively short visit with a friend, Saturday, which was a serious departure from the temporary normal of quiet and leisure spent alone.) I never felt “lonely” (your results may vary), or neglected (again with the reminder; we are each having our own experience), and it was such a deep down drenching sensuous joy to so fully relax, to read a few books I’d gotten behind on, to try new recipes without concern, to set the pace of the weekend and the holiday without having half an eye on whether everyone else’s needs are fully met, ahead of mine. It was satisfying and beautiful. I felt cared for in a different way.

A few more finished… a couple new books added to the stack 🙂

I still really missed my Traveling Partner, and more than once I found myself very nearly talked into making the trip down his way, against the silent urging of my soul – which really really just wanted to sit still awhile, catch up on some reading, and… not do more things. We spoke often, and chatted enough that I still feel very much that we “shared” the holiday – which I feel pretty certain is going to lead to some amusing future moments in which I can’t remember which year I spent Giftmas alone, because I recall my Traveling Partner being part of all of them. lol Love-pollution.

It was nice coming home tonight. I’d left a light on by mistake – it was less like coming home to an empty place. 🙂 I make another note to myself, about that. Work is work – but now I’m home. I smile at the much shorter stack of books I have not yet read… and begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Changing to Winter

December 22, 2017 //
1

Okay, so… it isn’t autumn anymore. The weather is still gray and rainy-freezy-misty. Not good for long drives through mountain passes (at least, it’s not my preference). A poor choice for my arthritis as well, though there’s little to be done about that long-term without relocating; I take short-term actions to ease my symptoms, almost as soon as I get up, today.

I begin the holiday with a lovely stack of books to read.

It’s the just the loveliest winter day. I’ve spent it…oh… on me. Relaxing. Meditating. Reading. Doing yoga. Watching the squirrels play. I forced myself out of the house once, when I noticed I’d run out of coffee and didn’t have even enough for a second cup. Of course, the one time I venture out, and silence my ringer while driving, I miss a call from my Traveling Partner. lol I check messages when I get home, see the missed call, and phone him back. It’s always lovely to talk, to hear his voice, even that bit when he gets frustrated with me talking over him is worth the phone call. 🙂 He gets back to his day, there, I get back to mine, here.

Today has been an exceptional day for meditation. It’s a good fit with all the reading, which somehow manages to surprise me. I find myself questioning the surprise; is it just an artifact of an injury that often misleads me about what is or is not new? I let that go and simply enjoy each precious chill moment of this pleasant holiday. I read awhile. Finish a chapter (or a book) and “take a break” by meditating for some unmeasured little while. I pause all that to have a bit of a chat with my partner, listen to some music, practice with the buugeng. At some point, I begin all that again, and return to reading. It’s been just about the perfect day off, in spite of missing my Traveling Partner, and even in spite of being in pain.

3 finished. Feminism, Love, and Dictatorship – a broad variety of topics, with still more enticing reading to come.

I put everything aside for a while. More meditation. Sitting quietly by the fire, taking a moment to simply be, and to be aware, and to really listen. To observe the moment without putting rules on it, or building a narrative around it, or making it any more or less significant than the moment itself provides without effort or guidance. Experiencing “being” as the verb it is, without the complication of all those other verbs, for just some little while. Some time later, the warmth of the room seemed to shift from cozy to stifling, and I got up, adjusted the thermostat, welcomed the twilight, and made my way here, right here, now. This? This is live – well, in the moment I am doing the typing, right now, it is. I’m often not “writing right now” in that way – it’s far more common that I am writing about some recently past moment (although rather rudely, I often do so in the present tense, having become emotionally entangled there in that past event).

So… here we each are, in our present moment. I giggle quietly to myself as I fully take in the meanings when I think to myself “I hope your present is not tense”… “present tense”. It should not be that god damned funny (it isn’t). I’m laughing out loud, and tears squeeze out of my eyes. A moment of subtly hysterical catharsis – no harm was done to this human in the writing of this blog post. 🙂 I smile with considerable kindness “at myself”, and experience a weird moment of recognition and gratitude – when did we actually become friends, the woman in the mirror and I? I don’t think it’s been that long ago… we’ve been mutually supportive for some time (a couple years) but “friends” would have been a stretch. Funny.

I smile to myself and consider how pleasant the evening is, and feel fortunate to enjoy my own company with such ease these days. What a lovely day, well spent, in good company, reading, meditating, listening to music, dancing, practicing buugeng and watching squirrels… I think I’m ready to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, medical marijuana, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter, Words

360 Degrees of Consideration

December 18, 2017 //
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Consideration is a funny notion. The idea that there is value in making a specific point of considering another person, other people, animals, children, the moment, the circumstances, the timing, the consequences, the lighting… all of the things… it’s complicated. What we choose to consider matters, and we often don’t seem to… consider that, too.

Consider a common enough commuter scenario; congestion, cars close together between intersections, blocking side streets, waiting for lights, pedestrians crossing in their turn, and someone in the oncoming lane, stopped with their left turn signal on, waiting for any chance to make their left turn – but the intersection is blocked by the car ahead of you. When the car ahead of you pulls forward, do you considerately remain stopped, allowing that left turn vehicle to turn left? If do you, did you also consider the cars waiting behind you, maybe for more than one cycle of lights, also eager to get home, also possibly waiting a long while, or faced with a time crunch of some kind? Did you consider, too, the car on the side street hoping to turn right, blocking most of that narrower street, maybe making it difficult for the left turn driver to make their turn efficiently? More delays. What about the cyclist coming up on your right, have you considered whether that left turn driver can safely make that turn – does the driver even see the cyclist? So many details, so many perspectives – it’s probably why we’ve made rules about rights of way, and order of operations (life, traffic, and math – all have their rules). Things may work ideally well in a particular sequence, or using a particular set of rules that, if everyone does it just that way, it all goes so smoothly. (When given a manual, tutorial, or opportunity to study the rules – for fuck’s sake, please do!)

I use traffic as an example because it’s hard to take it very personally, unless you’re in your car reading this right now – in which, omg, please do not do that. Not while you’re driving, anyway. Save it for later – literally nothing I write is worth dying over. Seriously. Nor worth taking a life carelessly. Just don’t. It’s terribly inconsiderate to drive distracted, anyway. So rude. So unsafe.

Life doesn’t create a lot of easy puzzles where consideration is concerned. I’m still figuring a lot of that stuff out, myself. Is there such a thing as “too much consideration”? What would that look like? Certainly, there is “consideration gone badly wrong” – we can so easily take actions based on the best possible intentions, truly noble compassionate and loving actions, and still cause terrible harm. I tend to think of consideration as also a possible solution for that particular problem, but we are each having our own experience – and like it or not (I don’t) it isn’t possible to be entirely right, entirely good, and also have nothing but beneficial (to all beings) outcomes of each of our actions and choices. Sooner or later, we’re likely to find that the good we thought we’d done turned out poorly for someone (maybe us) – or that something that experience suggests should have gone very badly indeed has some profoundly positive result… for someone else. It’s easiest to be sure after the action is completed, and the moment is a memory – that’s just not very helpful at decision-making time.

I don’t have any answers to this one. I do know that consideration – basic consideration, delivered in each interaction I have throughout each day that I can manage to remain sufficiently aware to do it has benefited greatly. I just don’t know the words to tell you how. I wish I did. Maybe if I were better at it myself? I’ll work on that. 🙂

In fact… I’ll begin again tomorrow. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

The Magic of Giftmas Large and Small

December 7, 2017 //
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I love this holiday season. I love giving gifts. Before I understood the challenges my TBI can sometimes present me, I regularly spent myself into negative numbers every year; I didn’t really care about that as much as I wanted to give, just a little more. Small gifts. Big gifts. Unexpected gifts. Handcrafted gifts. Funny thing… I didn’t at all recognize the importance (to me) of giving, at that time. I didn’t recognize the annual yearning to shop – in order to give. It’s fairly specific to gifts. I don’t consider myself charitable in a noteworthy way. I really really like giving a moment of delight to someone dear to me, most of all.

Tonight, I had a couple such moments, myself. I’m still smiling.

First, I arrived home to a rather large package on the stoop. Like… can’t get the door open large. Push it off the stoop to get the door open, because it’s both large and also too heavy to properly lift with ease, large. Large. It’s not for me. It’s for someone else. I laughed and laughed as I struggled with it in the blustery cold autumn evening. I don’t know why it tickled me so much that the physical size of the packaging was so much larger than I expected it to be. Expectations. Man. Damn. Avoid those if you can. lol They can be so misleading.

Then, I remembered to grab the mail on the way in. So much to do this evening… I almost forgot to check the mail. There was just one large-ish plain white envelope in the mailbox. I opened absent-mindedly as I returned to the house, thinking it to be something from the VA, or something of that sort. It turns out instead to be a sweet and wholly unexpected gift – even a tad exotic. I’m still smiling.

So, laundry, dishes, chores generally – and a smile in every direction. I’ll see my Traveling Partner this weekend, and celebrate holidays, birthdays, and friendships under a starring winter sky. The thought reminds me to add a couple things to the morning to do list. There are gifts for birthdays going with me, and I am too excited to give them (although they are wee and of no great consequence) to let myself forget them. 😀 I smile again, thinking of giving a friend a ride to the party. That verb. Give. 🙂 There’s a feeling to it.

The evening begins to wind down. Evenings seem more about finishing things, don’t they, and less about beginnings. I’m okay with that. Things end. It’s not an idea worth fighting. lol

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Existing in the Space Between

November 28, 2017 //
0

I woke precisely as the alarm went off, meaning to say, I woke and was in that process of becoming awake, and considering returning to sleep, when the alarm went off. I am not able to decide whether that was “convenient” or “annoying”. lol

My morning has continued in this strange fashion, and I find myself caught in a strange limbo between one understanding of circumstances, and another. The difference between one understanding and another? Mostly a matter of choice, and nothing more – a choice between perceptions or understandings, rather than a choice among actions. If I don’t “choose”… do I then not have a perception? That doesn’t seem to be how it works… eventually I settle on some understanding or another.

I put on headphones and grab a mix to listen to that has really grabbed hold of me lately. (Best on headphones if you don’t have speakers with a lot of bass. lol)

Dancing in my seat, thinking about this existence that occurs in the space between that moment when I am certain I earnestly want to retire… and actually being ready/able to do so. lol Oops. Mind that gap! lol Similarly, existing in the space between meeting that singular human being I yearn to be with…like… all the time… and that moment when I understood living full-time with anyone may not work for me at all. Damn it. Mind that gap! No easier existing in the space between being this one person I’ve “always” been (have not)… and being the person I am eagerly becoming. On it goes, right? So much of life is this moment right here, between then, and later on… this “now” moment, that is what it is, and only that. Even the music holds my attention in an in-between-things place, this morning, made up, as it is, of samples of older things mixed in a new way. lol We become, surely, and the journey ahead is paved in the consequences of our earlier choices and actions; this morning I am also very much aware that those earlier iterations of this person “I am” are still with me, and I am fully inclusive of all those earlier moments, earlier actions, earlier yearnings… I am not separate from myself. Or… am I? How does that work, exactly? Something to think about another time; what are we “made of”? Funny in between sort of morning, this morning.

My mind wanders with the music. It’s that sort of morning. 🙂

The holidays ahead begin to take shape. After a conversation with my Traveling Partner yesterday, I am happily planning for the possibility that he may come up for some portion of the holiday, a nice surprise. It’s not a certainty, and I am reluctant to become overly invested in sharing the holiday with him. I do like planning, though, and I’ll enjoy being prepared if/when. 🙂 It’s about little things, like having things he likes to snack on already stocked, and having gifts under the tree for him, too. The rest easily takes shape on its own; we comfortably spend time together, and enjoy hanging out together. Makes sense – he’s my best friend.

I notice the time. How the heck is it already 5:30 am? Then… I realize it is neither all that late, nor is it at all unexpected. I sigh out loud, and also sort of chuckle, awkwardly. Will today be built on a foundation of surreal weird moments of misperception and cognitive weirdness, generally? I don’t need that, I’ve got a busy work day ahead… I let the music pull me back to that in between space, neither fully “now”, nor truly any other moment, either. It’s enough to be.

I take a deep breath and relax as I exhale. I finish my coffee, and prepare to begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter, Words
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