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August 2, 2017 //
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Test time, Wanderer of Paths, Taker of Journeys! Life fairly screamed it my ears yesterday when my Traveling Partner reached out to me to find out if I’d found out that the original planning for the weekend had fallen through. Would I still be able to…? The exchange happened while I was also juggling a coworker’s fairly urgent question, a high priority deliverable that was due the day before, and trying to get set up for the day. The timing was inconvenient, and I managed (rather easily, actually) not to lose my shit over it. It was a lot to handle at once, and I’m not good at that (at all).

After working out new details, a new plan, making new arrangements, setting adjusted timing… the day moved on in a rather ordinary, if very busy, way. At the end of the day, I drove to pick up a friend, to pick up some gear that my Traveling Partner needs – since I’m going down to visit, anyway… Hey, look at me – I’m a roadie! lol Eventually, the car is loaded up with all of the things from a list I happily thought to request, and I’ve returned my friend home, and started driving back to my place… long day. Already later than bed time when I finally step across the threshold, and realize the car needs to be in the garage tonight, or needs to be unloaded. Fuck. So. I head to the garage, move a bunch of stuff around, put the car into the garage for the first and possibly only time and call it a night… wait, no… Shit. What about getting to work tomorrow? I’ve been relying on the car to happily avoid the blasting summer heat. That’s not going to work; I don’t feel comfortable leaving the car with the gear loaded into it parked in the neighborhood where the office is. It would be unattended, in an area known for car break-ins. Shit. Fuck. Damn it. All the swears.

So this morning, the alarm clock drags me groggily from less than 5 hours of sleep. I need to do better tonight; it’s a long drive tomorrow. I feel a deep down snarl sort of half-formed swirling around in my consciousness. I dislike having my plans upended so firmly, and being faced with “choices” that feel forced on me. I’ll ride the bus today, leave the car in the garage… short evening. Hot bus ride home. Bit of a walk on the sore foot, in the heat, to get home. It’s not at all what I’d planned for myself this week by way of “self-care”, and I’m sort of quietly seething about it, with no outlet. I meant to wash the car last night – ended up spending the evening making pick up on a car load of gear. Now the car is loaded… still needs to be washed before the trip. I’d meant to get the oil changed. I haven’t the time now. I feel tension and anxiety competing for attention with my basically good mood quietly not interfering.

I begin again a number of times this morning. I pause to breathe. I’m eager to see my Traveling Partner, and getting to do so makes all the rest worthwhile. I haven’t yet figured out how I am also supposed to have (find, make, take…) the time to take care of myself…? It’s like an elaborate practical joke where the punchline is “you weren’t paying attention to the road because you’re exhausted and freaked out – and now you’re dead!!” (Which is what most of my nightmares last night were about, actually.) I guess it is progress that at least I am actually thinking about caring for myself well, even if my actual results vary rather substantially from that goal, this week.

I sip my coffee and chuckle to myself, “damn, this better be a good fucking visit!” and laugh quietly out loud in the stillness of morning. Of course, it will be. 🙂

I look at the time. Fuck, I’ve probably missed that early bus I’d intended to take… so… freak out? Or… don’t give a fuck? I’ll probably land somewhere in between, biting my nails on the way to work, arriving in plenty of time. At any rate… I guess I’ll be giving beginning again another shot this morning. lol My results vary. It’s not unexpected. I’m having my own experience.  🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Rest, Also a Thing I Need

July 24, 2017 //
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I got home last night and stepped across the threshold still feeling a fairly firm commitment to work on my list of things to do. Moving in isn’t completed, really, until everything on the list is done. I sat and stared blankly at that list for a while. I had a shower. I came back to the list. I sat quietly awhile longer.

I mostly just sat quietly for rather a long while. I wasn’t even meditating, just… sitting. I found myself so disinclined to actually do anything that it was a major effort to figure out salad and a glass of water. It felt like real work to write an email to a dear friend. I did more sitting.

At some point it dawned on me (because even my thinking felt seriously slowed down) that I must actually just be that tired. As in, needing rest. Real rest. Not “failed action” or succumbing to exhaustion, but actual self-care-involving real legitimate uncompromised rest.

My evening became a lavish delight of the restful variety; I relaxed and looked out over the deck from my air conditioned vantage point. I watched fish swim in the aquarium. I read awhile – a favorite fiction novel that I can quite contentedly pick up or put down any time, at any point in the story, and enjoy myself quite thoroughly. Even meditation seemed like more effort than I could comfortably manage, yesterday evening, so I simply took gentle care of this fragile vessel and enjoyed a quiet evening of… quiet. I even went to bed a little early. It is telling of how much I did need some real rest that I fell asleep almost immediately, in spite of the earliness of the hour, and slept straight through to my alarm clock going off in the morning, quite dreamlessly.

At some point, much earlier in the day yesterday, I enjoyed a long phone call with my Traveling Partner. He’ll be heading home soon, and I will see him, and he will see the new place, and then –  far sooner than ideal, I’m sure – he’ll head out for the next thing out there on the future’s horizon. I’m eager to see him. Hell, I’m excited for him about the next adventure, too, although it will take him some distance away for a time. Neither the distance nor the time seem to undermine our connection. (There are verbs involved there, of course, and practices for maintaining emotional intimacy, managing self-care, and avoiding needless drama – and certainly, results vary from time to time, but… Love. My perspective is that loving is a verb, not a gift to be received, or expected, nor a resource to be mined, or wasted – everyone involved has to do the verbs, or Love withers, unsupported, un-nourished.) It will be a fun homecoming; I am excited to show him around the new place.

I sip my coffee, feeling the tug of a contented smile pulling on my face. Monday morning, the sky becoming light with a new day, just beyond the hedge. Today I’ll try the bus commute on for size. I haven’t yet switched over to a parking pass, still looking at my budget and making the necessary decisions about my commute – both the time and the money are factors to consider, and ease, and convenience, and reliability, and whether it will be miserable, comfortable, or fun. This is my life. Those details matter.  My Traveling Partner was right, though (as if he’s not right often enough!); I am pleased to have the choices in front of me, and it has been incredibly helpful to have the car – especially after I broke my foot! lol

I look around the studio at the managed chaos and disarray – it’s hardly a space I could paint in, as it is. There are paintings stacked everywhere, mostly by size. The hardest part of moving in is hanging art; every place is different, and wants different things on the walls. Each installation is new, and individual. The window looks out on the dawn, and reflects back at me those stacks of paintings, as if to suggest the future is just beyond those stacks of paintings that are waiting to be hung, stored, or sold. It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me… and I’m feeling good.

“Beauty is everywhere” quote and photo by Thomas Harwood, 2017

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being

Error Message

July 10, 2017 //
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I woke from a deep sleep to some kind of noise…a persistent sound of some sort…a beeping, or chiming, or… and it wasn’t stopping… Oh. My phone was ringing. Only one number rings through my “Do Not Disturb” settings; my Traveling Partner. I quickly lurch from bed and careen through the apartment, stumbling on shit that doesn’t match my mental map of my apartment; there are stacks of boxes everywhere. I reach the phone and answer it, delighted to hear his voice. No emergency, he’s just back in town and wanted to hear my voice. 🙂 It was a short call, and a quick return to sleep…

…only…

Nope. Not sleeping.

…I couldn’t so easily return to sleep.  Just as I was about to drift off my brain decided to attack with a barrage of insecure doubt and anxiety and dread, and oh, just all the things available to keep me laying wakefully for some time. I did eventually return to a restless unsatisfying sleep. Nightmares of loss and loneliness occupied my sleeping mind until the alarm went off.

I woke feeling okay. Feeling thoughtful. Feeling… thought-filled. lol This too will pass. I make a point of reminding myself how pointless rumination is, and that anything of substance that truly needs to be considered will still need to be considered later… after I wake up, after meditation, after my morning coffee, and perhaps even just quite a lot later today – after work. Perspective is helpful. Context matters. Oh, and also – brains make shit up all the damned time. lol My imagination is just as likely to work against me as to delight me. So, I shrug off as much of the weird lingering insecurity, anxiety, and doubt as I am able to, and I push on with the morning.

I have a practice for this one, and although it works, it’s not to be undertaken lightly first thing in the morning by a sleep-addled brain. (I learned that the hard way!) My practice for dealing firmly with insecurity and anxiety is to look my fears in the face without flinching. Seriously – I consider as frankly as I can whatever bundle of fears and bullshit that is freaking me out, and I consider it as if it were simply a given and life is no kidding going to deliver on all of it as if it were a promise. Feeling insecure about my relationship? I consider life without it, no bullshit, no drama – what does that look like? Could I still be okay? What advantages might that bring? Is there a future from that point that may still be quite nice? Does it change who I am? What am I truly afraid of? Is there an opportunity for growth, here? This works for any sort of insecurity, doubt, and anxiety, really. Emotions are powerful. It’s a good idea to choose some moment when it feels truly safe to fully consider my deepest fears. Results vary. Scary, tense, anxious, insecure, doubtful emotions can go sideways so easily, plunging me into real despair… but, all the more reason to learn to face them unafraid of the emotions themselves, and there is so much to learn. They’re still only emotions; getting to know them well, becoming comfortable with emotion, generally, and working to develop a measure of emotional intelligence that supports good quality of life is not only completely achievable, I have found that improving my emotional intelligence improves my interactions with others, too, and sort of “tidies up my thinking”. 🙂

So much of what goes on in our heads is actually completely made up bullshit going on in our heads. 🙂 I am as likely to find my anxiety provoked by things that are delightful, or changes that suit me better than whatever had changed ever could, as I am by things that are legitimately worth being anxious about. Silly primates – given both emotion and reason (which work so nicely together), and yet time and again we keep trying to choose one over the other. lol

I sip my coffee and watch the dawn slowly becoming day. I consider my imminent move. Just two more work shifts before that actually becomes a thing happening in the moment…and one of those work shifts is today. This is happening!! 😀 My conversation with my partner last night opened some opportunities in the context of moving that I hadn’t considered, and although I spent some time wracked with anxiety (because changing plans sometimes causes me anxiety), the opportunities themselves are worth considering fully. Later.

The calm of the morning develops like a Polaroid. I feel settled and secure, and focused on changes that meet my needs over time. I feel content. I feel loved. Fears and doubts fade away as the sky lightens, and anything that lingers to day’s end can be fully considered at some later point, in a comfortable, practical way.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Life Sparkles, Too

July 8, 2017 //
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This morning I woke later than usual, slower than usual, and with a smile on my face. I feel rested. Patient with myself, and relieved of yesterday’s emotional burdens (and baggage). I don’t know with any certainty that any specific action I took made a difference, but there is definitely a difference in the way I feel about life, the move, myself… all of the things feel different today, in a very pleasant way. Change is. Feelings pass. Moments pass. Life is a process and a journey with very little “standing still” in it. “The infinite” is largely a concept that I don’t ever seem to touch directly. lol I’m okay with that. I don’t even want to try to get my head around “infinite sadness”.

I am distracted from my writing moment-to-moment by the dew drops sparkling on the lawn beyond the window as the sun rises, and by the shards of light thrown around the room by the glittery sequins on the light summer top I threw on this morning in anticipation of today’s expected warm afternoon. I’m okay with the mild distraction; I will be more likely to get on with packing boxes when I’m done writing, and less prone to being sucked into Facebook.

It’s a lovely morning, so far. Perhaps yesterday I simply needed to shed a few stray tears that had gotten backed up over time? I’m okay with being gentle with myself over a few tears. Living alone has some emotionally difficult moments. So does every other lifestyle. lol No one is off the hook for being human, and we are beings of both emotion and reason. 🙂

I think of my Traveling Partner off on a weekend adventure with his other partner. Moments we don’t share, and much of the time this extends even to conversation after-the-fact. He rarely “catches me up”, which sucks for me – I love a traveler’s tales! I miss him greatly and yearn to share more of his life – and for him to share more of mine – than he currently does. Conveniently for both of us, enough emotional time has passed that I am not uncomfortable running into my ex casually (she has no power over me, emotionally or otherwise at this point, and I’m done grieving); next year I’ll go to festivals unconcerned about messing with their good time (yes, I dislike drama enough to be considerate of an ex), and take advantage of the happy opportunity to kick it with my Traveling Partner out in the world, each doing our own thing. That’ll be fun for both of us. There are a lot of music festivals in Oregon, Washington, and northern California. 😀

Today there is no hint of loneliness to be found in my experience. I make a point of feeling its absence, and filling my awareness with gratitude. Loneliness sucks. I find it worthwhile to be really aware of its absence, fully. I do indeed thrive, living alone. I smile, sip my coffee, and consider this sweet moment – nothing fancy about it. A woman at a desk. A computer, a keyboard, a cup of coffee. Sunshine bouncing off of sequins, dew drops, glittery nail polish. A smile. It’s enough to start the day here, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Jagged Edges of Loneliness

July 7, 2017 //
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Living alone sometimes also means feeling lonely. I’m fortunate that it doesn’t come up that often for me; I enjoy living alone. In the words of my Traveling Partner, I “thrive on it”. It’s true. I’m content, I’m happier, I rarely struggle with my symptoms (aside from noise sensitivity and shitty sleep), and it’s been ages since I had a bad meltdown. My symptoms and bad flare ups are mostly triggered by… people. So yeah, living alone works better. But.

Life is a funny thing, is it not? It seems, often, to force me to deal with the shit that is the most difficult when I feel least prepared to do so. Living alone works for me. But. And it’s what comes after the but that is a heavy burden to bear this morning – and I’m “not alone” on this one – but, I am lonely. This morning I ache with it. I woke with it. I went to bed with it. I felt it as a sharp pain late last evening, cuddling the wee stuffed puppy my Traveling Partner gave me as a gift on a whim. (I already love this little stuffed dog, fully house-broken, and very quiet. lol) Loneliness is a real thing, and I really feel it now and again, and it is painful. Anxiety may be a liar, but loneliness? Loneliness is a bully who follows me home, relentlessly mocking me where I am most vulnerable.

Loneliness is actually painful. When you feel it, and you notice, and you wonder that you actually physically hurt – no need to keep wondering, that shit is real. It is uncomfortable. Biology probably intends to drive us to seek out companionship, which makes good sense; we are social creatures, who thrive in company, who succeed together, who celebrate in groups and tribes and families… alone we are… vulnerable to attack. Less well-defended. Small. Singular. Loneliness sucks, and chronic unaddressed loneliness can become mental illness or physical ill health, and even be fatal.

The little stuffed dog surprised me; gift wrapped and left on the front seat of the car, which I’d come to pick up for the week of moving, a couple days early since he wouldn’t be using it, himself. There it was. Soft. So soft. Cute button eyes that sparkle a bit. So soft. I turned to my partner has he came around the corner smiling and tears came to my eyes. His embrace wrapped me in warmth and love and we stood wrapped in each other’s arms a long moment. I miss specific things about cohabitation, mostly to do with intimacy and touch. Like it or not, I’ve made a specific willful exchange in life; I have exchanged hugs, kisses, everyday interactions, contact, intimacy, and frequent sex in favor of improved mental and emotional health (it is generally an unmistakably positive choice that benefits me).

An alternate spelling of “I love you”.

Today, I am lonely. I ache with it. I miss being greeted at the door when I get home in the evening. I miss shared meals. I miss hugs – I miss hugs maybe most of all, even to the point of hugging occasional strangers (in contextually appropriate moments) (if you know me in life, you get how hilarious this actually is). I miss being an everyday part of my partner’s life. I miss having sex, pretty much any day I don’t get to. This morning all of these things make me feel sad. I’m also feeling fairly practical and realistic about it, and understand myself well enough to “get” that it isn’t about inviting random strangers into my bed (didn’t work in my 20s, isn’t the solution now), but I am unquestionably still searching for a really comfortable balance between living alone, and finding/creating the quantity of emotional intimacy and touch that I need to be emotionally well over the long haul.

This morning is hard. My hand reaches without thinking to the little stuffed dog. I scratch its ears as though it were real. I stroke its soft “fur”. A real dog? A real cat? Other pets? I’ve got both baggage and boundaries in this area. Pets are not a good solution to the loneliness issue for me.  I used to have cats. They absolutely destroyed some precious things I could not replace…and… they walk in their poop, then all over everything else. Just no. Dogs? I grew up with dogs. I even like dogs. But… being responsible for another living creature’s entire livelihood and well-being isn’t something I’m super well-qualified for, frankly, otherwise I might have done the motherhood thing… and… dogs smell bad (to me), and caring for a dog well is a huge time commitment…and… okay, okay, I just have baggage and it wouldn’t be a great fit, can we leave it there? lol Chinchillas? More chaos and damage, and… they seem to me to be every bit as sentient as any primate, so that just feels too much like keeping a prisoner. I can’t. Guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, reptiles… I’ve had pets. Lots. (I’ve got an aquarium now, and that’s about my speed, really.) They don’t fully “solve for X” in this equation.

Filling the hole in my experience labeled “I miss being touched” with animal companionship would be, realistically, a second best (for me). Instead, I’ll attempt to be more aware of my needs, learn to communicate them more clearly, learn new/more/other ways to take care of me that may meet those specific needs – bitch about it, undoubtedly – and walk on, wiping my tears away and getting back to other things.

But. I do get lonely. Yes, it hurts. Finding some sanity, contentment, and balance are actually worth the hurting right now, even in this shitty lonely moment. I just have to begin again, and do my best to take care of the woman in the mirror. We’ve always got each other. It’s generally enough.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, women
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