so very human | Evening Light

I am up super early. No real reason, it’s just when I woke. It’s the day after Giftmas, I am home alone, the house is quiet, and I am unsurprisingly up early – about the time I’d usually be up on any ordinary Monday.

For now, the lights on the tree still shine.

Giftmas is over. Oh, there’s still fun and holiday to be had – New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are not yet played out. There’s something to be said for being accepting of other cultures – the holiday season becomes filled with celebrations of all kinds, and opportunities to connect with friends, loved ones, and associates of all kinds more deeply. What’s not to like?

Why the hell am I up so early on a day off work? I grin sheepishly at myself in the pre-dawn darkness. Perhaps I am just excited to get on with living these precious moments? 🙂 I’m already on my second coffee… it’s not yet 5:30 am.

I contentedly scroll through my Facebook feed again, cherishing holiday photos from faraway friends and family. It is a season when everyone puts their best moments and greatest delights ahead of all else. It’s wonderful to see. For a few days, most of the bullshit stops, people put aside most of their pettiness and drama, and just enjoy each other. It’s lovely. Let’s do more of that in 2017, shall we? I mean, really pause the clock to enjoy one another, to be in the moment, present, engaged, and deeply connected; these are the moments that linger in our hearts with the greatest warmth and healing presence. These are the moments that are the best of who we are.

Be someone's lighthouse, always guiding them toward their best self, in life's stormy weather.

Love is a lighthouse, showing the way to safe harbors in life’s stormy weather.

Last night as my Traveling Partner packed up his gear and his goodies to head home, I made sure to ready a container of fresh holiday cookies to take along for another partner. A moment of holiday goodwill, a moment when all the possible baggage and old business got set aside and my best intention – and my best self – stepped forward. Had she been on hand in person, she’d have gotten a hug and a smile, and a genuine well-wishing from me for a very good holiday, and a good year-to-come – are we not both human? Both mortal? Both very fancy fucking monkeys just doing our humble best, mostly, most of the time, as far as we each can tell, generally? I like to think so. Certainly, we’re each having our own experience, and as I am generally content with mine, and not invested in creating misery for others, why would I treat her differently? Holding old pain against her in the here and now does nothing positive for me.

Begin again. Love well. Love authentically.

Thinking it over this morning, I am more easily able to recognize how much healing has taken place over time. This seems a healthy thing. Oh, the relationship bridges were burned along the way, and there’s no going back on that journey – but why add to the chaos and damage after-the-fact? That seems silly. Has it become a Giftmas tradition in my home to waken afterward with just a little less baggage, a little more true to the spirit of the woman I most want to be in life, a little more easily able to live up to my values, even in those relationships in which my boundaries were tread upon, and my values not shared, or respected? I like the thought that it could be, and consider the verbs involved to secure its place in my ongoing holiday celebration each year.

Peace be with you, and Love, too. ❤

This morning seems a good one to begin again. Oh, any number of things could be beginning, and there’s no need to wait for the New Year (although, clearly it is a favorite date for new beginnings, generally, most particularly for the grand sorts of life changes we know we won’t actually see to completion). This morning, I’ll begin again, first, with another cup of coffee and a smile – and a merry “thank you” in my heart for the lovely holiday. For now, that’s enough.

I’m sipping my second coffee. The first disappeared quickly as I sifted through invoices, receipts, and purchase records looking for all the details the insurance company needs. It is a subtly de-humanizing process, this requirement to prove that I life the life I do, have the things I have accumulated over a life-time. It is very telling of the sort of creatures we human beings are that it is a necessary thing to require such detailed documentation; we’ll lie for money. I’m not pointing fingers, and it’s not “about me”, so I am not taking it personally…but, damn, what ugly caricatures of our own potential for greatness we tend to be. I’m not angry… more disappointed.

It is a quiet morning. I slept well and deeply, going to bed far later than usual and waking very much at a ‘sleeping in’ time of morning. That’s often what it takes for me to get enough rest. I don’t stop to wonder why. I take time to enjoy feeling rested. I still don’t feel “safe” here, and I catch myself repeating the narrative as though it was the break-in that created that change in how this space feels, in some abrupt distinct very defined way – was it really? Not if I’m being entirely frank with myself; the process of letting go my attachment to this place, to ease the process of moving on, is certainly a more likely beginning – but those tentative first steps in the letting go direction surely made me far more vulnerable to that moment when my sense of safety was undermined so dramatically. Was I ever as safe as I felt? No more so than I am as unsafe as I feel now. Perspective. Still a thing.

When I exist engaged in this moment, here, now, present, awake, aware, there is little clear sense of “more than”, “less than”, or a need to set a threshold and maintain or monitor the outcome. It feels good to be. Content in the moment, because this moment is safe… or feels so. I suppose if I lived under siege, and had to dash to a remaining grocer through a hail of sniper fire, or gaze warily into the sky for unseen drones, or wait, breathless with terror, between bombings, or sleep lightly for fear of the knock on the door, no one moment would be any safer than another, either. Perspective.

I’ve survived some things in life. It has cost me dearly more than once to be able to stand here, in a quiet space, and say so. The price was worth paying. I’m here, in this quiet moment. It is enough. A moment of terror, a moment of trauma, a moment of abuse; we all survive some terrible moments, and our own pain is pretty nearly always the worst we can imagine. Without perspective, we might wander about continuing to allow ourselves to think that is the true truth of it. It is not; right now, somewhere, someone else isn’t sure they will get out alive, while I have a very different moment. I breathe. Sip my coffee. I find room to really savor how good this moment is.

Today is a good day to be mindful how little it takes to be okay right now, safe in this one moment. Today is a good day to embrace sufficiency, and to treat myself well and with great kindness. Today is a good day to remember we are each having our own experience – and some of those suck for some of us, maybe even right now. Today is a good day to listen, to care, and to make amends for the wrongs we’ve done – not because any one of us is more deserving than any other, but because we choose to be better than the human being we were, yesterday.

It’s time to walk on. 🙂

Any Day Is a Beginning

A Later Sort of Morning

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