Archives for posts with tag: sufficiency
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

My First Homecoming

August 5, 2017 //
2

I took my first trip away from the new house this week. I departed on Thursday, plans in disarray, leaving from a point on the map that wasn’t what I planned, running additional errands “on the way” at the request of my Traveling Partner, resenting the heat of the day, and feeling excited, fussy, and a bit irritable.

It got worse before it got better. The first 33 miles I drove, the traffic was terrible. The first 9 miles of the freeway portion of the drive crept by at an abysmal not-quite-10-miles-per-hour. I was tired from days without good sleep. I was irritable in the heat and frustrated by the lack of good visibility with the car loaded to the roof with gear. I was more than a little stressed out by driving all that equipment so far, while I was so tired. My foot was aching. I had a terrible headache, and my self-care had been fairly poorly handled and thoroughly compromised for days because my planning had been so completely undermined, I didn’t have time for what needed to be done. It was pretty shitty.

Every mile of highway took me closer to my Traveling Partner, and farther from thinking about my headache, or the traffic, or the cargo, or the time, or really anything else besides getting to see him and reconnect and chill together.

We had a lovely visit. It was quite nice to be a guest in his home. It was … beyond words, really, the deeply connected time we got to spend together met so many needs. 🙂 We slept together, and that, too, was a rare and special treat. It didn’t much matter how little really restful sleep I got, I spent the night cuddling with my Traveling Partner as he slept, feeling his heartbeat, listening to him breathe. I dozed on and off, and certainly got enough rest to enjoy the day that would follow. He had to work for a couple hours. I used that time to get caught up with the woman in the mirror, and check out how my old home town has grown (I went to high school there… that’s the house I lived in, it’s changed a lot… that’s where my grandfather’s office was…), meditate, and also made a run to the grocery store for my Traveling Partner.

The plan, when I arrived, was that I’d stay both Thursday and Friday night, and go out into the forest late Friday afternoon, help set up a music event, and sometime much later be around to see my Traveling Partner perform, listen to a lot of great DJs doing their thing, and then… sometime in the late afternoon on Saturday, I would return home. By the time my Traveling Partner got home from work, it was beginning to dawn on me that actually, if I followed that plan, I was going to be pushing myself up the highway late on a Saturday afternoon, on even less sleep, tired, noise-sensitive, and in pain… arriving home to face dishes in the sink (because of my rushed departure on Thursday), unprepared for the next work week, and having no time to recover before diving back into another week of working for a living before I could really take that time I need…

The more I thought that over, the less I liked it. Sure, I’d like to see my Traveling Partner perform, that would be amazing and awesome, but I’m equally certain that neither he nor I benefits from me doing so on terms that reduce my quality of life, or contribute to poor health and wellness! He’d crashed for a nap after work to prepare for the long night ahead. When he got up I let him know I was thinking about heading back a little early… He didn’t seem surprised, and was very much okay with that, himself, although we were both immediately overcome with that sad feeling that comes of being attached, and also choosing to part, however briefly. He understands my needs.

So… I came home. The drive back was as uneventful and smooth as the drive down had been fraught with peculiar stress. I made good time, and delighted myself to note that my estimated arrival time from the perspective of planning the drive was within 5 minutes of my actual arrival time. I pause in this moment, right now, and give myself time to really appreciate that feeling again.

It was still daylight when I got home. The house was comfortably cool in the summer heat of late afternoon. The squirrel was on the deck rail, and didn’t run when I opened the curtains to the deck and saw him there. There were really one 1 bowl and 2 coffee cups in the sink, and the first sound I heard after I returned home was the sound of my own merry laughter. I’d even gotten home in time to communicate my safe arrival to my Traveling Partner before he was out of touch for the night. It felt good to come home. I feel welcome here.

I feel welcome in my life.

The day stretches ahead of me. There’s quite a bit to do. Some of it is the everyday sort of stuff that lands on weekend days most of the time: housekeeping, laundry, gardening. Other stuff on my to do list lingers from the move. There are still boxes to unpack. Shelves to organize. Things to do to make this space more usably obviously my own. There’s the woman in the mirror, too, she needs a few things out of the day, herself: meditation, some time in the garden, yoga, good moment-to-moment decision-making, a bit of fun (Farmer’s Market?), and all the love and affection I can provide to her. Rest. She also needs rest, and good self-care.

The sun is up. My coffee is finished. The fresh breezes of early morning have filled the house with the scents of forest and summer flowers. My thoughts are filled with love. What a pleasant moment on which to begin the day. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

This is Not a Drill!

August 3, 2017 //
0

It’s also not a long blog post.

All my planning wound up completely and utterly upended for this week – and the weekend to come. Yep. I struggle with that, sometimes moment by moment. When the first domino began to topple, my sleep went to hell. I can’t blame the heat; I have AC. Last night I went to bed quite early, and quite tired, figuring I’d “sleep in” by getting a head start…

…About 90 minutes after I fell asleep my Traveling Partner called. Once he was aware he’d woken me, he ended the call, I went back to sleep.

…Some 90 minutes after that, the door bell rang. And rang again. I got up to answer it. It was a… “wrong number” is not the right expression, but it was that situation; a stranger looking for the address next door.

…I woke early. No kidding. I could not fucking believe that shit. Stupid brain. I need more sleep.

I woke, stumbled groggily through my routine holding focus on the upcoming long drive. 250 miles. It’s “not that bad”, but the weather is hot, and the car is crammed to capacity with gear. One part of my planning that still finds me biting my nails is the part where I planned to leave from work – it’s a work day. Now the car is full of equipment…and the office is in a poor choice of neighborhood for street parking. Seriously? How much more of my planning could go wrong here?? I don’t even want to leave the car parked in my own driveway, right now!

Shit. I sip my coffee pensively feeling simultaneously annoyed and fussy, but also pleased and amused to get to use the word “pensively” in a sentence. My life. lol What to do about this journey remains a question. Take the calculated risk of parking the car as it is at the office for 4 hours or so… or take a car service to work, and then again back home, and then leave from the house?

There’s little time left to decide – and I just noticed I have not yet packed anything at all for me. I am annoyed with myself most of all for the way my self-care has completely gone to hell over some changes in a plan that I could have anticipated could not possibly hold up under the dynamic influences of feral friends and spontaneous loved ones. I knew there was little chance my planning would – or could – be respected. That I need that structure for emotional comfort and to help maintain my equilibrium and sense of order in my life (which helps manage my symptoms) isn’t even a blip on the radar of most of my friends – we are each having our own experience. I’m fortunate that generally, day-to-day, it isn’t obvious that I have mental health challenges to deal with, or a brain injury with effects that require day-to-day support and management. I guess I shouldn’t bitch about the occasional bit of upheaval or turmoil. (I’m still going to. I’m very human.)

I’ve missed the window of opportunity to do anything but drive to work. Well then. Fuck. Okay.

It’s time to go.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Pop Quiz!

August 2, 2017 //
0

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.  🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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

All Messy With Books

July 30, 2017 //
0

Yesterday I hung a few paintings. I vacuumed, did laundry, did dishes, watered the garden on the deck, hung out a bit with a friend who made the trek out my way, figured out what will hang over the mantle and got it to the framer’s shop. It was a sweet, quiet weekend, and yesterday was every bit as lovely as the day before it.

By evening, I was sort of just chilling with my foot iced and elevated, and staring at the empty book shelves was nagging at me severely; it seemed inconsistent with the rest of the weekend that the bookshelves were empty. One by one I brought in boxes of books, and emptied them onto shelves… which resulted, more than anything else, in a mess of books out, just everywhere, in small stacks here and there, crowding onto shelves that suddenly appeared to be “the wrong shelf for that one” and now my previously tidy living room is messy with books. A lot of books. A tiny library of books gathered over a lifetime, filtered by moves and gift-giving, added to, subtracted from, and the result being about 500 or so books very precious to me worth dragging around over a lifetime of moving.

Books are heavy. By the end of the evening, which snuck up on me rather unexpectedly, I was really tired, and also a lot more moved in… well, aside from (because of?) the mess of books that I created. 😀 I guess next weekend I’ll be connecting the tv and stereo (maybe tonight)…

…It hits me that my weekend is over. Today is a work day. It’s a new work week. I take a moment to get my expectations and sensibilities in order; being late is still something that causes me rather a lot of stress, so avoiding that circumstance is desirable, generally. 🙂 I look at the time. I look at the weather. I make a note to ensure the air conditioning is on, and that the thermostat is set to keep the house comfortable through the upcoming actual not-fucking-around-it’s-summer-for-real heat that is in the forecast for this week. 110 degrees (F)?? In Portland, Oregon? What the fuck is that about? I stick to a promise I made to myself yesterday, and quickly finish my coffee, and fill up my water bottle.

As I head back to my desk I notice a huge spider struggling in the sticky trap at the edge of the kitchen floor. Wow. A big one. There was one in the bathroom trap this morning, too… Curiosity gets to me. There really haven’t been many spiders on this move. Just 4 so far. (I’ve been keeping count, yes.) There are large ones, and some small ones, in every trap I placed over the weekend, after waking up with a single spider bite on Thursday morning. Yeesh. Ick. I sit down in my studio, paintings stacked everywhere (like spider condos…) and a grim chill runs down my spine; there are no sticky traps in here. (I ran out.) I find myself wondering how many spiders are watching me from crevices and corners right now…

I’ve creeped myself out completely now. So. Yeah. Great. It’s time for work. lol

… It’s time to start a new day. I can begin again. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer

Try, or Practice?

July 29, 2017 //
0

I woke up early. It makes sense. I went to bed early, too. I woke during the night. No surprise there, I often do. There’s no stress over any of that. My head is a jumble of random beginnings of thoughts seeking a narrative in which to play a role. My morning is a strange sequence of broken routines and randomness. I’m not concerned about that, either. Again and again, I pull myself back to this moment, here, now.

I sit down with my coffee, eventually, some two hours after waking (which is only one of many odd random bits of altered behavior that seems without cause or purpose).

The first track on my playlist right now is an old favorite. I want very much to play the bass line; I am not yet sufficiently skilled (and realistically, there is chance I never will be). I can try to play it, and fail. I could do that repeatedly. I could do that repeatedly until I am frustrated to the point of disliking what I am doing, although I am doing it because I enjoy it… a lot of people approaching learning something challenging in just that fashion.

I take another approach, instead of “trying”… I practice. That’s it. My approach to a lot of stuff I’m not good at, don’t yet know, haven’t yet found my way around, through, over, or into, or need to do and don’t quite “get”, yet. I practice. I practice the basic skills that would be required to do the thing. Too complicated? I break those things down further, to more elemental basics, until I can begin assembling simpler behavior or actions (or understandings) into more and more complex combinations, and – if all goes well – have learned to do the thing, have gained a new understanding, have completed some complicated task… whatever it is. Most things seem to work out pretty well this way, although it is not the fastest process by which to achieve success. It’s a bit like… a through hike on an unmarked trail, while all the way along observing what appears to be a freeway almost within reach, on the other side of a fence. I could waste time trying to reach that freeway, or I can walk on.

I still get where I’m going. That’s enough.

It may be an uphill climb, some days. I still practice taking time to enjoy the journey, and to look for beauty.

I enjoyed a strangely intimate and emotionally nurturing yesterday. I hung out with a dear friend of many years. We haven’t made time to hang out in about 4 years, and it was overdue, welcome, and comfortably intimate. She is someone I love, though we’ve never been lovers. We’re at very different places in life, and that has been an interesting characteristic of our friendship all along. She was the friend who said to me, so many years ago, “have you heard of ACT?”. Words that would later prove to be another piece to the puzzle of healing and learning to care for the woman in the mirror, because they would still be lingering in my consciousness on that grim December day when I began checking off my list of things to do before I would end my own life. That last item? Try therapy one more time. Her words were a hint at a new direction; “third wave cognitive behavior therapy”. There are several, some very rigid and formal, others less so.

Have we covered this before? Sure. It’s buried in the details, in much older posts. The eagerness of this new way to experience life, more authentically, with greater self-compassion, erupts in my words post after post after post. Life happens. I write about that too. Now and then I add something to The Reading List; my journey is paved with stepping-stones made of books, and practices, and the words of dear friends.

A current favorite track on my playlist feels timed for the moment. My heart fills with tenderness, and gratitude. I’m glad I stayed. Warm tears splash my glasses, and my shoulders shake with sobbing, and I’m just fucking crying now… I’m not unhappy. I’m relieved. I might have missed this precious moment right now. I might have missed yesterday… the lovely color work I got done on my hair… the phone call with my Traveling Partner later in the day… the conversations with friends. Fuck I am so glad I stayed around awhile longer… My heart aches with a powerful need to say “thank you” or.. “I’m sorry”… or… something.  There are literally no words for this strange strong emotion of thankfulness I feel that I chose to live. I’m okay with that too. I’m not afraid to feel.

Another good morning on which to begin again. I don’t know that I’ve done anything that changes the world, but so much as changed about the woman in the mirror. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »