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Can I Have Mine With the Fail Sauce on the Side, Please?

September 26, 2015 //
2

I woke smiling this morning, although in pain, and feeling light-hearted, balanced, and calm. This would seem almost commonplace, except that last night, at the end of a wonderful evening with my traveling partner, some particular turn of phrase, repeated several times in conversation in relatively quick succession, triggered my PTSD symptoms. My emotions quickly spiraled out of control, and somewhen in the midst of it, I directed my dear love to go, to leave, to walk on…and found myself alone and crying; he respected my boundaries, which sucked then, but this morning it is something I cherish. I can count on him so utterly.

p.s. I love you.

p.s. I love you.

He phoned me after he left, upset and concerned. He pointed out my symptoms (because I am not always aware that I am interacting with some other experience). We talked.  Afterward, I took time to meditate. I calmed and soothed myself – relying on emotional resilience and self-sufficiency that I am building over time through all manner of practices (like meditation). I reflected later on what went down, and how and why. Moments like last night are outstanding for monitoring growth and progress – but they still suck completely and entirely. I emailed him an unreserved heartfelt apology, making no excuses for my behavior (let’s be real here, it’s been much much worse in the past, and that’s not relevant to treating someone I love badly now!), which was uncomfortable for both of us, and unpleasantly emotional. I was already over it such that I could also express gratitude and appreciation for what he was attempting to discuss and help me with, and I had taken time to follow up on our shared concern and the practical relevant details… like a grown up. 🙂

I made a note for myself to follow up later on developing more effective ways to gently communicate that some particular detail, phrase, approach, or behavior has the potential to trigger me – not in the hope of having it avoided, but because in real life these things come up, and one by one I must move past them, for my own emotional well-being, and as a loving investment in my relationships, and wouldn’t it be nice once in a while to just say ‘Oh hey, could you rephrase that one this time? I’m still working on that and I’ve got some challenges with that verbiage’. It takes time, but I no longer view improving on these things as unachievable; I may have some measure of PTSD for the rest of my life, but there is nothing about that which suggests I can’t continue to improve, to grow, and to become the woman I want most to be.

We've all got some baggage.

We’ve all got some baggage.

When my traveling partner had gone, and I was sifting through my chaos and damage, it was quickly very clear that the entire problematic exchange wasn’t at all about or with him (or us) in any way at all; I could feel my violent first husband standing in the room with me. It was an eye-opening moment to be so able to clearly sense the anachronistic miasma of ancient fear and pain. It was also part of what allowed me to move past the moment – and my symptoms – so quickly last night, once I was alone. I could really feel that it didn’t source in my real experience of the moment in any way at all. I had been triggered – and I don’t mean mainstream press too-pc-for-adulthood-don’t-say-things-I-find-discomfiting- “triggered”*.  I mean no bullshit, I was having a post-traumatic stress flashback. Generally, in the past I have had no way of clearly discerning that such is the case until well afterward. This is growth. I don’t know what to do with it, but it is very promising, anyway. I haven’t had a flash back in a long while (months, and well before I moved into my own place, back in March).

Every moment of growth is as a rainbow in a stormy sky; a promise of better things.

Every moment of growth is as a rainbow in a stormy sky; a promise of better things.

Last night – and a couple of times early in the day – I was having a strange very severe headache in a weird location, that throbbed with a deep dull nauseating ache that pulsed every 10-15 seconds or so. I’ve no idea if it was related, causal, or worth consider a serious concern… except that any headache that is unusual is also of great concern for someone with a TBI and a family history of stroke. This morning I made a point of emailing my physician to make note of the headache, and ask if I should make an appointment. I haven’t felt it yet today, so perhaps it was just a headache.

Today I'm not making this complicated.

Today I’m not making this complicated.

I am okay right now. Love is okay right now. Human beings persist in being human, and life offers opportunities to learn, to fail, to grow, and to connect our hearts through what is difficult more often than through what is easy. It’s worth becoming skilled at managing my worst moments more skillfully; I can count on most of the best moments to take care of themselves.

It helps to have the right tool for the job.

It helps to have the right tool for the job…

Today is a good day to practice good practices. Today is a good day to take care of me – and to take care of love. Today is a good day for listening deeply, and connecting honestly. Today is a good day for authenticity and vulnerability. Today is a good day to say thank you, when love shoulders the heavy load my post-traumatic stress carries every day. Today is a good day to walk on, and enjoy blue skies. I am okay right now. 🙂

...and perhaps a change of perspective.

…and perhaps a change of perspective.

It's a journey. Each step I take is my own.

It’s a journey. Each step I take is my own.

*Just an afterthought…Can I just say that I find it damned inconvenient that people have undermined the value and meaning of the word ‘triggered‘ by diluting it for their everyday over-sensitivity or bad-tempered moments? For someone with post-traumatic stress the experience of having symptoms triggered is not a mildly uncomfortable moment, or inconvenience – it’s a pretty big deal, associated with brain chemistry, volatility, mood, physical experiences, and isn’t something that can be easily turned away from or ‘managed’. By mis-using the word to cover feeling uncomfortable to read the ‘fuck’ in a news article, or because a moment of provocation caused a bit of temper, people who really need to express an experience are robbed the language to do so. Knock it off – go find your own words. Seriously. There’s a big difference between being a bad-tempered over-sensitive little bitch, and being having one’s post-traumatic stress triggered – trust me, I’ve had both experiences, and I’m pretty clear on the difference. 🙂

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Categories Words, Brain Injury, Post Traumatic Stress, Perspective, Metaphors, Anxiety, Mindfulness, grief, Love, pain, autumn, The Big 5, The Art of Being

Small Disruptions

September 23, 2015 //
0

I am sipping my coffee and feeling fairly comfortable with change, although somewhat uneasy. I got a call yesterday, late in the afternoon, that the A/C needs to come out of my window right away so that contractors can replace my front window – something I expected would be done in the spring. Caught by surprise during a busy work day, I felt overwhelmed, and I’ll admit it, frightened. No real reason. Generally, beyond the tantrums and the freak outs, I’ve got this. I am very adaptable, but I also find changes to my ‘safe space’, my  personal environment, my haven from chaos and damage, to be incredibly disruptive. It’s not so bad this time. I emailed my traveling partner, uncertain whether I would need his help, but knowing his counsel would be valuable regardless, and then gave the matter further thought.

In minutes, and with the help of a couple of deep breaths, and a perspective-providing reminder in the form of an exceedingly complicated spreadsheet I was contentedly in the midst of updating, I realized, again, “I’ve got this.” The panic itself is the bigger issue sometimes. Many times. (All of the times?) This morning I am calmly sipping coffee, and content that things are handled…and more than a little curious about the new window. Will it be much better at keeping out spiders than the previous window? Bonus! In the meantime, I have arranged to have the landlord remove the A/C, which needs to come out for the year, anyway.  (Now I just have to figure out where the hell to store it over the winter – space is limited here.)

Still, the whole ‘replacing the windows’ thing pushes my issues with having my safe space disturbed into the foreground. I think of it as only an issue with changes that are imposed upon me, rather than selected, but experience suggests otherwise, and the “consequences” are not always immediate, and sometimes linger for some days or weeks until I feel settled into whatever was changed. New windows and a new patio door may change the ambient sounds of the apartment, and if so, may tend to affect my sleep, or sense of safety, for example. I don’t predict or expect it these days, but I know the risk is there, and I observe as the experience unfolds.

Small things matter; it irritates me to see a stack of paintings now in a view of the room that generally includes the fireplace, but instead now shows off how many of my paintings are not hanging. lol I often just don’t look to the corner of the room where those paintings usually sit. I find myself irked with my own irritation; I could choose to deal with the surplus paintings quite differently. Should I be looking at my budget with an eye on climate controlled storage? Fuck life is expensive sometimes. “Less clutter would be good…” I think to myself with annoyance. Recalling that the ‘clutter’ is art, paintings that I don’t have room to hang, grates on my nerves. For a prolific artist, there is no living arrangement with enough wall space to hang everything. I take a moment to sooth myself with the recollection of past delight with being able to rotate my displayed art with the changing seasons, or rearrange it for holidays, and how lovely it is to be able to hang work that reflects my mood, or changes in life, and how much I love it when I sell a piece that was hanging – and can easily fit something different into that place on the wall. I’m okay. I’m just having my windows replaced. 🙂

Today I'm not making this complicated.

Today I’m not making this complicated.

Change? I got this. Today that’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Undefined and Uncertain

September 19, 2015 //
0

I woke this morning, but I’m not actually sure when. I checked the clock at 2:38 am, but didn’t get up. I may have slept more, I don’t recall being wakeful, but I recall many moments of being awake. I don’t know whether they are consecutive (and I was awake until I got up) or separated by sleep (resulting in sleep, however restless it may have been). I got up at 6:38, 4 hour later, when I next checked the clock. If it had been, say, 3:11 am, I’d have gotten up to pee and gone back to bed afterward – and perhaps that would have been a good choice at 2:38 am. 🙂

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately.

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately; time to get back out on the trails.

I’m not sure what sort of morning this one is, so far. I’m still sore from more than usual miles of walking yesterday (a reminder to get back on the trail). I woke in pain, stiff from my arthritis, and since that’s primarily in my spine, it affects most movement, even breathing feels subtly impaired, as I fight the pain to find posture that allows deeper breaths. (Many of my headaches source with a damaged cervical vertebra (C7) and its adjacent arthritic siblings, rather than with my TBI.) I put on music first thing this morning, even before I turned on the aquarium lights, which is unusual. More unusual still, I didn’t do so with deliberate purpose and awareness, it was the action of someone just being and doing, action following impulse without intent. I’m not unhappy with the choice, but the ebb and flow of my emotions seems more connected this morning to the music than to my experience. Highs and lows come and go with the changing tracks on my playlist. I made my coffee, and forgot about it on the counter in the kitchen. My memory seems very clear on details that are often sort of vague and challenging – but I am peculiarly inattentive to other sorts of things I generally track well. And… Yesterday there was this moment when it was entirely and rather publicly clear that I had entirely lost any ability to manage simple math – I couldn’t calculate 44 days from the current date for a simple forecasting scenario, even using a calendar, and the calculator on my computer was beyond me (cognitively), at that moment. It could have been an embarassing moment – it wasn’t; I was frightened, and felt very vulnerable and insecure. The feelings passed, the concern did not. I’m sort of … following myself around observing myself in the background today, with concern and curiosity.

I write awhile. I retrieve my forgotten coffee. I change the playlist when I find myself feeling some borrowed emotion that doesn’t fit the circumstances of the day. And I wonder. I try to avoid worrying, but find myself thinking of things like “Flowers for Algernon”, and the neuroscience of cognition, and the progress on A.I., and how fragile this meat vessel really is, and how many people in my family have died of strokes… and my injury. Suddenly my fears become liquid and the tears are quietly slipping down my face, and I weep to face my mortality so starkly. 52 isn’t old. Neither am I a child. I carry enough damage to this fragile vessel from years of punishing circumstances, trauma, casual thoughtlessness, and mischance that I probably ought not expect it to be without consequence where longevity is concerned. It’s a good call to take care of myself if I earnestly want to stay around – but, realistically, so much of whether I stay around isn’t actually up to me in the moment, at all. Strokes do happen. Will I know, when the time comes? Will it be like some of the TIAs I’ve had, looking out through my eyes as windows, aware but unable to say – but for longer than a moment? What’s next? Will everything just… end?

I didn’t understand yesterday how profoundly affected I was in that moment, with a colleague, utterly unable to do the simplest math, looking up from my desk so helplessly – and asking for help. That was hard. I didn’t lose face, and the moment passed. I’m open about my issues, and learning to ask for help when I need it has had a lot of value. I’m frightened, though, and that’s harder to be open about. I let myself cry, and face the fear. I am okay right now. My coffee is hot, well-made, and tastes just right. The morning is a pleasant one. The music is all music I like very much. I live well, comfortably, and meet most of my day-to-day needs easily. I am human; emotions like fear and uncertainty are part of the experience. I guess I’m just not ready to go now, and the fear hits that yearning for more time – now that I seem to be sorting some things out. It’s a complicated feeling.  Tears and more tears, no sobbing or hysterics, just this momentarily ceaseless flow of tears, blurring my vision. And this fear. I have so much more love to give…

The tears slow, and eventually stop. My head aches from the crying… or…was the headache already there? I’m not sure this morning. This morning I lack certainty about a great many things. Will I see my traveling partner, or is he still sick? Will my housewarming later today be fun and relaxed, or will I mess with my head foolishly getting overly worked up over small things and stress myself out? Will I continue to find, over the course of the day, that other things ‘aren’t working’ as I expect them to, in my ability to think, to do math, to spell, to write,  to reason, to recall, to plan, to communicate, to feel…? Will I rise above the small challenges to engage this lovely moment, or find myself faltering and failing to find any secure emotional foothold? Will I take care of me, quite tenderly, and recognize that at any age being reminded of one’s mortality can be ‘a tough  moment’, or will I treat myself callously, with disregard, self-deprecation, and mockery? Will I “be okay”, or can I find sufficiency in being okay right now? I momentarily feel as though I might trade actual death from whatever nasty virus my traveling partner picked up for 15 minutes in his arms, feeling comforted, cared for, and alive. Fear sucks.

My playlist comes through for me in the most amazing way some times. My heavy heart starts lifting listening to Atmosphere remind me how human life is. I remember, again, that I am okay right now, and that – truly – there is nothing in this moment right here that warrants these tears. I start letting it go, and gently finding my way; mortality isn’t really something we can fight skillfully (yet) as human beings. I may not live to see us achieve near-immortality through the advances of science. I have ‘now’, and it can’t be taken from me. Today isn’t a bad one. The morning isn’t difficult. I didn’t sleep badly. My coffee didn’t disappoint me. I am not out in the cold, or without nutritious groceries in my pantry. I am not lacking in love. I don’t have to go into the office today. I am, in fact, okay right now. “All is well” is approximately accurate – at least as far as any details I can be clearly aware of in my own experience, myself, in this moment.

As suddenly as they came, the tears – and my fear and uncertainty – dissipate. I am okay, right now. It’s enough, isn’t it? 🙂

I clean my salt-spattered glasses, sip my remaining now cold coffee, and notice again the lovely morning ahead of me, requiring only that I take care of me, practice good practices, and live well and mindfully in this moment, on this day. Now.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Always With the Perspective

September 16, 2015 //
2

It’s a chilly morning. I woke a bit ahead of the alarm clock, and somehow the shower didn’t warm me up much. My head is stuffy, as if in sympathy to my traveling partner, home sick at his place. I miss him greatly, but it matters more that he take care of himself and be well – besides, I don’t really want to be sick, myself, and I am content to wait to see him for some better time.

I find myself thinking about perspective, again. I know that because I’d like to be in my traveling partner’s arms so very much, it would be super easy to dive into misery, frustration, and annoyance that we are not together, and then for that to become a springboard to all sorts of doubt, insecurity, hurt, and anger spreading out in all directions from that one small thing; I miss him. Emotions are intense, and can easily overwhelm reason, and then… then what? Then I am unhappy, riled up, agitated, miserable, lonely, angry, frustrated, and filled with negative self-talk and thinking so distorted that all those feelings start fueling some sort of ‘blame machine’ that generates more distorted thinking, and rationalizes treating others poorly on the basis of that distorted thinking. This morning I am appreciative that I am not in that place. (Perspective is a lovely way to defuse those emotional bombs.)

Anyway, how would I really measure life's 'spilled milk'?

Someone else said it first; there’s no use crying over spilled milk.

Life isn’t ‘about’ my losses. Sure the losses exist, but they don’t exist isolated from the joys, the gifts, the delights, the wonders, and the cherished moments. Life is also not about keeping score; when I am focused on this moment, my moment, engaged, present, and mindful, the bullshit fades away, and I’m not filled with self-made poison. I was thinking about this while I soaked in the bath last night, too; if I measure my life by my losses, how could I not find myself wounded, tearful, and overwhelmed with doubt and sorrow? It’s 52 years worth of ups and downs – there are some losses in all that experience.

I could measure my life by my gains, if I choose. Things look different stacked up as an assortment of wins, gains, achievements, successes…and that too is misleading; I don’t learn much from the easy wins, and the emotional highs are far less intense, lacking depth and value, without the perspective offered by what has been lost, and what hurt, and what didn’t work so easily. Then, too, if I measure my life by all the things I have done or achieved that are awesome, I don’t leave much room to be vulnerable, to connect, to appreciate what is soft and tender within myself, and to value myself when I am not winning, gaining, achieving, or succeeding, and I may also need to spend a great deal of mental bandwidth defining those successes, to avoid becoming frustrated by shortcomings that might negatively affect measuring the wins. Hell, I’m only thinking about it, and I feel myself becoming a little anxious!

...and how exactly is 'success' truly defined, and measured...and who decides that?

…and how exactly is ‘success’ truly defined, and measured…and who decides that?

It’s the measuring, itself, that I find myself thinking about critically. I don’t personally prefer life to be a competition, and the measuring of successes, the score keeping, the comparing of this person to that person, the perception that there are ‘necessary’ achievements one is expected to make in life (marriage, children, car, house, career…) – I have come to view all of those as bullshit distractions, choices, simply details we can add to who we are – or not. I’m choosing ‘not’, generally, and re-evaluating where all of those things really fit in with who I am, myself. It’s been a process. Part of asking that ‘who am I?’ question, I guess…. (I’m sure not telling you what you should or must find important, yourself.) I’m just observing that holding an attachment to goals that aren’t really my own, imposed on me by expectations of one sort or another, is one very elaborate way to be miserable.

Why am I on about score keeping and measuring and comparing one to another? Because I miss my traveling partner, of course! See what I mean by how quickly powerful emotions can overwhelm reason? How are those even connected? They are connected in only the loosest way, by time itself, and by the measuring of time, and the score keeping of moments. I don’t spend as much time with him as I’d like, which has the potential to nudge me toward contemplating the time he spends with others, and to become resentful and hurt over it. It’s silliness – because love isn’t about score keeping (or time keeping), or measuring, or counting. I’ve come a long way from allowing my powerful emotions to sneak attack me on something so small, most of the time. 🙂 That feels pretty good over my morning coffee, and instead of fussing irritably about why my traveling partner isn’t in my arms (he’s sick, seriously?) I am simply enjoying a lovely morning, in this moment here, content that there are other moments to enjoy in other times, and that love exists, regardless – it’s certainly not worth stress, or agitation, or grinding my mental gears over if/when/why. That kind of mental busy work poisons my experience now, in part because my brain injury impedes my ability to regulate emotions stirred up by thoughts (they feel every bit as real, and intense, as emotions that occur in response to circumstances), and in part because I am human.

It's a journey - there are some detours.

It’s a journey – there are some detours.

That’s been another lovely bit of awakening, recently. I’ve struggled so long with sorrows over what is ‘wrong’ with me, due to my TBI, and what my injury has (may have?) taken from me… Sometime between last Friday and yesterday morning walking to work, something clicked… Whether my injury is anything to do with whatever may be ‘wrong’ with me – it is most assuredly the source of a great many things that are very right with me, that I enjoy and count on daily. Perspective.

...Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. :-)

…Life these days feels more like a construction site than a disaster area. Progress. 🙂

So…this morning…a lovely morning that could have been experienced very differently not so very long ago. Perspective matters. Practicing good practices for building emotional self-sufficiency, and resilience, matters. Remembering to include the woman in the mirror in the set of ‘all the people I love’ matters. Contentment, gratitude, and enjoying what is more than I mourn what is not, matter too. It’s a chilly autumn morning, and I am enjoying it wrapped in a warm sweater – and wrapped in love. (I’m not all certain which provides the greater comfort – I suspect it is the love, and I am awed that it comes from within.)

Today is a good day to be love.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Experiencing Change

September 14, 2015 //
2

The weekend was an exceptional blend of meditation, study, growth, inspiration, and relaxation. Now it is over. I’m okay with that; it puts me one day closer to seeing my traveling partner again. His weekend is over, too. Soon we’ll get together, and linger over the sharing of individual experiences, telling tales, reflecting on growth, laughing, commiserating, and cheering each other on in life. Funny thing about good weekends and my brain, I slept very restlessly last night, waking every 90 minutes or so concerned that I might somehow miss the alarm, checking the clock, and returning to sleep. By 4:15 am, I was done talking myself into more sleep, and went ahead and got up to take on the day.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

Something ‘clicked’ for me yesterday, and I find myself on what feels like very firm ground, as an emotional being. Calmer from deeper within, more centered, more patient with myself and the world, and capable of acting from a place that leverages the full measure of my 52 experience-rich years. Something a step beyond comfortably me… and I wonder if it will ‘last’, and what it requires to nurture this feeling and build on it? I sip my coffee and quietly contemplate all the many sorts of changes human beings experience in a lifetime, those that are evident to everyone, and those that are less so. I find myself wanting to greet Monday differently… something like “How was your weekend? Mine? Oh, I’m changed…”  That’s not the sort of thing one generally does. I find myself wondering why not…?

Between the practicing and the studying, the growth happens. Sometimes it is something I can feel, or be specifically aware of, sometimes it is more subtle. There are no rules about how this thing called life must progress, or how we grow as human beings, or what kind of time and effort that takes; we are each having our own experience. We can fight it off, if we choose. I’ve tried that, too, and found it frustrating, unsatisfying, and in some cases more than a little damaging. I’ve learned over time that growth isn’t the result of forcing myself to trudge through life from one externally imposed goal to another, or working my ass off to achieve some vision of me someone else holds. Growth is the result of waking up and realizing I don’t need someone else’s goals or guidelines to find my way – understanding why that is, and becoming my own cartographer. Growth is finding satisfaction in the experience I am having, myself, and learning to enact change based on my own vision of who I am along the way. Growth is waking up to how much of the baggage I carry is self-imposed, and setting at least that much down, and walking on. And doing it again when I noticed I’ve picked it back up, and repeating as needed until, over time, I’ve left it behind. I’m feeling pretty good about growth this morning. 🙂

Seems to be very effective so far... probably doesn't hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Truth is, I feel pretty good in general this morning, except for the pain – which I haven’t mentioned, because I ‘didn’t notice it’ (meaning only that it wasn’t prominent in my consciousness, and I wasn’t giving it any attention). The alarm went off a moment ago (I got up early, but didn’t think to turn it off) and, in movement, the pain and the stiffness of my arthritic spine shifted to a more obvious place in my awareness. Aging has some pretty annoying elements to it; the pain and stiffness of my arthritis top my list of things that annoy me about aging, this morning. I am confronted with an irrefutable demonstration of the difference between ‘growth’ and ‘aging’.

I pause to reflect on growth and aging, and wonder if medical science has advanced enough to rationally consider 120 a realistically achievable lifespan… If so, I’m less than ‘half way’… that promises so much more growth, so many more experiences, so much more learning, and so much more love! I’m not even having to start the second half with a completely unformed consciousness – it’s like a head start! Only… what if this is the ‘completely unformed consciousness’ with which we do approach our mature years? I mean… I am significantly different in thoughts, values, and experiences than I was at birth, and it seems likely that I will be a similar order of magnitude different at the other end of this experience, given continued growth, learning, and experiences. Is ‘getting old’ more a matter of stopping growth, or slowing it down, than it is additional years of age? There seems to be some support for that in the science…certainly there is very firm encouragement to keep walking, to keep reading, to keep learning, to keep loving…all these things slow cognitive decline. (Are you still quite young, and reading this? Plan ahead! Live now. The future will come to you.)

Meditating, sketching, writing... feeling loved along the way...

A weekend spent meditating, sketching, writing… feeling loved along the way…

...taking time for study, and reading for pleasure...

…taking time for study, and reading for pleasure…

...taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence...

…taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence…

The weekend seemed almost eternal, and still it manages to be over too soon – but my needs are met, and that is a wonderful feeling. More wonderful still, I met my needs myself, with some lovely sprinkles of affection and connection with my traveling partner and friends. There are things to learn from that, and I face the week feeling more emotionally self-sufficient, and what is becoming, over time, quite typically content. Two years ago I would not have dared set expectations with myself of being in the place I find myself today…a year ago, it might have seemed possible in some remote theoretical way, but self-doubt, insecurity, fear, and stress were not just holding me back – they made it tough to see further down the path than tomorrow. Even Thursday, I might have said ‘someday, sure…’ and didn’t realize I might feel the way I do as soon as ‘now’. It’s very much a ‘now’ thing, too. I’m comfortable not making assumptions about how I will feel tomorrow, or whether every day of my future will feel similarly; this is a human experience, and change is part of that. There will no doubt be opportunities for future doubts, fears, and insecurities, and surely I will find myself, now and again, at a loss for words, feeling awkward, or just fucking clueless in some moment when certainty would have value. I’m okay with all of that. I have more room to grow, to learn, and to experience life’s curriculum. I am okay with only being as wise as I actually am…and I am ready to embrace being every bit as wise as I have grown to be, without second-guessing that, or being discouraged by other voices. (Yes, there are verbs involved, and yes, I expect my results may vary.)

Today is a good day for being, and for becoming. Today is a good day to accept the woman in the mirror precisely as she is, without holding her back from change and growth in the future. Today is a good day to build on the strength of experience, and to recognize that there is room to grow – always room to grow. Today is a good day to treat every being well, including the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to change the perspective from which I view the world.

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Categories art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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