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Perspectives and Meaning

December 18, 2024 //
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Damn, yesterday ended up being a tough one. It wasn’t that anything particular went wrong, or that there were challenges I couldn’t face. Hell, I wasn’t exactly in a bad mood, even. The day went askew in a strangely emotional way when the office background music began to play “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in the holiday music mix. Multiple times. Multiple versions. Various singers. No question, an American holiday classic, and it reliably comes up this time of year, sooner or later. For me, it’s simply the saddest and most poignant holiday song ever. It’s a war era (WW II) song, and I reliably hear it sung in the voices of those who will never come home to another holiday. It’s mournful (for me). It’s one holiday song I can’t sing along to; I choke up before I even get the first line sung, and the tears come. I missed an entire holiday season deployed to a war zone myself. We sang this song together, and others, around the diesel stove on winter evenings, fighting off our blues, hoping that we would indeed one day go home for those holidays once more. Some of us don’t ever come home from war. Some of us who do make it home are forever changed by experiences no civilian loved ones can share or truly understand. War is horrible stuff, and the price paid along the way in lives and limbs and souls is far too high. I thought of Gaza. I thought of Ukraine. I thought of Syria. Global conflict. Genocide. The horrors of war. We should maybe stop doing that shit – and I’ll probably always cry when I hear this song. It has real meaning for me. Soldiers kill. Soldiers die. I’ve lost people along the way. My nightmares persist.

…It “broke” my yesterday…

By the time I got home from work, I was pretty much a mess (emotionally) and feeling really low. My Traveling Partner did his best to lift my mood, and together with the Anxious Adventurer we sat around watching “fail videos” and little bits of comic this-n-that, and taking things lightly. I gotta say, my beloved partner’s “emotional slight of hand” was masterful, last night. I had tried to say something about being set off by “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, and the Anxious Adventurer tried (in a well-intended way) to commiserate by sharing how annoying he finds that one particularly notable Mariah Carey holiday song. Understand me, please, I was not “annoyed”, I was grieving and feeling heart-broken over experiences few civilians share, and that I can’t seem to forget. Before I could flare up, irritable and angry over misperceptions of being “dismissed” or not understood seriously, my Traveling Partner put things on a comic footing in a wholesome loving understanding way, easily distracting me long enough for my unreasonable anger to be defused, unnoticed. No harm done. Fuck I love that man. He can make me laugh when I’m hurting. He can make me cry when I’ve grown jaded.

This morning the first words from my Traveling Partner were words of love and fondness and adoration. He tells me I am precious to him. He tells me he loves me. I feel it. I’m moved and my morning feels… merry. A new beginning. He understands, better than most people, where I’ve been and what I’ve been through. We’ve shared a few years together. We’ve had shared experiences, separately, that are not so commonplace for people generally. He “gets me”, mostly. More so than anyone else has. I feel loved.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m in a different place this morning, although I am sitting in the same chair. I’m wrapped in love. It matters.

Be kind to the veterans in your life, and the survivors of war – you don’t have to know the details of what they’ve been through to care, and to be there as a friend. It matters that you care. It’s enough. Help each other begin again, when things get tough. Share the journey. Hell, just be kind, generally – we’re all going through some shit. It’s a very human experience.

I look at the clock. It’s clearly time to begin again. 14 days to a new year – already? Damn. The time passes so quickly…

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, War and News of War

12 Years Ago, I Found Out

December 17, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee in the quiet of the office, quite early. It was raining too hard to walk in the darkness. Honestly, it was raining too hard to walk. I would not have enjoyed it, and enjoying it is at least part of my intention, each morning, each walk. So I made the drive in to the office, early. I took time to meditate. I made coffee. I had some oatmeal. I walked the halls of the building, a bit, just to stretch my legs and be in motion. I feel stiff. It’s the arthritis, most likely. My head aches. Probably my neck. My tinnitus is loud. It is what it is, eh? A very human, very mortal, experience, and I guess I’m okay with it. There are not presently “other alternatives” from which I’d care to choose something else. I’ve got this, it’s okay, and it’s enough.

I sip my coffee thinking about a note on my calendar I spotted this morning. It reminds me that 12 years ago tomorrow was the day I found out the details of my (most serious) TBI. A head injury in the 1970s that wiped most of my memory, and set back my cognitive and intellectual (and emotional) progress considerably, but which my parents sort of… “kept from me”. I don’t remember the injury itself (hell, I don’t remember most of my life from before that injury, either, mostly just a strange assortment of third person stories told to me by other family members is what I’ve got in the place where my own memory should be, and damned few of those). I do remember having to go to speech therapy. I remember suddenly needing glasses, and being profoundly light sensitive and having a lot of headaches. I remember getting terrible grades in school, when I’d always had good grades “before”.

I found out about my adolescent TBI 12 years ago, because I was in such despair that as I approached 50 taking my own life seemed a rational “solution”, but I’d made myself a promise to give therapy one more try (it was the last item on my to-do list), and I was trying to get into a PTSD clinical trial for a new treatment. In considering my application for that trial, they turned up the microfiche records of an emergency room visit and hospital admission for my (serious) head injury. It was… news to me. The new information simultaneously explained a lot, and also brought a ton of new questions with it. Pieces fell into place – which was useful – but I suddenly also felt like I “didn’t know myself”, and that the entire context of my adolescence and early adult life was completely different than I’d understood it to be. My whole sense of “who I am” felt changed.

…The information did nothing to reduce my feeling of despair, and may have actually deepened it. It also very nearly cost me my relationship with my Traveling Partner; we were neither of us certain that I was even truly competent to be in the relationship we shared at all, with this information available to us. I was so close to giving up…

A short time later, I started this blog. A short time after that, I found a new therapist, and started a new healing journey with a completely different understanding of where I stood as I began it.

The note on my calendar asks me to consider it, and some questions – a note from past me to me here, now.

  1. Is the knowledge still important to me?
  2. What does it mean to me now?
  3. What does the knowledge add to, or take from, my every day experience?
  4. How do I make use of this knowledge in a productive way, today?
  5. Does knowing this about myself improve how I treat myself, or other people?

Deep. Worthy of reflection. I sip my coffee and consider the questions, as I consider that past moment when I found out. The tone of compassionate regret in the voice of the woman on the phone advising me I could not be accepted into their clinical trial for a PTSD treatment because of my history of head trauma. My feeling of surprise, of curiosity, of sorrow, of deepening despair. The call to my mother later to ask about it, and that painful moment when she hung up on me rather than discuss it. The hurt. None of that feels particularly difficult or visceral now, but it was so hard to live those moments 12 years ago. Now it’s just… information. Part of the background. Historical data. A step on a path.

This particular head injury wasn’t the only head trauma I sustained (it’s tempting to say something flippant about domestic violence being a kick in the head, but it’s not actually funny, at all), but it was new information 12 years ago, and it did lead me to consider things differently, and to learn more about what the potential consequences of such things really could be. It pushed me to consider different kinds of therapy, for problems other than PTSD. It let me put other injuries and traumatic events into a bigger picture that was more complete. It let me get therapy and rehabilitative support that I’d never been offered (or able to accept) before – and never known to ask for, or seek out. I wasn’t sure it would help to try to rehabilitate a head injury that was decades old…

(tl;dr – it totally did, a lot)

…It’s a strange path that we each walk, is it not? A journey with no map, no clear destination, sometimes a poor understanding of the starting point as we begin is… a very strange thing, indeed. The journey is the destination. I feel grateful for the many chances I’ve had (and taken) to begin again. I’m grateful for every sunrise I see, and every sunset I’m fortunate to enjoy at the end of a day. There’s no knowing how much time we get in this mortal life. I’m glad I didn’t end mine prematurely; it’s been a worthy journey so far. I hope to go much further. There’s so much left to do, to see, and to feel. So many more beginnings to undertake, and practices to practice, and also… I’ve got this list of shit to do, and the holidays ahead. lol It’s time. Again. Time to begin again. Time to walk my path. Time to practice the practices that have helped me along the way for the past 12 years.

It’s been so very worth it.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, Turning 50, turning 60, women

This Headache, Though

December 10, 2024 //
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I don’t know what to write about today. This is as close as I ever really get to “writer’s block” – starting with a “blank mind” instead of merely a blank page. lol

It’s nearly noon, and I’m taking a break for “lunch”, though I’m not hungry and don’t plan to eat. I’ve got this (fairly dreadful) iced coffee, and a few minutes of sunshine, and a quiet little room to myself, suited to making room for a bit of writing in the middle of the day. I just don’t really have anything much to say, presently. Nothing I think is worth committing to any measure of permanence. I’m tired. My head aches. The world is burning. Petty nitwits seem to be running everything – and somehow, they were actually elected by real people. What the fuck? Looks like that’s only going to get worse over the next couple years, too. American healthcare is so disastrously bad that ordinary people are shooting health insurance company executives in the streets. A population once nearly wiped out by genocide engages in obvious genocide, and when accused of committing genocide seems to think “no we’re not” is an adequate response, while the bodies pile up. Corporate greed drives AI start-ups to completely disregard the basic humanity of human beings, providing “chatbot companions” to vulnerable young people (for profit) with predictably terrible consequences – but, you know, they made money on that. None of this is good. 100% of all of it was avoidable. Choices were made.

Human greed. Human pettiness. Human self-righteousness. Human douche-baggery. Human violence. Fucking hell, some days it definitely looks like the underlying problem is… humanity. I’m pretty sure we could do better.

I don’t really want to be thinking about any of that terrible shit, particularly with this headache. Fuck. I’d rather cozy up with a book, or nap in a sunny room, or putter in my garden (those roses definitely need pruning, and I’m past due to winterize my raised bed). What the fuck is wrong with people?? When did being rich or “right” become more important than being a good human being and building a world in which everyone can thrive? Why are so many people fighting to grab a bigger piece of pie, instead of baking a bigger fucking pie? I don’t get it…

I sip my terrible coffee, grateful to have it. I can easily imagine a day in a not-very-distant future when coffee may not be available at all – or only to the very wealthy few. I’m not one of those. I sigh to myself. I’m okay. I’m fortunate in spite of the pain I’m in. I hold on to that, and look out the window, thinking about love, and life, and what matters most. No doubt there is righteous satisfaction in embracing my anger, but it won’t feel as good as gentle words, and thoughts of love, and being kind in a world where kindness has grown so rare. I’m tired. I’m just one human primate with limited ability and knowledge. I can’t be everything to everyone, ever – but I can be the best version of myself that I’ve learned to be, and I can do my best to do better today, and again tomorrow. Yeah, I’m pretty fucking human, myself, prone to temper and misunderstandings, and moments of foolishness. My results vary.

…I keep practicing…

So, I take my break. Exchange some pleasant words with my beloved Traveling Partner. I do what I can to ease this fucking headache, and look forward to seeing the one doctor I’ve got that reliably provides me with any relief at all – Saturday. That’s soon. I look out the window for a few minutes, watching a crow on a branch in the tree beyond watching me back. So much pain… in my head, in my back…in the world. Shit. I guess I’ve just got to do my best.

…Time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Every Little Thing

December 3, 2024 //
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Small things matter. Small details of our circumstances can make big differences in our experiences. Small choices that seem inconsequential in the moment can result in important changes that have lasting effect. Small gifts sometimes feel so much more intentional and heartfelt. Small things matter.

This year’s new Giftmas ornament, an unexpected little gift from my Traveling Partner.

Yesterday I was in too much pain to manage it easily. I did “all the things” and didn’t get much relief. By the end of the day just about everything was getting on my nerves on this whole completely intolerable level, and I could feel how short my fuse was getting over things that were… small. I made the choice to go to bed early, figuring I could just chill and read, and maybe rest a bit, even feel some better perhaps, rather than eventually lashing out at my beloved Traveling Partner or the Anxious Adventurer over some dumb shit that wasn’t personal, or even problematic. (I can’t even describe how painfully annoying the sound of a sauce being mixed in a small glass bowl happened to be, it was awful – and really really dumb to affect me that way.) It was a small choice – but a good one. I didn’t read long; I was exhausted from the pain I’d been managing all day, and quickly fell asleep.

I woke during the night “for no reason” – and annoyed about it when I could not easily get back to sleep. I checked the time. No anxiety, just curious, and saw that about 12 minutes earlier my beloved had sent me a message (also wakeful in the night). There was some sound outside keeping me awake, I finally noticed it. A hum? A whine? A train on siding somewhere not too nearby, but close enough to disturb my rest? A loud HVAC unit? Was it even a real sound, or just my tinnitus? My partner was awake, too, restless and uncomfortable. We quietly commiserated, and finally went back to sleep. It was a tender shared moment, no agita or aggravation. I appreciated the comfort of knowing he was there, sympathetic and caring. (I fucking love that guy.) Small moment, but it really mattered.

I made a small change to my routine, knowing I needed to get some good rest, and reset my alarm for a later time than I’d usually choose. Too late to get a walk in. That’s fine. I woke to my artificial sunrise at 05:00, from a sound sleep. I started my day in the usual way, otherwise, and headed straight to the office after making coffee for my Traveling Partner and putting out a breakfast snack for him. I know how much those small things matter to him.

…Small things matter…

Sometimes it feels like everything is huge, urgent, overwhelming, or “the next big deal”, but the small things really do matter. Little things like an unexpected “thank you”, or a moment of consideration, or a helping hand when you thought you might have to go it alone can really change how life feels. Consider being that for someone – today. That small thing could matter so much. This is a time of year that can be really hard on people, and we never really know what someone else is going through. So often “doing our best” includes wearing a mask or putting a good face on a serious hardship. We can each make a difference for the people around us by doing our best, sure, and being kind and considerate, yes – but also? Small things. Little things. Doing something just a little bit extra or out of the ordinary in some moment can mean so much – and it costs so little of our time or attention! What else is nice about this is that it can feel so amazing to do something for someone!

…Do little things for you, too; you matter. Take that moment. Explore that opportunity. Investigate that interest. Indulge your curiosity. Give yourself a moment of your own time and attention. Practice good self-care. Breathe.

All of it matters, doesn’t it? At least a little bit? Choose wisely – our lives are built on the choices we make. The journey is the destination. We become what we practice. (Good news, though? If you were a giant jack ass yesterday? You can begin again, and do better today.)

I sip my coffee and smile. I feel okay right now. It’s a good morning. A good moment. A nice opportunity to begin again, aware that the little things matter.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5

I Woke Weeping

November 23, 2024 //
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This morning I slept in. It was lovely and restful. I mostly slept through the night, which is rare. My dreams, though, were vivid and sometimes disturbing. I woke in pain, and as soon as I sat up tears began to fall. I was still too disoriented from deep sleep to be certain of any sort of cause, maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe pain is enough reason to weep, sometimes. The gulls call to each other outside the window as they fly by. Yesterday’s storms have passed. It’s a new day – another stormy looking day with heavy gray clouds on the horizon.

Dawn of a new day. I remind myself to stay on the path.

This whole trip to the coast has been a strange one. I’ve spent it in tremendous pain, which I mostly ignore, once I’ve done what I can. I came for solitude, and creative work, and emotional rest, and I guess it’s mostly met most of my needs, most of the time, sort of, but in a limited, inefficient, and dissatisfying way. My Traveling Partner reaches out to me regularly, once he’s up for the day. He’s bored and lonely without me. It’s a limited sort of solitude I’m finding here, spent in the text-based company of my partner on the other end of my 21st century digital leash. I love him, and don’t want him to feel alone or abandonned, so I answer every ping I hear, often so quickly it could be called “real-time communication”. I cherish his words, and I’m frustrated by my feeling of being… whatever the opposite of “lonely” is. Crowded? Is there is a word for this feeling the lovers of solitude feel when they can’t escape the consciousnesses and communications of others? I don’t think I know the word for it. “Impinged upon” seems needlessly cumbersome. Surely there is some more elegant beautifully precise term?

Why is it so difficult for me to keep some of my time for myself, to use as I wish, without interruption or the involvement of others? Is it an unreasonable desire? Why does it so often seem that whatever I plan, try as I might, the world behaves as though my consciousness, my attention, and my availability for this or that task simply doesn’t belong to me at all? I’ve said it out loud in therapy a hundred times, “it feels like everyone wants a piece of me, and there’s nothing left over for me”. I ache with the frustration, the struggle to find some real peace, alone with my thoughts. I struggle to set clear reasonable boundaries, and reinforce and respect them, without being a jerk about it. I remind myself that I am loved. Valued. Appreciated. That my effort and presence matter that much, that I’m hard to be without. All pretty good stuff as far as it goes…but sometimes I just want to be alone for awhile. Alone with my pain. Alone with my tears. Alone with my time. Alone with myself. Present for and with myself, only. It’s fucking hard to find or make that time.

This break isn’t “a vacation”. It’s intended to be a short period of recovery from the ceaseless demands on my time, my presence, and my effort. It’s intended to be a short time spent on my own needs, caring for myself, before I work myself into the ground caring for others. Caregiving is fucking hard. This particular break hasn’t been as helpful or as restful as I had hoped it would be, and at least right now, as I sit with my coffee, it feels a bit like wasted time. Perhaps drinking coffee through tears is not the best moment to assign value to an experience, though? I hear a grim bitter chuckle – my own voice – break the stillness of morning. I’m not in a very good mood right now, although there’s nothing actually “wrong”, besides just being in pain and being cranky over how hard it is to get some needs met in life. These aren’t even new challenges. Perhaps that’s why I’m so cross? I suppose I expect that after all these years of being who I am, I’d have figured this shit out more skillfully by now? Will there come a day when I find myself alone and regretting my solitary ways? (It seems possible, but not at all likely.)

Between headaches, and arthritis pain, pings from my partner and my awareness of his loneliness in my absence, this particular coastal adventure hasn’t been much “fun” – for any values of fun. It’s barely been restful, and even that only in a physical way. Fucking hell, I’ve got to figure this shit out. I feel like my sanity depends on it…

A gift from a dear friend, a memory.

…I miss my Dear Friend. I’d share my vexation with her, and she’d share her perspective with me. She’d maybe make me laugh, or point back to something I said, myself, some time ago that still rings true even now. She’d share a cat story, or a recipe she remembers but can’t have anymore. She’d be there. I’d be here – and I’d feel heard and understood. She did as much to “raise me” as my Granny or my Mother, actually. Our friendship of almost 30 years is woven into the fabric of the woman I have become. In a sense, she’ll always be with me. I still manage to miss her. I miss her perspective and wisdom. I miss her understanding. Of all the human beings I’ve ever known, she seemed to understand my love of solitude more than any other. I miss that.

I sip my coffee and think my thoughts. The journey is the destination. The way out is through. Like a painting that hasn’t quite turned out, this particular weekend has been unsatisfying and feels incomplete. It has its own sort of beauty and worthiness, I suppose, but it feels unfinished and not quite right. Aphorisms and metaphors; I’m doing my best to care for the woman in the mirror. I feel like I’m letting her down. I sigh and watch the gulls beyond the window. I’ll finish this coffee, I guess, and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, women, Words
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