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All Things Considered

January 12, 2018 //
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I am taking a few minutes to relax and consider things. Consider the week that has just ended. Consider the weekend just about to begin. Consider this moment right here, and moments past that were entirely different. I am taking time to consider writing in the morning, versus writing in the evening, and which really works best for me – and I am considering whether there is any need for so much structure around what is (for me) such a natural thing? I am considering the contents of my pantry, which are depleted, and my fridge, which is almost empty; I’ve been sick, and there’s been no shopping done in more than a week. More than two.

I am distracted from my considerations by the smile on my face; I adult well enough to manage life without having to grocery shop for nearly two weeks. Nice. 🙂 (To be fair, though, that’s mostly true because I’ve spent the last week sick, and disinclined toward much besides broth or soup or coffee or tea, and certainly I’m almost always well-stocked on all of those. lol)

Today at work I had two relatively special personal moments of… some kind. I’m not sure what to call either. I reached a point of feeling the crushing workload as, indeed, crushing – overwhelming, distracting, complex, unsatisfying, and even frightening; this was driving a lot of anxiety and I started to have a panic attack – in the office. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuck. Shit. Damn it. Okay okay – I managed a deep breath. I managed another. I managed to admit to myself that I hadn’t been practicing good self-care, and if nothing else, I really needed a break. No. Not a walking meeting. A break. No, no, not a moment to help someone else with another task. Stop that. A break. No. Damn it. Not an opportunity to vent about these frustrations (that are so transitory). A proper break, away from the work, just – a break.

So I took one.

I got up from my desk, moved to a more comfortable seat in a spot without any connectivity or active devices within reach. No one to talk to, with, or at. No issues. No questions. I took the 10 minutes I really needed. With me. No judgment. No criticism. Just a few moments of meditation, smack in the middle of the work day. It felt sooooooo good. When those few delicious quiet moments concluded, I wasn’t feeling panicked or anxious or unprepared or inadequate or even over-taxed. I was ready to work.

So I worked.

One of the things I went back to work with was a calm settled appreciation for the great team I work with. We support each other. There’s a lot of authenticity and caring. It was a crazy busy week – and it was good. I stopped working a couple times later, throughout the day, simply to briefly thank the colleagues who have helped so much. We count on each other. We can. It’s that kind of place, and I couldn’t help contrasting that with, of all things, the current federal administration. I felt a moment of poignant sorrow and understanding; can you imagine what working in that fog of hate, confusion, and chaos must be like for rational beings who mean well and want to serve America in a positive way? That would definitely be a job to leave. I find myself stalled for just a moment considering all those folks feeling trapped in jobs they very much want to leave.

I went home feeling profoundly grateful for the life I am living right now. That felt pretty good, even if I did arrive home in pain. Just arthritis, right? We age. We deal with pain – as it turns out feeling our bodies age isn’t especially comfortable. lol

Tonight it’s a gentle night of self-care. I need that. It’s also a night of packing, tidying up, and readying myself for another trip down to see my Traveling Partner (who’s the traveler now!? lol) – I miss him greatly and find myself eager, in spite of also feeling soooo fucking tired. I look forward to getting over that. In the mean time, I’ll make a list tonight, and tomorrow I’ll begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter

Take a Moment

January 10, 2018 //
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One moment of many.

Time shrank, stretched, and snapped back, today. I got home feeling I had simultaneously done much more and much less than I had planned to do – more than I expected to get done, less than I urgently needed to get done, and certainly enough actually got done. Time can be peculiarly malleable, and sometimes I think I’ve almost got the hang of doing it at will. (That would be quite amazing.) 🙂

At some point, I realized I needed a couple things from myself. I was feeling fairly pressed for time, pretty frazzled, and I was overwhelming myself with details, and small frustrations. When I started getting close to that very special moment – you know the one? That moment just at which not having some sort of horrific tantrum or untoward meltdown would just no longer be possible? That fairly strained moment of longing and regret-in-advance? (Is that just me?) I could see it there, just ahead of me… the snarled remark, perhaps, got my attention – and a moment of appreciation that although I’d spoken aloud, I was seated alone. I paused, and listened for just a precious second of limited time – really listened – to me – and I recognized unmet needs. Simply that. I heard me. I needed recognition that I’ve been sick. I needed better self-care. I needed to slow down a bit, really focus, and be patient with myself. I needed a healthy meal – a real, actual, cooked-with-care, meal, prepared from fresh ingredients that meet all of my dietary needs. (I’ve been sick, right? Cooking takes some effort, more than I could manage for a couple days, so it’s been… broth. lol Mostly just broth. And coffee. Tea. Fizzy water. Cold medicine.) I looked at the clock and acknowledged to myself how very human I am. I reset my expectations, and moved my workload around a bit. I reset the expectations of others, with consideration, with care, and as firmly as I know how to do graciously. I finished the day with a plan.

The commute was okay. Rainy. I was pre-occupied with my own thoughts, so less frustrated with the shenanigans of other, less skilled, drivers (I know they are less skilled, because… did you see that shit?? You did not. I did, though. lol). I picked up some healthy ingredients on the way home and made myself a small London broil (although I rarely eat beef, if I am at all a risk of anemia, or have recently been ill, it definitely perks me up to have it), some steamed broccoli, and homemade yam steak fries. I cooked. I enjoyed a solitary evening meal, listening to music, thinking my thoughts. First day back to work is tough on me after being sick, so I take things pretty easy this evening. I want to do more, and look at my “to do list” with a certain purposeful yearning, although I definitely do not have the energy for all that (or even most of it, or… yeah… none of it at all, actually, not tonight). An early night will be the thing, then. Maybe some quiet time reading? Meditation. I’ll write (hello!). I’ll meditate. I’ll call it a night.

Of course, the internet grabbed my attention pretty quickly – it was hard to tear myself away. A couple rounds of being annoyed with myself, followed by a reminder, again, of how human I am… the evening continues.

Self-care does not come naturally to me, in any way I can tell. I really work at it. I sometimes seriously suck at it, but it needs to be handled, and generally, it needs to be handled skillfully – or I am doing little more than hastening my own demise through neglect. :-\ So, tonight I practice self-care practices. Gentle verbs. Verbs that nurture. Verbs that heal. Verbs that soothe and tend and care for.

Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again on all the other verbs. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women

1458 Posts, Still Practicing

January 5, 2018 //
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I am not perfect. Not even close. Hell, I’m still practicing the most basic practices, generally, as a beginner. A student. An amateur. A novice. I even try to practice very much as if I’d never done it before – with my full attention, with care, aware of the moment and the motions, deliberately, and with my whole will – and 1458 published blog posts later, I’m still practicing. Like… practicing. Because I have not yet achieved mastery – and maybe can’t or won’t, I don’t know that, and it isn’t relevant to day-to-day practicing of practices. What matters is the practice itself, and the effect it has on my experience to do so. 🙂

I’m a bit woozy and light-headed from the over-the-counter remedies I’ve taken to ease the symptoms of the ick-of-the-month going around the office (or maybe I picked it up at the party? No matter, that’s not important). I’m in a much better mood than yesterday, which I rather expected; really shitty moods are not especially sustainable. I took steps to take a step back, and ended the evening quite pleasantly.

I woke during the night with the sore throat. I figured maybe I was breathing through my mouth… but no, I woke with it in the morning, somewhat worse. I didn’t think much of it, it was only a tickle. By noon, it was a distraction, by 2 pm I actually felt unwell. On my way home, with a frown, and recognition that strep throat, specifically, should not be brought into the office, I pulled into the wee urgent care clinic I favor and got the diagnostic test for strep done, and had the doctor take a look. It’s not strep. I’m glad about that… well… I was initially very glad. At this point, I just feel mostly pretty shitty and ill, and I don’t really care about it – or much of anything else. I ache all over. My head hurts. My throat hurts. The tickle is becoming a nagging, dry, hacking little cough, also very annoying. I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend. Maybe I’ll also slowly get all the holiday decor put away… but I won’t be hard on myself if I don’t. I think I could already go to bed… and it’s not yet 5:30 pm. lol

Dinner was a lovely rich Pho that I picked up on my way home. I already didn’t feel much like eating, or at all like cooking, but I knew I would need to take care of myself, too. I’m annoyed that I’m sick, but the annoyance doesn’t help anything, so I let it go. In fact, I let it go every time it comes up (again). It still comes up, of course; I’m human. I remind myself that “we’ve got to pay for our thrills”, and that breaking all my routines for a high energy holiday celebration with a horde of rambunctious friends merrily cavorting through the days and nights was sure to hit my immune system at some point, and I knew that going into it. It did. No surprise there; I specifically and willfully chose to enjoy the weekend as I did – so, also, no fair bitching about the cost. Now it’s time to pay the check, that’s all. If I deal with a sore throat for a few days, I get off pretty easy, I think. 😀

Damn I’m tired. Tired. Woozy. Feeling crappy. It’s time to put all this aside and take care of me in the real life, not just talk about it. lol Tomorrow I can begin again. 🙂

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

What a Long Strange Trip…

January 3, 2018 //
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Interesting weekend. I meant to write more, sooner, and probably beginning with events last week, as that week rushed to a hasty conclusion, filled with stress, chaos, failed planning, and forgetfulness. So much has gone on – from poignant nostalgic moments unpacking a precious box of dolls my sister had been keeping for me, (and that my grandmother had kept for me, before her – since I joined the Army. 1981?) I had honestly written them off, grieved the loss, and moved on, figuring that regardless of good intentions, time and circumstance had made the choice.

I lost track of that moment completely in the fumble and tumble of moments that proceeded from there and on into the busy, festive, holiday weekend. I made memories instead of Facebook posts this weekend. 🙂

The weekend itself was so magical, connected, and emotionally nourishing that the drive home was filled with the thought of it (at least until I hit traffic about 90 minutes from my destination). I have yet to fully process it all. It was informationally and emotionally dense, filled with content – and contentment. It was a departure from all my norms – and a break from very nearly all my routines… like… a serious, total breakdown of most of my basic self-care routines, all of it. lol I haven’t yet sorted all that out, yet, either. Turns out – it’s too much. I can’t so easily just sit down and bang out some words that seem to go together and make sense of it all. I’m going to have to be patient with myself – there is more to consider. So much more. Epiphanies. Changed thinking. People. Moments. Moments upon moments of real life, actually fully lived, awake and aware and taking life on a tangent. It was… intense.

As with the weekend, itself, this picture defies me to make any sense of it. lol

There are some lovely pictures… surely I’ll share some of them… in due time. Even the words must be shared “in due time”. My time. My words. I guess it’s only reasonable that I determine the timing and the broadness or depth of the sharing. I need to soak in the feelings awhile, and figure myself out a bit more. It’s a new year – the woman in the mirror has work to do, but it’s a waste of precious limited lifetime to merely rush around randomly doing things and stuff without making some sense of where I may be headed, I think. So… I’ll take some time for all that. Meditation. Writing – private writing, I mean, actually writing in my journal. Self-reflection. Asking the questions. Listening to the answers  – without judgement, objection, or excuse making. Being. Becoming. Beginning again.

Good party. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Arriving “On Time”

December 26, 2017 //
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I got home precisely on time; the time I arrived. It wouldn’t have mattered what time that happened to be when I stepped from the icy winter cold into the comfort of this strangely almost-not-quite-perfect-and-definitely-not-really-mine little duplex in which I reside. For a moment, it felt like “home”, perhaps simply because it is comfortable here (both temperature and environment), and it so is not anything like “comfortable” outside, today. Is that really what a feeling of home is all about? Comfort? That seems surprisingly practical – and attainable; determine what is not comfortable, make the adjustments necessary to achieve comfort. Repeat. Home! …It’s a thought worth considering further. I make myself a note.

I sit down, here, and make still another note… then find myself writing, after a couple days of just… not. I must have needed the break from all the things, and every routine, because I certainly woke to the morning, today, with plenty of enthusiasm for all the things, after 5 days of utterly willfully leaving all my routines in tatters. Planned spontaneity. lol My favorite sort.

I begin the holiday with a lovely stack of books to read.

I continue to consider comfort – both the practical details, and even as a metaphor. Certainly, I spent the weekend quite comfortable here in this small space in which I live. It was a wonderful holiday. Tender. Connected. Relaxed. Restful. Joyful. Warm. It was definitely in my top 10 Giftmas holidays ever – which still strikes me as a bit odd, since I spent it more or less entirely alone. (Alone aside from a relatively short visit with a friend, Saturday, which was a serious departure from the temporary normal of quiet and leisure spent alone.) I never felt “lonely” (your results may vary), or neglected (again with the reminder; we are each having our own experience), and it was such a deep down drenching sensuous joy to so fully relax, to read a few books I’d gotten behind on, to try new recipes without concern, to set the pace of the weekend and the holiday without having half an eye on whether everyone else’s needs are fully met, ahead of mine. It was satisfying and beautiful. I felt cared for in a different way.

A few more finished… a couple new books added to the stack 🙂

I still really missed my Traveling Partner, and more than once I found myself very nearly talked into making the trip down his way, against the silent urging of my soul – which really really just wanted to sit still awhile, catch up on some reading, and… not do more things. We spoke often, and chatted enough that I still feel very much that we “shared” the holiday – which I feel pretty certain is going to lead to some amusing future moments in which I can’t remember which year I spent Giftmas alone, because I recall my Traveling Partner being part of all of them. lol Love-pollution.

It was nice coming home tonight. I’d left a light on by mistake – it was less like coming home to an empty place. 🙂 I make another note to myself, about that. Work is work – but now I’m home. I smile at the much shorter stack of books I have not yet read… and begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter
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