It’s not quite 04:00. I’ve been awake since my Traveling Partner woke me around 02:10, unable to sleep, struggling to breathe. I don’t have any help to offer, and everything I say seems likely to start an argument. I dress and leave the house.
I sigh to myself, grateful to have a good therapist.
There’s really nothing to do but keep walking. Stumble, fall, begin again. Incremental change over time adds up. I can count on that. Impermanence? That’s real, too. Change is. We are each having our own experience, too. What feels like a reasonable question to one, may feel very different to another. Practicing non-attachment feels hard, sometimes. Walls and mirrors, and humans being human.
… The real motherfucker is that I only have the power to change myself or my own choices, regardless whether useful or necessary changes could be made by another person – that’s on them and entirely out of my hands…
I get all up into my head in the wee hours, thinking about values, character, boundaries, acceptable behavior, relationships, choices… We walk the path we choose. We become what we practice – whatever we practice. I sigh to myself in the darkness. Almost an hour yet until daybreak. Maybe I can nap for little while? Later is soon enough for beginnings and choices.
… Until then, I’ve got this path to walk and a bunch of thinking to do.
In the quiet minutes after tempers flare and the uneasy peace that follows, I take some notes. New or unremembered metaphors, insightful analogies, deep questions, and revealed underlying hurts of times long past… Notes for meditation, for self-reflection, for discussion with my therapist. Tripping hazards on life’s path.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
It’s a very human experience, and a lot to think about. I will think about the path ahead, and also the path that has lead me to this point. I’ll consider my behavior, my choices, and my options. The menu of life’s Strange Diner is vast and the options are many – nearly always more than I can imagine, or accept.
I sigh to myself, and set my notes aside for tomorrow.
A new day, another sunrise, a chance to begin again.
I woke early this morning, from the sound sleep I had sunken into after the neighborhood fireworks finally stopped. I got up, surprised to find my Traveling Partner also already up. I started the watering and caught up on messages, then headed up the highway for my walk.
I walk along the marsh trail, more meadow than marsh this time of year. Swallows swoop and dive, chasing their breakfast. Meadow flowers bob gently in the soft breeze. The bold magenta sunrise begins to fade, first to pink, then to a softer pale salmon hue, before fading away to blue sky streaked with white clouds. I sigh and wonder what distant wildfire is responsible for that crazy magenta sunrise? It was beautiful.
A convenient place to stop and reflect.
I get to a spot that I’ll call “halfway” (it isn’t, but it is a convenient spot to stop and there is a fallen oak adjacent to the trail which makes a relatively comfortable seat). I stop with my thoughts, and my baggage, and sit with the moment for a little while.
… This is me, here, now…
I sit contemplating emotions and behavior, and what separates and defines them. Emotions tend to be what they are, and we don’t have much opportunity to manage or control our feelings, themselves. They are an internal, often immediate, experience. Behavior, on the other hand, we have clear opportunities to manage and control that (and often explicit societal expectations that we will do so effectively). That isn’t any sort of statement that it will be easy, at all, especially if we haven’t been in the practice of doing so regularly. It really does take practice. For some of us, it requires a lifetime of continued, focused, dedicated practice – and we’ll still lob some wildly inappropriate behavior into the world (or an important relationship), in spite of all that fucking practice, far more often than we expect. Humans being human. Some of this shit is a bit complicated, whether by brain damage, poor upbringing, ignorance, trauma, medication, or circumstances.
… Most of the time, most people are probably doing some version of their best in the moment, however thoroughly inadequate it may seem from our own perspective. We’re each having our own experience…
“Emotion and Reason” lit differently – how we view emotions, and how we use reason, make a difference.
I do my best to lead with kindness and empathy. I’m surprised how often and how easily I manage to fuck that up. Deep listening is a more challenging practice than it seems it would be. Practicing healthy boundaries is more difficult than I ever expect it to be, but frankly I’m a relative beginner on that topic, so perhaps that is easy to understand? I sigh and remind myself to also treat myself with kindness, compassion, and understanding. My beloved’s expressions of hurt, frustration, and disappointment in some moment may define the moment, but they don’t define me as a human being. Nor do his missteps or difficult moments define him.
I reflect on my mistakes in the context of my values. I give myself time to think about them as snags and potholes on a clear path. I visualize various moments differently than they occurred, incorporating the changes in my behavior that I’d ideally want to see. I compare and contrast with similar moments that went very differently. I let myself recognize the differences in a useful way, to build additional implicit understanding. I remind myself to be patient and slow down, to take the time I need to do things right, and to avoid taking it personally if (when) the world doesn’t slow down with me.
… The journey is the destination. I walk the path I create with my choices. I have opportunities (so many) to change that path by changing my choices. It sounds easier as words than it is in practice – but “practice” is an ongoing thing. I’ll keep walking (and practicing).
… I keep my focus on my own behavior, because that is what is within my control, and it is what I am responsible for, myself…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I don’t know what is around the next bend. I’m walking this path, enjoying the journey, and doing my best to be the person I most want to be. There’s work yet to be done. Where does this path lead? I guess I’ll find out when I get there. In the meantime, I guess I’ll begin again. Again.
I slept okay. I woke up okay. The morning seems a relatively ordinary one. The weekend was generally good, although I feel like I didn’t get much done due to swapping out a notable portion of the time I would have spent on housework for self-care, and I still somehow manage to feel uncomfortable with that.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I watched the moon setting as I watered the lawn.
It’s forecast to be hot today. I watered before I left for my walk. I ended up going back into the house for a warm cardigan. The forecast may say it’ll be a hot day, but it is quite chilly now. Funny how that sometimes happens.
It’s not important, just an observation on an ordinary Monday, for which I have no particular enthusiasm. That seems odd to me, but even that is pretty ordinary; people feeling some reluctance and lack of enthusiasm for the beginning of another work week is nothing new at all. We’ve probably all been there however much we may enjoy our work. I shrug to myself as I walk this familiar trail. There’s so much I’d rather be doing than working, but working is what pays the bills and unlocks the opportunities to do those other things, often. It’s unfortunate that we spend so much of our lives on this fucking hamster wheel.
Get off the hamster wheel now and then.
Yesterday’s hike was a lovely one. I enjoyed it enough to wonder if I could make it there and back on a workday… I’d be pushing my luck on the timing in a way likely to trigger my time hang-up, and cause me stress, undermining the value of the walk. Probably not a great idea. I’ll have to settle for weekends. This too, is ordinary. Most things are.
My allergies are vexing me, even this is nothing noteworthy. Human beings and spring allergies are a known thing. There’s an entire industry involved in dealing with allergies, and and whole field of medicine devoted to treating them. Mine are not bad relative to how bad they can be. I can enjoy flowers and walks among the trees, and petting cats… but there are a couple things that trigger my allergies, and they cluster in springtime. Tree pollen, mostly. Something about specific foods causes me to break out in sneezing and immediate sinus congestion and a runny nose. Wool against my bare skin can make me break out in hives. Bee stings are the most serious. Bee stings can cause anaphylaxis for me, and this time of year I carry a bee sting kit everywhere.
I’m grateful that I can enjoy the scents of flowers.
I sigh to myself at the halfway point on my rather ordinary walk on this ordinary Spring Monday. I’m not complaining. I’m grateful. Ordinary is okay, and for most values of ordinary, this is pretty good. My lack of enthusiasm isn’t nearly as important as this beautiful morning. I enjoy it for what it is. I enjoy it as I am. It’s enough.
Sunshine and oak trees, and a path; the way ahead is obvious, if not exciting.
I’m just saying, I suppose, that there’s no reason to expect that a healing journey or a journey to become the person you most want to be will lead to an exciting, eventful life of adventure and wild delight. Sometimes – mostly, perhaps – the big win is the relative lack of excitement, and the increase in ordinary pleasures.
Yesterday in the evening, things went sideways for a short time. My Traveling Partner and I stepped all over each other’s trauma and baggage. While that was thoroughly unpleasant, I’m impressed by our ability to recover from it, bounce back, and enjoy the remainder of the evening together. He impresses me. I’m grateful for the work he puts into a relationship. I smile and swing my feet from this bench, kind of wishing I’d worn the new sweater he gave me yesterday (an early birthday gift). I feel very loved. Not just because of the sweater.
What will you find if you slow down to see more?
I breathe, exhale, and relax. Sure, it’s an ordinary Monday, and I’d rather spend it with my beloved than spend the day working. That’s real, and it’s nothing special or extraordinary, just very human. I’m okay with it. I sigh and look at the time. I’ve a few more minutes before I have to begin again. I’ll make a point to enjoy them.
I’m at the trailhead with a hot cup of coffee, waiting for the rain to stop. I’m a little cross and don’t feel well-rested. Sometimes that’s the way it goes for me. I’m not cross because I woke up early in spite of hoping to sleep in a bit. I’m cross because the noise that woke me was triggering, and I didn’t manage that sufficiently well to avoid also exchanging harsh words with my Traveling Partner before I left the house for my walk. I’m disappointed, and this makes me cross. It’s my beloved’s birthday and I want only good experiences for him.
… I can do better…
I’m not in any hurry, at least. I took off work today, and after my walk I will pick up the birthday cake and head home to enjoy the day. I’ve got time to sort myself out before the day really begins.
The soft sprinkle of rain that is falling isn’t really enough to stop me from walking. I’m enjoying the freedom to choose my timing and my experience, and waiting for a little daylight. I’m hoping to give my beloved time to get back to sleep for awhile, too. I meditate. I breathe, and let my thoughts pass by like clouds. “Nothing to see here”, it’s a quiet moment on a quiet autumn morning. It’s enough.
Yesterday was a strange one, and I reflect on it awhile. It was the sort of day when it seemed each attempt to focus on a single task was interrupted multiple times, with the end result that the one task I kept returning to never actually got started. I’d have to begin all over again each time I dealt with some distraction, and each time my focus was broken with a ping, a request for my attention on something, or some other thing someone else wanted done… I ended the day mentally exhausted, and feeling like my time and consciousness are not my own. It was super annoying. On the other hand, my Traveling Partner and I cooked dinner together, and that was fun, in spite of me being so tired I couldn’t easily tackle dinner without his help, and had to rely on the Anxious Adventurer to do cleanup after dinner. I went to bed early, too, and still woke feeling like I didn’t get any real rest.
A steady stream of headlights sweeps past, on the highway adjacent to the trailhead parking. G’damn, I’m so glad it isn’t me, this morning. I chuckle to myself thinking about my last visit with my Granny on the Eastern Shore. That would have been… 1995? Something like that. I was in my early thirties. She was some age between 65-75, and seemed ageless to me. I remember being surprised any time her response to a suggested outing or adventure of some sort was being “too tired for all that”. I definitely get it now. Fucking hell, life is exhausting sometimes. I “run out of spoons” much sooner these days, and things seem to require more of me than they once did. I often fail to account for self-care needs, beyond this quiet time in the morning, and my well-being and quality of life are slowly being more and more degraded by that. It’s poor planning, poor boundary and expectation setting, and also fairly fucking stupid – because I am aware of the negative consequences and also actually know better through direct experience. I could do better, and I’m going to end up paying a high price if I don’t treat myself better.
… I still, often, find it difficult to put my own needs high on my list, in spite of so much growth and progress. I should work on that…
I sip my coffee, struggling to rephrase my thoughts to avoid “should…” in favor of more emotionally healthy language. I don’t benefit from joining the queue of demanding voices pinging on my consciousness. I can do better.
The first hint of daybreak lightens the sky. I think of my beloved Traveling Partner hopefully sleeping at home. I sip my coffee contentedly, listening to the patter of raindrops and watching daybreak become the dawn of a new day, full of opportunity.
One mortal woman, limited capacity to do the verbs, limited opportunity to create change, limited ability to do more, better… I’ve only got so many spoons, and this brief mortal life to live. I sigh, still pressing myself to “do more, better”, aware that more often than not I am already doing my best. It has to be enough when we give all we have, but an unfortunate truth seems to be that sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough, and there’s no more to offer. Still… I guess “everything” is more than nothing, and as unsatisfying as that sometimes feels, it’ll have to do.
The rain keeps falling.
I sigh to myself and stretch as I get out of the car and pull my rain poncho, scarf, and gloves out of my gear bin. I can make out the trail now, in the predawn gloom. I’m so tired… and it’s already time to begin again. That’s okay; I’ll do my best.
I’m sipping my coffee grateful to have it, and grateful to be done with the budgeting and payday stuff. I didn’t sleep as restfully as I’d have liked; my sleep was interrupted by my Traveling Partner (I think? Was I dreaming it?) who woke me up for some reason, in the wee hours. My sleep after that was less than ideal, restless and plagued by strange dreams of stress and failure. I woke up feeling cranky and anti-social – and I’m grateful that so far the office is empty of other voices. It’s just me, here, now. I’m good with that. I’m not really “fit for company” quite yet.
…So cranky…
I sip my coffee and find myself vexed by “what ifs” and “if onlys”, and this headache (which is reliably worse when I sleep poorly). I’m cross with myself for doing such a shitty job of adulting when I was younger, and I’m annoyed that I failed completely to “look after” my future self, from that youthful vantage point. I didn’t make much money back then… Hell, I don’t “make much money” now – just an amount that covers the expenses with some small amount left to protect against emergencies to come, and I’m grateful for it. It could be worse. I do okay these days, though I’ll never be “wealthy”. This morning, I find myself wishing and yearning and frustrated that I’m not in a very different place (for example, already retired and living contentedly in my “leisure years”, spending my hours painting, writing, reading, and gardening). These are the sorts of thoughts and feelings that often develop out of restless nights, fatigue, poor self-care, and the sour moods that result from those experiences. They aren’t any more “real” than the dreams that plagued my sleep – and certainly they have no power over me that I don’t give them myself. They are the sort of thing that can generate a fuck-ton of “second dart suffering”, or become the kernel of discontent that can later become a major meltdown or moment of drama “for no reason”. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and do my best to let that shit go. There’s no value in letting it fester.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat as needed.
I sigh to myself. Things are not “perfect”, but they’re okay for most values of “okay”, and I’m fortunate – and grateful for my good fortune. I’m also pretty cranky, and I’ve got a headache. I work on keeping those experiences separated from each other, in my emotional experience of the moment; they are not in any way actually related to each other. Human primates are weird. When we’re cross or frustrated there’s this odd tendency to make it about “everything”, connecting dots that aren’t really connected, conflating one thing with another, and blowing shit way out of proportion over… nothing much at all. No doubt it served some evolutionary purpose intended to ensure our survival as a species, but it sure as shit isn’t very helpful now. lol
As with any choice, there are verbs involved.
I drag my consciousness back to this moment, right here. This moment in which I am 100% fine, thanks. It is an ordinary enough Friday morning, an ordinary enough summer day, the beginning of some new moment unrelated to the moments I’ve left behind – a new beginning. I’d honestly like to begin it with a damned nap – or some sort of notable relief for this fucking headache – but realistically, there’s this work day ahead of me, and I’ve got shit to do. “Nap time” is not now. I sip my coffee and remind myself that resources are always limited in this finite mortal life (for most people). It is the nature of resources to be limited. Time or money, or precious goods cultivated or dug from holes in the ground. Limits exist. So, we budget, and plan, and do our best to make all the pieces fit in our lives. It’s a very human experience.
The clock ticks off the minutes. I sigh again, frustrated by life’s limitations. Frustrated by feeling tired and cross with the world. Vexed by humanity.
…I let all that go, again…
Finding a pleasant distraction in recent photographs can help lift my mood.
I flip through pictures from my camping trip to distract me from my irritability. I feel my face soften into a smile, and my shoulders relax. Some moments feel harder than they really are. We make so much of our own stress, and behave as if it is external to us. I know I can choose differently – it’s just not always easy to shift from intention to action. The effort matters quite a lot. The choices too. It’s necessary to accept that things can change – and that I can change them.
…I’m almost out of coffee…
Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn
The clock ticks on. Limitations do exist. Choices and opportunities for change exist. The journey is the destination. In practical terms, I create my path as I walk it – the route is mine to choose. So… yeah. I’m cranky right now, but I can choose differently. Fuck I wish saying as much made it easier to do the verbs! There’s real effort involved, and I’d frankly rather just take a nap and begin again later… that’s not on today’s “menu”. lol It’s already time to begin again – and I’ve got choices to make, and verbs to do.
Evening Light 