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Work-Home-Work-Home-Work…

October 3, 2019 //
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…Home…work…home…work… Back and forth, pretty much continuously, distractingly interspersed with a couple days off, not quite convincing me that I have ample leisure. lol Omg – fuck this. I sigh and sip my coffee. I breathe, exhale, relax… And remind myself that the bills are paid, and this home is comfortably warm on a chilly morning. I had hot water – and indoor plumbing – and sweet smelling shower gel in my morning shower. This cup of coffee? Work was involved in that, too; coffee beans aren’t free. The electricity that ran the burr grinder? Paid for that, too, with money I worked for. So…okay. Work is thing, I guess I’m stuck with that for now.

…I’m so ready to get off this treadmill. Have been for a long time. It aggravates me to see articles about the need to “raise the retirement age” – let that shit be optional, voluntary, and self-determined! Damn – you think I want to be “gainfully employed”? Um… no. It’s just that our society is built on the exchanges of goods and services made possible by the additional exchange of currency. Currency that represents our labor (and in a most bitter and unfortunate additional bit of truth, the “exchange rate” of life force for currency is neither “fair” nor “equal” and some human beings are most definitely paid too little for their time, whereas others are paid far far more than any real value that could be assessed based their life or humanity). So… work. Home to enjoy. Work to pay for it. Back and forth.

It really does bug me when “retirement ages” are set such that they only account for those who wish to work longer. Of course, it would also bug me if the agency of adult human beings was undermined such that people who are capable and eager are forced out of the workforce solely due to their age. Either way, it’s the lack of agency I’m actually objecting to; we are not machines, we’re not all identical in appearance – or intention. Some people earnestly want to work in their later years – I’ve met a few. (Keeping things real, I’ve met far more who felt they had to continue working because they needed the money and were not financially prepared to retire.) I’ve also met people who are looking ahead to retirement before they were 30. (I’m one of those, but I’m also likely going to be someone who has to keep working due to not being financially prepared to retire.)

Sipping coffee thinking about the work-life treadmill on a Thursday. Of course, I have choices, and I mull them over now and then, fully aware I could, perhaps, paint full time (and be creatively contented and probably below the poverty line), or go into business in my working profession as an independent consultant, or do some other work I’d never considered but is incredibly lucrative – people who have freed themselves from the treadmill do exist. I just don’t happen to be one of them. lol This morning I’m tired, and I woke with a headache from a dream that I was commuting to work driving my car backwards. lol Too many late-ish nights, not enough sleep? Another sip of coffee, and an internal commitment to going to bed “on time” tonight, is the only result of my fatigue-y cynicism.

The truth is, I’m good at my profession. I’ve chosen to continue it a couple times after attempting to escape it. I’m pretty skillful at the “going to work every day” thing, in a way that quite a few people I know are not. I support myself, loved ones, and creative endeavors through these skills, and I feel satisfied with all of that. I’m just tired this morning and yearning for a freedom from routine that I not only don’t have – I’m neither comfortable with, in fact, nor skilled at managing well. lol It is what it is. (This sort of thing is specifically why I don’t make major decisions while deeply fatigued or stressed out; my thinking changes when I am relaxed, and able to face challenges from an emotionally neutral, practical perspective, and I make very different decisions.)

Choices. Verbs. The things that are. The things that are not – or are not, yet. The wheel keeps turning. If I don’t like my circumstances, there are alternatives. If I don’t like the person I see myself becoming, I can make changes. If I don’t like the conversation going on around me, I can walk on. Hell, even when the conversation I’m not enjoying is the internal “conversation” going on with myself, I can definitely “fix that” – I can begin again. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5

All Sorts of Weird

October 2, 2019 //
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I’m barely awake. I didn’t sleep particularly well, and woke in the middle of the dream when the alarm went off. The work day is ahead of me. My coffee tastes… flat. The morning feels… “too early”. S’ok. It’s another new day, entirely, and I’m pretty glad yesterday is over – no fault of the day. Yesterday was fine. Lovely, actually, right up until my guts betrayed me entirely, later in the day, and I had to go home, because I just didn’t have a change of clothes, and unexpectedly needed one. 0_o Being human has some gross moments.

…Still…aside from that? Yesterday was a great day. Pleasant, productive, and generally comfortable.

The evening was spent in quiet intimacy. I wasn’t up to anything more strenuous than television, and we relaxed in each other’s good company, being entertained by streaming content. Doesn’t matter at all what we were watching, really, the point of the shared good time had nothing much to do with that. 🙂

It’s a whole new day stretching ahead of me. I find myself wondering if I should keep a spare set of clothes in the office for “inconveniences”. It would not be out of character to at least have clean dry socks tucked into a desk drawer. lol Wet feet suck, and the solution (clean dry socks) is way too easy and compact to be unprepared – I walk a lot… although, writing those words reminds me I walk less lately than I would enjoy. Even there, the solution is obvious – and easy. It’s just a choice. 🙂

Hmm… choices. I sit sipping coffee, contemplating choices… and the nature of decision-making. We’re such complicated creatures in some ways. I yawn, interrupting my own thought, and check the time… damn it. Already time to begin again. 😉

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

I Don’t Care About That Other Stuff Right Now

September 27, 2019 //
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The possible (likely) impeachment of the US President? I don’t care right now, at all. Local weather? I’m indifferent; it’s meaningless. Work? Connectivity? Housekeeping? The appointment I have scheduled later? Nothing matters beyond one small (huge) thing; I’m sitting alone, heart aching, while my partner is elsewhere, also alone (an assumption), and probably having a less than ideal experience, too.

…I’m not even sure what went wrong, exactly. We started down the path of a conversation… we converse daily, often, and manage both deep conversations, and light-hearted banter (and lots of things in between) quite effortlessly, most of the time. Was I pre-disposed towards frustration, after spending a morning frustrated by technical difficulties, on a rare day working from home? Was he having his experience from within a context that had him potentially predisposed toward difficulties, himself? Is this even “about” either of us, at all? We are each having our own experience – this much is reliably true. I feel, at the moment, sort of bitter, rather heartsick, fighting off tears I don’t want to deal with, and feeling that I am a failure as a partner because – how can I not manage something so fucking basic as a conversation??

In all respects it was a lovely morning to start with. I sit staring disinterestedly into this 3rd cup of coffee, trying to hold onto the morning’s delights. Elusive. Those moments feel as if they were only a dream, now. I am acutely aware I have a “routine” check up with my therapist coming in a couple weeks, and I find myself struggling with a feeling of shame over maybe really needing that time, even after so long, and so much progress. It flares up as resentment and anger, then recedes as a sort of sad gray shadow over my experience, and a hint of despair and futility. “Doesn’t it ever stop…?” My demons attack where I am weakest, that’s a given, and I’m unsurprised by the bleak feeling of doubt, the sense of loss, of abandonment, the feeling of hurt and unworthiness. Damn, this is shitty.

…I hope he’s okay (he’s probably feeling shitty, too).

I look into my coffee mug again, as if I were even going to drink it. I put the cup back down. I also don’t care about this cup of coffee – not compared to how much I care that I am enduring this moment, or that he is enduring his… or that we ended up in this place, in the first place. This coffee doesn’t even smell good. I made it the same as always. No interest in drinking it now. It just sits. Same as me. Just sitting here, mired in this mess. I tried the “walk away and calm down” approach to handling miscommunication and frustration… it does not seem to have provided any useful benefit. I mean… I suppose it’s better than waiting around poking a hornets’ nest until one or the other of us seriously lose our temper. I can’t stand raised voices. Instead… oh sure, it’s fucking quiet, but… I am isolated with my despair… my most dangerous personal foe. “Misery loves company”? Nah. I don’t buy that. Misery doesn’t love a fucking thing, it’s grim, stoic – a loiterer who takes everything pleasant and destroys it without hesitation.

…I even know the steps to take to not be here… and can’t raise the motivation to do a thing about it… like giving up. The futility becomes a quiet waterfall of hot tears. A lifetime of frustration and learned helplessness clench my jaws. My back aches with the weight of it. This? This right here is another very human experience. (“It’s just a moment”, I hear my internal reminder on autopilot, “this will pass. It’s just weather, not climate.” I can’t hear it; it feels very distant and irrelevant.)

Too fucking human. So… what’s to be done about it, then? Yeah, um… I don’t know right now. I’m too busy feeling hurt and filled with chaos and damage. Let me get done with all that, then I’ll move on to doing something else… probably sort myself out at some point… maybe even begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, Frustration, grief, loneliness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

A Slower Pace

September 20, 2019 //
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I took some time off. I needed the break from routine, and even from distractions. I just needed some real rest. 🙂 For some reason, I haven’t been sleeping more than 4-5 hours a night, with rare exceptions, for weeks. I was losing the ability to easily keep track of details, and reminders were becoming a necessity on a whole other rather critical level that feels uncomfortable – and sometimes “weak”.

…So… time off? Yep. That’s the plan. It’s also been uncomfortable to manage the day-to-day distractions; my brain is so used to be busy at maximum intensity that not only is my sleep disturbed by it, but also, my every waking moment I also seem to be racing to grasp the next distraction – no time to waste! Hurry! See that?!? What’s that?! And that over there – do I know what that is?? Have I read that article? Am I up-to-date on this new crisis? Have I overlooked a detail? What am I forgetting!?? Distracted and pressed for time have been becoming my default settings – which is neither helpful, nor healthy. So. Definitely some time off, but also… some down time. Properly taking time – real, slow, committed, undistracted time – for myself. To slow down. To unwind. To listen to the breeze, and the sound of raindrops pattering on the deck… for hours. Put down the email. Turn off the tv. Cease the ceaseless conversation – for at least a little while.

Brunch with a friend, perhaps…? Thanks, no, I’m “busy” not doing that, for a couple days.

Want to go to this movie…? Um, no, I can catch it streaming at home, some other time.

What about work email?! Don’t want to fall behind on… Yeah, no. I’m explicitly turning work off for 4 days. Off. Completely off.

Well, but there’s this thing you’ve just got to see/do/experience… Nope. I’m good, thanks. It’ll be there later on, or… not. No “FOMO” here; I am focusing the quality of the life I have right now, just as it is. 🙂 It’s enough.

So, yeah. I haven’t been posting anything to Instagram (the only social media account I still have). I haven’t been “staying caught up” on my email, or the news, or the latest whatever that folks are wound up about. I’m just chilling at home with my Traveling Partner, gently, joyfully, calmly. It’s nice. Pleasant. Relaxed – and relaxing. Most of yesterday was spent in defiance of the busy-ness of the days prior to that; we hung out, listening to music, enjoying our morning coffee together, whiling away the hours content in each other’s good company, without any other agenda. Super chill. I don’t know how I could have spent the first day of this long chill weekend any better than that. I even managed to sleep in, yesterday. The entire day was spent present, aware, connected, and enjoying each moment without feeling any need to race “productively” to the next.

This morning, a new day begins. I’m awake earlier. A vague sensation that I’d meant to do something specific today nags at me, but I’ve reviewed the budget (it’s a payday, so that’s a thing I do), took a look at upcoming bills, and accounted for expenses we’d discussed being part of this pay cycle, before moving on. I guess maybe I mean to go grocery shopping, and since I’m sitting here drinking coffee, the lurking desire to also shop feels like a weight on my consciousness… damn, I’ve needed a proper break.

So, yeah… that’s what I’m up to, right now, taking care of myself and this fragile mortal vessel, by getting some down time. Maybe I write… maybe I don’t. I recommend it. 😉

It’s time to begin again… gently. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Action!

September 16, 2019 //
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The weekend was relaxed and joyful. A nice kind of weekend to have, and I enjoyed it. This morning – a Monday – it’s time to “begin again”, in the specific sense of returning to work routines with long-standing value, practicing those work practices that begin and complete the week, fulfilling the promise of my role. In other words – time to get back to work. 🙂

The trip down to the “home office” was worthwhile. I learned a lot, helped out some, and got things done. Still, it also through off most of my careful planning and everyday routines. A “positive disruption”, in a manner of speaking.

…I definitely needed a weekend with which to relax, recharge, and think things over. Now that I’ve had that, it’s time to make use of the the knowledge gained during the time spent away.

Definitely.

I double-check my backpack while I make my coffee. A few things get taken out. A couple things get put back in. I find my badge to get in and out of the office. Practical details. I consider the morning commute… drive? Light rail? I sip my coffee. I remind myself to take out the trash on my way out this morning. Generally speaking, a very ordinary morning… it’s enough. I don’t need anything fancy to begin a great day. 🙂

…For some reason, prosciutto with melon crosses my mind, along with thickly cut, crispy, locally produced bacon, and a mimosa made with fresh squeezed juice of delicious sumo tangerines, crosses my mind. My idea of “fancy in the morning”, perhaps? I giggle quietly to myself, sip my coffee, and take a moment to appreciate what a delightful and wily “brain attack” that bit of imagination is. It could render me entirely discontent, envying what I don’t have in front of me in the moment, and send me seeking things, and stuff… it didn’t, but it could have. lol  I sip my utterly average cup of morning coffee. I’m okay with it, just as it is; it’s enough. Sufficiency. Pretty powerful if I allow it to be.

I sit for some minutes, contemplating sufficiency, perspective, and the meaning of “having enough”, and sipping coffee. My next glance at the clock reminds me it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being
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