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One Quiet Moment

December 3, 2023 //
2

Another morning, up early for a walk, but instead I am enjoying a quiet moment of solitude, listening to the rain spattering the car (not mocking my intention so much as just the world doing its own thing). I sit for a long while just enjoying the sound of it.

I feel safe and at peace. The morning is quiet, if rainy, and pleasantly relaxed. I listen to the rain and watch the sky slowly take on color, and the horizon begins to reveal details as day breaks. The rain drums aggressively on the roof of the car like an agitated, nervous child. I’m warm and dry, dressed for a rainy day walk, if there is a suitable break in the rain (I don’t mind a drizzle and enjoy a misty rain, but this is more a drenching shower of a rainstorm).

Yesterday I spent the day making holiday cards. I’ve got a fairly short list of recipients, mostly family, and it was a fun activity. Today I’ll finish that project and tuck each card into an envelope ready to go to the post office on Monday.

I stir restlessly in my seat. The rain brings pain with it in the form of my arthritis flaring up. A walk would help, but I don’t see that happening this morning. I chuckle to myself; I’d certainly be on the trail at this point, if it weren’t raining so damned hard.

I smile and think fondly of my Traveling Partner. He delighted me yesterday by making excellent breakfast sandwiches after I returned from my walk. Totally a surprise. I stepped out of the shower smelling bacon, and found him in the kitchen making breakfast. Delicious. I felt so loved. It’s a feeling that lasts, and I feel it still. I sit with my smile and my thoughts, and hoping that he is sleeping in.

I don’t know what today holds, but if it’s another day like yesterday, my partner and I doing our own thing and hanging out together, it’ll be more than enough. I’m still coasting on that feeling of joy. I think about his project and mine, and I make a short list of things I also want to get done before I start a new work week.

… It’s almost time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being

Small Luxuries, Big Joy

November 30, 2023 //
0

I’m sipping an afternoon coffee. It’s delicious. I chuckle to myself very much aware that I may “pay for it” later, with degraded sleep quality, but… hell, my sleep quality was crappy last night, anyway, so maybe I’ll just wind down toward the end of the evening and sleep just fine in spite of the coffee? Maybe not. I shrug it off and enjoy my coffee – there’s no need to overthink it, or sacrifice my joy for a concern that is not now. 😀

Work is good. Life is good. I feel okay – sure, there’s pain, but it’s generally manageable. The view from the office is pleasant. This space is quiet. It is quite a nice afternoon, productive and relaxed. It’s a good time to take a break, and just… enjoy the moment.

…I think those words and my brain lobs a half-assed attack my way (“You must be overlooking something… what haven’t you done?!?!”). I shrug it off and sip my coffee, watching the raindrops slide down the recently cleaned office windows. I breathe, exhale, relax, and enjoy this break and this coffee, utterly guiltlessly without self-consciousness or doubt. As I said; work is good.

I sit with my thoughts awhile; another small luxury (having this quiet space in which to reflect). I feel my afternoon anxiety medication kick in – it’s much more obvious when I don’t seem to be needing it. A leaf falls slowly beyond the window… I’m puzzled by that, since the urban tree tops are below me. I watch it fall, as if in slow motion, caught on some breeze, perhaps. The rain falls, gently, still drenching everything on the streets and sidewalks below. There are puddles in the park across the street. The sky is an even neutral gray. I sip my coffee, and sigh contentedly. It’s a good day to be this particular human being, in this particular moment, now. I enjoy it while it lasts. (“This too will pass.”) The quiet is luxurious. I feel infused with simple joy.

…I miss my Traveling Partner, and commit to working from home tomorrow. I smile, pausing to feel the luxury of having this option, and the opportunity to choose when and how to exercise it. I’ve been tied to a desk, or punching a clock – I did it for years. Decades. The feeling of autonomy in my working hours, and even in the location from which I work, is a pretty wonderful luxury. While I do hope I “always” have it for the remainder of my working adulthood, I hope even more to unfailingly appreciate it while I do – and hopefully not be grumpy about it if circumstances change. (I’d like to be my best self, generally, and for me that woman is gracious, understanding, adaptable, and pleasant to be around… I do my best. My results vary. lol)

I take a last sip of my coffee and sigh. It’s time to begin again.

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

Context (You Don’t Know)

November 27, 2023 //
0

This morning I “hate humanity”. I mean… it’s not even humanity’s fault, this morning. I have a headache. Base of the skull, at the back, just where my neck connects. Does it feel like a tension headache? No. Doesn’t feel muscular at all, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. I don’t know. I know I have a headache, and it is pretty fucking terrible. My Traveling Partner suggests drinking more water. Yep. On it, already. Makes sense. Maybe it will help. I’m just saying; I have this headache and it colors my entire experience of life and my perspective on humanity and the world, generally.

I’m making a point of mentioning this for a reason; you wouldn’t know if I didn’t if I didn’t tell you, but you’d likely still experience something or other unpleasant if you had to interact with me right now, and you’d potentially not know why things went the way they did, due to that lack of information. You don’t know what you don’t know, and nearly everyone is going through something, quite silently and alone with their shit. That missing context matters. Be patient with people. Be kind. Be sympathetic and empathetic and compassionate. Be aware.

…And also… take care of yourself and use your words. No one is going to read your mind.

Fucking hell, this headache, though… right now I don’t care that it is the start of the holiday season, or… mostly anything. I’m just cross and headache-y.

…I’d very much like to begin again, please…

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, autumn, breathe, Free Will, health, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices

Find Joy or Make Some

November 26, 2023 //
0

It’s evening. The long holiday weekend is over. Pie has been eaten. A holiday meal has been enjoyed. Thanks have been given, and the holiday season has begun. The tree is up – and even decorated. It’s a lovely quiet evening.

One of the new ornaments, made with love by my Traveling Partner.

I’ve managed to irritate my Traveling Partner in some small way. Not with any intent to do so. Not even sure what exactly has annoyed him, but I don’t care to make it any worse, and we have spent the entire weekend together almost continuously. lol I head to the studio to work on the holiday cards; they need to be in the mail within the week to reach everyone before the Giftmas holiday. I look over my materials. Pick out some patterns I like and get to work on my layout. Using the Cricut gets easier with every project (even for me! lol).

It’s a nice sort of break. I make time for a moment of writing, too. It’s been quite a lovely weekend, and I’d like to make a point of appreciating that, and reflecting on this tremendous quantity of joy – soak in it, and soak it up, and fill my heart with all this love. It’s a nice way to spend a few minutes.

Making time for creative projects also fills me with joy. It’s a way of creating joy out of chaos or conflict that I find useful; step back from the mess, and create something new and beautiful. It’s a form of tidying up, I suppose, which also calms me and fills me with joy. Creating order from disorder is, for me, a self-care practice. 😀

How was your holiday? Have you taken time to cherish the moments of joy? Have you shared them with others in conversation or correspondence? If the holiday was less than ideally joy-filled, putting focus on the things that did work is a nice way to bring some balance to your recollections. I breathe. Relax. Smile. It’s been a lovely holiday, and it doesn’t require much in the way of effort to reflect on the joy it brings me – but what does require effort is to make the time to do that willfully, with intention. So, I do that while I’m taking time for myself in the studio. Creative work. Emotional work. They “play nicely together”. 😀

Tomorrow? Monday. Time to begin again.

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

Raindrops & Anxiety

November 22, 2023 //
0

I woke to my silent alarm this morning feeling vaguely uneasy. It developed into a pretty notable moment of anxiety in the time between getting dressed and making my way to the living room, where my Traveling Partner was sitting, already awake, headphones on watching something or other on YouTube. I’d planned to work from home, although he had more than hinted that it would be a good day (for me) to go to the office (for him). I figured I’d just get a walk in, early, let him sleep awhile, then work from home, but… why the hell would I drag him along if my anxiety was going to flare up?

“Anxiety” 2011

I could hear the rain hitting the rooftop vent while I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. There’d be no walk this morning – that was when I decided to make the drive into the city after all. Maybe traffic would be light, being the day before a holiday? (It was.) Maybe the office would be quite comfortable since the HVAC was repaired yesterday? (It is.) Maybe I’d feel more focused, and less inclined toward being anxious if I were wrapped in the peculiarly routine mundanity of “the office”? (So far, so good.) So, off I went…

PDX on a rainy Autumn morning.

I sigh and sip my coffee. The day started with that moment of anxiety, but it hasn’t continued, and I feel okay. Absolutely ordinary self-doubt and second-guessing and bullshit that I can certainly get past, given some time and attention, and the appropriate self-care tools. Is it “holiday anxiety”? I mean, honestly, it could be… pretty ordinary human stuff right there. I’m prepared for the day (and the weekend), more or less. We’ve decided on a simple fairly traditional holiday meal to kick of the season, and it’s just the two of us this year, so the modest meal should be manageable for me to tackle on my own, which is necessary this year; I expect my Traveling Partner may spend much of the weekend actually working due to a fairly important project that dropped on him earlier this week (very exciting). Seems likely to be a lovely little holiday.

…I remind myself that his birthday is also coming up fast, and although I’ve already done something for that in a manner of speaking (“…Let’s call this your birthday/Giftmas present, then!”), I’m not the sort to let his birthday pass with not a single actual gift on the day, and I think I’d like to do something special for dinner and dessert… I amuse myself briefly considering the matter, and looking over his gift wish list and wondering how current it actually is. (I’ll have to ask.)

I make a mental note to remind my partner I’d like to get the holiday decoration stuff down out of the attic space, and find myself wondering if that stuff would be a better fit for the storage unit, where I could more easily retrieve it myself without help…? I generally spend the latter part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend decorating for the Yule season and preparing the holiday “pudding”.

…I’m feeling very festive this year, but also feeling very much “behind on things” somehow…

Funny. When I paused to write, this morning, I had very different thoughts in my head. Something altogether else, that I found perhaps more suited to something I might write on Thanksgiving… something about gratitude, about friends cherished over years, about sharing recipes and memories. But these ended up being the words that tumbled out and landed on this page. I’m okay with that. I’m feeling festive and grateful, and I’m pleased that my anxiety has receded. I find myself hoping that my Traveling Partner went back to bed after I left, and wondering what woke him so early this morning (and hoping it wasn’t me, somehow).

I sip my coffee and “take inventory”. I’m in pain today. It’s the weather, and my arthritis, and the sort of “nothing to see here” bullshit to do with aging and old (physical) trauma. I take something for it, and move on with the moment – it’s already time to begin again, and I’ve got shit to do to get ready for the holiday cooking (tomorrow) and work (today).

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights
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