Breathe, exhale, relax, and get ready for a new start. Was yesterday bad? Let that shit go; it was yesterday. Today is a new day. Was yesterday great? Wonderful! Here’s hoping you ride the wave of joy and contentment into this new day. Begin again, regardless. Give yourself a fresh start. Turn the page. Make the choices that reflect the person you most want to be. “Being” is a practice. “Becoming” is a process. You get a new start on both with each sunrise.
What will you do with it?
I can’t walk your mile, or undertake the verbs you’ll need to do to get where you want to go… But you can. (And you must, otherwise you’re just sort of standing around waiting for shit to happen to you.) The choices are yours on your journey. Choose wisely. Choose to be the best version of yourself you know how to be, today. Then, tomorrow, do that again, more and better, because each day will bring you the additional knowledge and experience to do that, too. Incremental change over time; we become what we practice.
None of this is “easy”, but most of it is quite simple. It just requires action and presence. Yours. Your choices. Your actions. Your journey. Don’t like where life is taking you? Choose to follow a different path. The choices (and the power to choose) are yours.
I smile to myself and watch the sun rise. A new day unfolds ahead of me. So many choices. I feel hopeful and merry. It’s time to begin again.
I’m watching the sun rise from my halfway point on my morning walk. It’s not exactly chilly, and today will likely be another hot one, but I am grateful to have worn this fleecy long-sleeved top. I’m comfortable as I sit here.
I made a point to have an expectation-setting conversation with the Anxious Adventurer yesterday evening. It went decently well, although I am certain I’ll be needing to reinforce a lot of very basic stuff with my well-intentioned (but sometimes surprisingly ignorant) stepson. It’s a process. Growth happens over time with persistence, patience, and practice.
It was clear some of what I had to say was hard for the Anxious Adventurer to hear in the moment. I felt for him; it’s a lot to learn and grow into when we uproot ourselves from what we know to embrace something entirely new. I’m sitting and thinking about two important things he communicated to me during our conversation. Firstly, he is suffering from a ton of self-loathing, which is sad to hear (a lot of us have had to deal with it, ourselves). He’s a rather human assortment of good intentions and poor decision making that seems pretty ordinary, really. Nothing especially hateful or disappointing. He added the second point, which is that he doesn’t have a sense of who he would ideally like to be, and that he lacks a clear picture of what that could look like (or what it would require to achieve). Rough. How does a person go from “here” to “there” without a sense of some sort of general direction to go?
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I take a moment to feel grateful for my sense of self, and my sense of purpose.
I sit with my thoughts and consider what tools and practices brought me face to face with the woman in the mirror, and allowed me to begin building a clearer picture of the person I most wanted to be. I think about the conversations and self-reflection involved in eventually learning to be my own best friend, to be the first one to really listen to myself, reliably, and to embrace the person I am as actually worthy. It’s been years of practice, of self-care and self-reflection, and of therapy… I can (and do) encourage the Anxious Adventurer to seek therapy, definitely. There’s so much of this fairly mundane shit that he could so easily work through himself, it’s hard to know where to begin with a suggestion… (I’m no therapist). I do dislike seeing my stepson suffer, but realistically he’s the one who has to do the verbs here. No map. No user’s manual. Life is messy and sometimes complicated. Being human can be so difficult to do well.
What matters most?
How did I get from there to here?
What practices are most likely to produce quick encouraging results?
How can I most helpfully foster growth and appropriate behavior without undermining the Anxious Adventurer’s agency or taking on work he needs to do for himself?
What exercises in meditation and self-reflection can I recommend that will help him understand his lived values, select the values he wants to live with real care, and sort out who he most wants to be?
I sit awhile longer with my thoughts and my questions. Soon enough it’ll be time to head back to the car and start a whole new week. My Traveling Partner’s surgery is now only a week away. There’s a lot going on in life. It’s a bit chaotic and rather demanding to adult at the required level. S’ok, I’ve got practices for this. It’s just a peculiarly busy time.
Most of the time, things are pretty ordinary.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. This morning’s sunrise wasn’t much to talk about, but it’s a new day nonetheless. There are practices to practice, and it’s time to begin again. I get to my feet with a sigh, straightening my stiff legs, and hit “upload” before I walk on…
It’s early, still. I’m at the trailhead and ready to walk a couple more miles in these boots. Soon. I jot down some notes, details of my thoughts as I made the drive to this place. Notes to guide a conversation with the Anxious Adventurer a bit later today. Problematic assumptions may have been made, and these require clarification, and a clear resetting of expectations. Boundaries need to be clearly pointed out, and reinforced. Household rules and day-to-day “standard operating procedures” need to be clarified. We’re all in this together, but it’s frankly not a democracy (at all), and it’s important we all have a shared understanding of some basic details regarding housekeeping, basic manners, and the practical requirements that everyone “hold up their end” without nagging or dropping a fuck-ton of additional emotional labor on me (or on my Traveling Partner). So… I make some notes. I know what I’d like to communicate. I know I want to maintain a comfortable, considerate tone, and that I have a further obligation to myself to avoid undermining (or renegotiating) my firm boundaries.
I sigh quietly to myself. I catch a frown as it develops, when I wonder “how the hell did I get here?” – I’m childless by choice. I for sure did not anticipate being in a position of having to provide “parenting” to what appears to be a grown ass adult. Another sigh, and I hit the trail with my thoughts.
A new day, a new opportunity to begin again.
The morning air is still and warm, hinting at a hot day ahead. It’s so quiet, the sound of my footsteps and my tinnitus are the loudest sounds I hear. There’s a police siren in the distance. Sounds of traffic on the highway along the edge of this protected nature preserve. No breeze. Somewhat humid. The feel of the air seems “heavy”, and I am reminded of summer mornings growing up in Maryland. I get to my halfway point before the sunrise and sit down on the convenient bench to meditate, reflect, and write, as I watch the sun rise.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a pleasant quiet morning. I savor the moment. There’s no reason to rush this; the moment is mine to enjoy.
I had an exceptional and excellent day with my Traveling Partner, yesterday. With his pain more skillfully managed (finally), and less chaos and stress generally, we comfortably relaxed in each other’s good company, talking and connecting, sharing, and really enjoying each other. It was a wonderful day enjoying the companionship of my best friend and lover, my Traveling Partner on life’s journey. We laughed and talked deeply and intimately. We shared the serious and the lighthearted. It was a great day, well-spent.
… Maybe today will be another like yesterday…
… Maybe it won’t be…
… What will I do with the opportunities ahead of me? What choices will I make? There are so many opportunities, so many choices. So much of my experience is within my own control…
I watch the lowland mist drift over the marsh as the sun rises into a shell-pink sky. I listen to birdsong. Beautiful morning. Beautiful moment. I sit smiling, feeling grateful for this sunrise (and so many others). I think about how far I’ve come as a person, and how much my Traveling Partner and I have grown, together. I think about the lessons I’ve learned over time, and what matters most (to me). I reflect on how best to communicate these ideas in words, and ponder what to share and what to keep for myself.
Self-reflection is a critical practice, for me. It comes with an interesting complication in the subtle distinction between reflection and rumination. Self-reflection is deeply informative and can guide my decision-making in a healthy way. I learn a lot through observation and self-reflection. Rumination, on the other hand, generally provides me with nothing productive, serving to reinforce thinking errors and “doom spirals”, and retraumatize myself with “ancient pain”, and internalized bullshit. Rumination masquerades as self-reflection, but doesn’t “do the work”, and doesn’t get me anywhere. I sit with that a while, and consider how best to communicate the distinction to someone struggling to find their own way.
Another critical practice for me is practicing a positive outlook, generally. I don’t mean faking positivity – that can quickly become toxic, in spite of the positive veneer. I mean to say I practice being authentically positive as much as I am able, and seek to minimize any tendency to bitch and complain “recreationally”, or for an effect, or for humor. Negativity is unpleasant, contagious, and corrosive in most social interactions. Time spent bitching about a challenge could be better spent on problem solving and action. I’m not a fan of forced smiles or inauthentic cheerfulness. I also don’t think the choices are “either/or”. I do my best to be positive, sincerely, and to be grateful, and aware that things could generally be far worse. It does take actual practice sometimes, although continued practice over time has truly changed my thinking and improved my overall outlook on life. Worth the effort.
The sunrise as a metaphor for incremental change over time.
I practice. I change. I begin again. It’s a journey, and the journey is the destination.
Choose your steps wisely. Select your practices with care. Keep practicing. Fail, and reflect, and learn, and begin again. Repeat as needed. We become what we practice. Who do you most want to be? What are you practicing? Will your current practices reliably get you to your goals? What needs to change – your practices, or your goals?
Seeking illumination in a sunrise.
I sit a while with my thoughts. Pleasant morning for it. Soon enough it’ll be time to head back up the trail and return home to enjoy the day with my partner. Soon enough it will be time to begin again.
I finished my walk with a contented sigh, and changed from my boots to my shoes, then looked over my list of errands and things to get done. I’ve got a couple stops to make on my way home. Routine stuff. “Normal.”
An ordinary beginning to a new day.
I look over my grocery list, hoping to avoid having to make several trips to the store, where one would do.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s time to begin again, and I’ve got everything I need to enjoy a lovely day. What will I do with it? I sit with my thoughts a while, until the clock catches my attention.
I snarl quietly with cantankerous humor at the mindless “AI” (it isn’t) making suggestions regarding my grammar. Stupid thing can fuck right off. I’ve no interest in sounding “all same-y” as every other writer on the internet, so I’ll be using my own voice, thanks. lol That’s one very nice detail of being a human primates; I can choose the tools I wish to use.
I smile to myself, content with the morning thus far.
I woke from a restless interrupted sleep, head aching. I slept on something wrong, and I woke with mild vertigo, which is taking its sweet damned time passing. I woke with my guts in a knot, and drenched in a sticky sweat. I drag myself through something like a morning routine, eager to get to the part where I’ve made coffee, and get to drink it. It doesn’t really help (or hasn’t yet), but it feels comforting and familiar.
I got through the noisy bit of the night by sleeping with noise-canceling headphones on for a while. I woke, again, some hours later and the noisy bathroom fan in an adjacent room had finally been silenced. I thought I’d return to a better, deeper sleep, but instead the remainder of my sleep was filled with restless worried dreams that I no longer remember.
…This cup of coffee is pretty good…
I look around the room and sigh. I have to pack, and it’s time to go home. I’m less than eager to do the packing part, but I’m definitely ready to return home. I miss my Traveling Partner, and I am eager to be in his arms and in his good company again, although we really weren’t ever entirely out of touch. That’s a level of cruelty I don’t aspire to, even when I most need time alone. It’s nice that my partner misses me when I am away, and likes to stay in touch. I feel loved.
I gaze out the open balcony door into the peculiar gray sky. It’s almost sunrise, but it’s another one that I won’t actually see, obscured by dense clouds. I think about getting a walk in, but this morning I just want to drink my coffee, write, watch the sky, pack, and return home. (I’ll probably still get a walk in, after this first cup of coffee…) I think about how pleasant a shower will feel, and wonder whether to do that before or after I pack? Like other thoughts, this one surfaces, I consider it without really engaging with it more directly, and let it pass by like one of the gulls beyond the balcony gliding over the emptied bay. I spend a moment contemplating the bay’s changing views, mud flats at low tide, filled by the incoming tide and looking very much like a proper bay once the tide has filled it again. I could watch this view for days – and do, every time I come here. How many times now? A dozen? More? A reliably satisfying getaway, whether I go to rest and read, or to paint, or to walk the beach and take pictures.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve enjoyed this quiet self-care time. I feel rested and ready to resume caregiving… and a good thing, too! It’s already time to begin again.
Evening Light 