Tag: Journal

122 // Any Season at Any Time

Usually, I’m bright and bushy-tailed on Monday mornings, but I didn’t sleep all that well last night.

We had our first real thunderstorm of the season roll in through the evening and by the middle of the night; the rain was in sheets and thunder cracked so loudly that every window pane shook in its frame. I love the sounds of spring storms, but knowing as soon as I drifted off, another bolt would light up the room and send its boom through the city made it hard to relax.

The thunder eventually settled, but the rain never stopped. This morning the temperatures are slipping and rain is turning to fat flakes of heavy snow.

I feel like people in other cities think their weather is unpredictable, but they must not have spent a season along the front range. We had our driest April on record this year, and just as the calendar flips, we have our heaviest rainfall of the Spring. We’ve seen 80-degree days, and today we’re down in the 40s again. Wind, rain, sun, snow, all in a single week’s time. Spring here means being ready for any season at any time of day.

The goal today is to keep the chill and gloom at bay. All I want is to find a warm and cozy place to wait out the rain, but tasks and to-do are keeping me from it. I’m very near a place of resentment and irritability, but a bad mood won’t get me through any of it any faster. An ice-cold cup of cold brew coffee and a large “sunshine” smoothie* should keep one foot in front of the other through midmorning. I will deal with the afternoon as it arrives.

This evening it is important that I get back to working out at home. At the end of last week, I fell into a self-pity slump and ate a lot of unhealthy food, and spent too much time on the couch. I have to begin again before it gets too bad. I’m keeping up with my journal and picking up White Teeth before I fall too far behind. It doesn’t have to be a perfect week. It only has to be better than the last.

*Sunshine Smoothie recipe:

1 or 1/2 orange
1/2 cup frozen mango
1/4 cup frozen pineapple
1/4 cup baby carrots
2-3 slices fresh ginger
1 cup coconut milk or water
Any seeds, supplements, or powders you desire
Blend
Enjoy!

118 // Convincing Yourself

I’m waiting for the weekend again. This will be my last rushed morning for a while, I hope. I’ve been battling car troubles for quite a few months now and have had to find my way without transportation of my own. Not having a vehicle limits your freedom of movement. It limits your feeling of autonomy. It’s damn depressing.

I know this is quite a first-world problem to have, and I know that I am lucky to be able to afford not just a vehicle but the repairs it needs, but after years of battling driving anxiety, time without my car means setbacks.

The good news is the problem might have finally been identified and resolved and my sense of freedom could be restored as early as this evening. I already feel that inkling of impending doom in my gut, but the sense of excitement layered on top lets me know I have made so much progress through these fears.

I’ve been reflecting on the difference between the things I say I want and what my actions show that I want.

What I mean is, we pick out these little habits we want to have and think we can simply add each on top of the person we already are, but we fail to consider that since we aren’t currently the *kind* of person who does those things, we aren’t really the kind of person who truly wants to do those things either.

I say I want to work out, but I don’t. What I want is to be the kind of person who wants to work out. An enthusiastic 30-minute workout after work every day does not align with the person I am today. If it did, it wouldn’t be so hard, so uncomfortable, so damn frustrating. I wouldn’t have to fight, and bargain, and threaten, and shame myself into it. If I was the kind of person who wanted to work out, nothing could keep me from doing it.

To become that person, I have to change more than my schedule. I have to do more than want it. I have to become a person who wants it. I have to grow and change into someone different from who I am now, and that’s a hard thing to accept. I want to be me, minus 10 pounds. I want to be me, but feel solid, strong, and capable. I want to be me, but not me.

So, how do you become different? The easiest way? Simply pretend. If you pretend you are someone who eats less sugar, works out every day, excels at their job, writes every morning, reads every evening, if you pretend every moment to be the kind of person who does those things, pretty soon you won’t be able to tell the difference. You won’t even want to think about it.

And I try not to. It may be too soon to claim success, but I did start working out over a week ago and have kept up the habit every day but one. What has helped is turning off my mind. It helps to tell myself that I am now a person that does this, and then I slip into autopilot. Change clothes, get water, get the hand weights, and start the workout video—move, move move!

I don’t come back to myself until it’s over and by then the feeling of accomplishment far outweighs the exhaustion and pain.

The person you want to be is not the person you are now with better habits. The person you want to be is wiser, calmer, determined, and stronger-willed. That is what makes those better habits easier. Becoming them takes little more than convincing yourself that you already are.

116 // Understanding

A bit of a better start than I had yesterday. The week feels long already, but as the day progresses, and items on the list are either completed or canceled, time seems to pick up speed and I feel more and more motivated. I feel calmer and calmer.

Some of the things I worried about are not an issue and some things I thought would drag out are going to finish faster than expected. It may turn out to be a day worth being present for after all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about space and time lately and how each often feels like the other and how we will never have enough of both.

No matter how long I live, it won’t be long enough. No matter how many hours I can have to myself a day, I always want more. Space is limited too. No matter where I am there are other people, and even where I could tolerate their presence, I hardly get a break from the social expectations. When they enter, you must greet them. When they ask, you must answer. When they laugh, you laugh along, and when they cry you have to feel their pain too.

Humans expect you to mirror them, compliment them, or help them see. Other people expect you to belong to them and to make their world right. We forget other people have their own worlds, as real and all-encompassing as our own. We ask too much of each other sometimes.

I used to think I was an extrovert because of how easily I open up to people, make friends, and the sense of connection and community I cultivate but I never marked the way I feel irritable and exhausted after and how resistant I feel until I have time to recover. As I get older that exhaustion seems to set in earlier and earlier.

My desire to be alone confuses me and conflicts with my desire to be with people. It confuses my interest in people. I think I’d like to live outside of society, and simply observe for a time all the things people do and try to work out why.

By understanding others, perhaps I could understand myself a little more. I’ve been a person for just over 37 years now and I still have little idea of what that means. I’m sure by the time I work out even an inkling of an answer my lifespan will be near its expected end.

Existence is a long series of strange and confounding paradoxes.

115 // Digital Spring Cleaning

Hard start to the morning, but no one expects any easier on a Monday morning. I managed to will myself out of bed with my alarm, so I’m off to a good start, but poor quality sleep, general aches and pains, and a growing sense of overwhelm have depleted me before I could begin.

Today I am grateful for the mental and physical stimulation found in a big cup of strong cold brew coffee.

I have a few projects in the process for the morning, meetings through midday, and an afternoon I’m hoping to keep to myself. The schedule is light this week, but with us entering the last stretch of the school year, I have serious doubts it will stay that way.

I’m getting better at making use of the moments in between tasks and time spent waiting for the next event to begin. This is time to jot a few notes, write a paragraph, read a page or two, or even step outside for a short walk, though we aren’t having the best weather for it today. Still, the rest of the week is looking warmer and there’s no doubt my sour mood will sweeten in the sun.

Over the weekend, I accidentally broke my blog trying out a new theme. At first, I panicked. I cannot count the hours I put into making this place just right, but after poking around and trying to put things back the way they were, I realized this may have been the reset I needed and the perfect start to my digital spring cleaning.

When I reactivated the old theme, all the widgets in the sidebar were gone along with the custom CSS settings. I tried to rebuild them but with WordPress’s move to block editing, many of my old widgets and settings are no longer available in the form I added them in so many years ago. But, you know what? I never really needed all that, anyway. From now on, I’m going to keep it simple on the homepage but refine and expand my use of pages, tags, and categories.

My dream is to create a place in constant flux, a place with surprises, but I fear this theme, and perhaps even this platform is not conducive to that sort of digital growth. I can’t say what that means, but only ask that you bear with me through changes great and small.

111 // Wasted and Wanting

I woke this late this morning, groggy and grouchy. It turns out that when Amazon says a delivery could arrive at 4:00 AM, it will arrive at precisely 4:00 AM. The dog was sure this was finally the threat she’s always worried and warned us about and it took some time to convince her otherwise. Lesson learned.

These 30 short seconds ruined the end of my night and the beginning of my morning and it wasn’t until I left the house and arrived in my parking space at work that I was able to shake the irritable feeling. The good news is that I managed to make time for a 10-minute meditation in the car and it has calmed a lot of that anxiety and anger.

It wasn’t just this morning that I needed calming. Exhaustion put me in a bad mood yesterday evening too and I didn’t get down nearly what I planned or nearly the number of words down that I wanted. I have a post that is half-finished and the seed of another planted by the WordPress WordPrompt challenge. Perhaps I can make some progress if I can turn the day around?

The afternoon wasn’t spent as I hoped it would be, but it wasn’t wasted either. I helped out my coworkers and remembered that sometimes social interaction can be uplifting, inspiring, and energizing. The lesson didn’t last, of course. By the time I got home and through my third day of workouts—Woohoo!—I was ready to retreat into solitude again.

I feel bad for my wife sometimes. I know that work gets the best of me, but I promise it isn’t on purpose. It’s not that I am giving my time and energy away so much as it is being taken from me. Every day I set out to keep some part of myself aside, but there is so little I have available that before I know it I am wasted and wanting.

I think I may go back to taking 20-minute naps every evening after dinner. My wife calls them my “before bedtime” naps. She’s not a fan, I think, but it’s better than sulking on the couch through bedtime. This way I can feel refreshed enough to give her at least an hour or two of the version of me she misses all day and I’ll no doubt have more than enough fatigue left over for a good night’s sleep, too.

109 // Your Own and Only Obstacle

For the first time in many long and frustrating months, I managed to wake up with my alarm. I’ve tried so many tactics from going to bed earlier to putting my alarm across the room to teaching the dog to wake me up after she goes outside for the first time. None of it worked for more than a few days. What worked today, and what I hope will work long term, was telling myself two things just before bed the night before.

First, I reminded myself of how bad I feel when I hit snooze and I imagined how good I would feel after waking up earlier with time to prepare for the day and arrive to work gently. I also gave myself a reason to wake up early. I reminded myself that getting up early means I can begin my meditation practice again and I imagined how good that would feel, too.

The last time I sat for even a 10-minute session was probably more than a year ago. I started as a way to manage my stress levels, but I stopped because fatigue made early mornings impossible. After breaking a streak of daily sessions, sheer shame kept me from beginning again. I’m ashamed of that too.

This morning’s meditation wasn’t a particularly good one. My mind was all over the place planning my day and practicing possible conversations, and time and time again I had to *gently* return to counting my breaths, but even that worked like a charm. I opened my eyes and felt calm and capable of facing whatever the day had in store. I should have begun again a long time ago.

But the lesson of Zero is always relearned the hard way. The hardest part is forgiving yourself. The second hardest part is accepting you are back at the beginning.

And while I am at it, I think I’ll start working out again today too. I recently learned that the Down Dog apps are free for students and educators and I figured out how to mirror my phone screen to my TV, which means that I can work out, practice yoga, meditate*, and more from the comfort of my own home. I have no more excuses. All that is left is how easy it is, and how hard.

Since my ulcerative colitis diagnosis five years ago, it’s been hard to get back to being active on a regular basis. I was very sick, so doing all the things I used to love, like jogging and hiking, was not possible. In the last year, I have finally achieved remission, but I’m not the same person I was, and this certainly isn’t the same body. Everywhere I push, I meet resistance. My comfort zone has contracted significantly.

They don’t tell you that, as hard as it can be to get used to being sick, it’s almost as hard to get used to being well again, too. It’s hard to move from having no control over how you feel to taking responsibility for your health. It’s hard for you to be your own and only obstacle again.

*For meditation, I am actually still using the Headspace app, which is also free for educators.

108 // Mind and Pen in Hand

It was a slow start to the morning, but the day is picking up speed fast. I feel good, in general, but there is the threat of falling into a funk. What I mean is that the details of the day aren’t so bothersome, but the overarching essence is dull and irritating.

There’s very little work to do and sometimes that’s nice, but sometimes it can be worse than a full schedule. There’s less reason to feel motivated, and the empty hours tend to drag. There are two things I can do now. I can fill the empty hours with tasks and to-dos, or I can enjoy the privilege of long and languid time. Not everyone has hours they can relax in, hours they get to feel.

I think I’ll try a bit of both. The Pomodoro timer has gotten me through the morning, but I think this afternoon I’d like to cultivate and savor as much silence as I can, while I can. Instead of doing, I’m simply being. Instead of social media scrolling, I’m letting my mind and pen wander together hand in hand.

I’ve been rethinking the way I write here. I’ve been reevaluating my reasons why. I love my little blog, but lately, it has felt too static, too directionless, too impersonal when it was meant to be the very opposite. It was meant to be more.

I’d like to share more of my personality. I want this to be a place I run to again, a place that is mine. Recently, I stumbled across the concept of a “digital garden” and the ways one may differ from a personal website or blog. I’m interested but intimidated. I’d like to have something similar, but simpler. An intermediary between this and something that could grow.

Of course, I have other wide and varied interests. My ego is but one, and that’s what this place is for, but I often think of bigger things too—of humanity, of philosophy and physics. I want to have a place to run to for those thoughts, too. That’s a post for another day though…

On the surface, this is only a repackaging of old ideas and pursuits of mine that I’ve become disillusioned with or distracted from, but not quite. An incremental change, a small shift in perspective, can mean everything, I hope.

I thought my little dream was too small, but now I think small is exactly what I need. That small thing means everything. Now I think that growth is only the process, one that has no end or is an end in itself. An end to which the self is only the beginning, the rest is all exploration of life, day after day, minute by minute, with mind and pen in hand.

100 // Reorganization

I managed to rise early this morning, though I felt reluctant to begin the day. A start means there will be an end and an end to Sunday means the beginning of another long work week.

I tried to keep busy. When you don’t want to move, the last thing you should do is stop. I cleaned out the rest of the cat’s old things. I’m trying not to feel like I am erasing her, but without the food bowl, or the litter box, or the toys and treats, it’s as if she never existed. It helps to look at pictures and to remember that she was part of my life longer than most people I’ve known.

There is a sense of reorganization happening in my life now. It started with the season. When the weather finally warms, you long to open up, clear out, and clean up all that clutter and stagnant air.

It’s also my birthday month and I am readying for all the ways aging is going to change me—has already changed me. Every year the truth sinks in deeper. I am a year farther from my birth, from both the old traumas that held me in painful patterns and from all versions of me I could have been.

I’m also a year closer to my eventual death and a year further into the decline that will precede it. My body already isn’t what it used to be, but I know that if I make some changes now, changes I will be grateful for this time next year I am sure, I could reverse or at least halt the damage. I want to, or I want to want to, anyway.

Existential dread aside, I am feeling pretty good about turning a year older. I certainly don’t feel old and I certainly don’t feel like time is running out. Life has only ever gotten better and better, but sometimes better is as terrifying as worse.

099 // One Small Task at a Time

I woke up this morning and remembered. I remembered I needed to check on the cat, feed her and give her her medication, and I remembered I won’t need to do any of that anymore, ever. I remembered I will have to learn how to wake up, live, and go on a little bit differently now.

It’s amazing the impact such a small creature had on my day-to-day existence. It’s awesome to know that even this smallest presence can compound year after year. There is hope for me too.

The sun is bright and warm today and that is keeping me from falling into a proper funk. That doesn’t mean that motivation is coming easy, only that I have been given a fighting chance at productivity.

It helps to take the day one small task at a time. Start the laundry. Go to the home improvement store to pick up the benches we bought yesterday. Come home. Clean up the backyard. Eat lunch. Wash up the dishes. Move the cat’s old carrier and the heating pad. Acknowledge your grief. Write some words. Call your mom. Open a bottle of wine. Cook dinner.

The clouds are rolling in now. Beginning this evening, the warmth of Spring is forecasted to give way to Spring snow by Wednesday. I’m glad I got out in the sun today even if it was only to do yard work. It felt good to move, to sweat, to make something ready for new growth—the Earth, my life, myself.

093 // Time Already Spent

Taking it slow and easy today. I’ve injured my back doing something so mundane it’d be embarrassing to give the details and that has left a lot of my to-do list impossible without further pain. So, the bare minimum and plenty of time on a heating pad are all the Sunday plans I can manage.

I’m spending time with the cat too. We have less than a week left until our appointment to euthanize her…I hated typing that sentence. I’m sad it has to be done, though I know in my heart and am reminded every time I look at her that this is the right thing.

Still, saying it to other people puts a sour taste in my mouth and a small seed of guilt in my chest. I worry that there is a greater moral law I may be breaking. Life and death are not mine to wield, my soul screams, but my human mind says if you can then you must.

I’m trying hard not to make this about me, though. It helps keep the grief at bay if I focus on making her last days peaceful and enjoyable. I let her sleep on her heating pad as much as she wants. I’m giving her treats by the handful. She can lay with me, or on me, as she pleases, and, when she is crying, lost, or in pain, I find her, reassure her, or help her to the bed or couch to rest her bones again.

I’m dreading the coming week. Not just because of the cat situation, but the workload too. I’m also feeling anxious and afraid. I have to drive somewhere new. I have to meet with some very important people. I have to teach in front of a class and take a class to learn to teach another one too. And that isn’t even a full work week!

The foreseeable future is all filled up. The time already spent before the present could arrive. It’s not so bad though. It means next weekend is just a few—large but narrow—tasks away.