Better than Nothing

I've been neglecting this place something fierce and I apologize. Life has been throwing me a lot of emotional curve balls lately and it's proven a little harder to stay focused than usual. I did check out of the inn on Habit today, though, and I've gotten some things accomplished that I've been also neglecting for days. I decided after the fact that today's goal was laundry for the spousey-face. That's in the dryer now. I'm making banana bread for the second week in a row. Hoping this recipe turns out a little better. I tried a new one last week and it was a little more dry than I care for. It wasn't bad, though. 

I'm trying to figure out what to eat. I haven't done that yet today. At this rate I might as well just wait for the bread to finish and cool. I'll probably have a headache by then, though. I am just rambljng here. It's a thing that I do sometimes. I'm just glad that I'm writing here at all. 

I'm not keeping up with my goal of writing here every day. Days are strange. I'm writing here now. 

Not Even 100 Characters

Floors and then I'm free. Just do the floors!

And... We're Back!

Things have been a little off. I won't actually say they're getting back to normal, now, because they aren't, but I am in a place where I have a lot of time to focus on myself and the things I need to get done, so here I am back at the old keyboard again, where I belong. Longest sentence, ever.

My goal today was a little vague, but it involved the kitchen and I got enough accomplished that I don't feel guilty calling it good. Tomorrow, I am stating now, I am going to finish the dishes and do the floor. I'll probably work some more in the bedroom, too, but anything beyond the kitchen floor and the dishes is just extra. Wednesday the focus shifts to laundry. The focus really should be on laundry more, but there is so much to catch up on everywhere that I don't want to burn myself out the first day. I should have all week to get everything squared away. You never know when circumstances will change, though, too.

I've been keeping myself sane and motivated by breaking for video games regularly. My Animal Crossing town didn't even know what to think about the fact I was back after misplacing the game for six months. I found Rune Factory 4 today, too, so I think that'll be tomorrow's distraction. Tonight's unwind activity will probably be the Sims. I'm playing on regular life span with the "self sim" I created and her adopted daughter just became a teen so there's plenty to do there. Throwing video games at myself between periods of serious productivity in other places seems to keep me from becoming a dull boy.

A Little Headspace.

I'm sure I've mentioned here at some point, a site I found called headspace.com. It's a site that offers guided meditations. The first ten are free and a kind of course on the basics of meditation presented in a way that builds upon itself for ten ten minute sessions designed to be completed over the course of ten days, one session a day. I completed the free ten sessions quite some time ago and the skills they taught me have proved invaluable. (This is in no way a paid endorsement of any kind. The folks at headspace.com do not know I'm writing this and I will see no profit from it whatsoever.) I've been just going back to that final session whenever I need a little headspace and that's worked out well enough. I've always been very curious, though, about what the rest of the site behind the pay wall had to offer. There are very few sites I would even consider paying to use, but the free portion of this site was just so useful to me, I couldn't help but wonder what more they might have to offer.

The other night I was talking to a dear friend of mine and he mentioned that he's taken to meditating every morning. I pointed him to headspace.com and told him how highly I thought of their free program and that I'd been thinking of subscribing the next time I had expendable income to expend on such things. Moments later an email dropped into my box with code for a gifted year of the service. He told me that he thought it was something I needed in my life more than anything right now: a little headspace.

Two days into the extended experience and I am not disappointed. The next section of sessions are five minutes longer and I find that I'm ready for that after the first ten. I find myself extremely collected after I finish the sessions and am able to channel stress out of the body in a much more positive manner than without taking the time to stop and really let my mind become as close to silent as it can possibly get (which isn't always that impressive, but always useful.) 

I love my friend for his generous gift. The thought behind it is what makes it so special. He knows that my life is in a place of chaos and upheaval at the moment and that the only thing that is going to bring peace is a peaceful mind and calm thoughts --the ability to move forward in this situation not stifled by the anxieties and insecurities of the mind. He is a true friend of the highest magnitude. 

I'll talk more in the future about what the site has to offer behind the pay wall, for those curious. So far, I am extremely happy with the experience. We'll see if it's worth the $8 a month. I am pretty optimistic and quite certain that it will be a tool I use often throughout the course of the year.

Gawtcha

Everyone's life reaches a turning point. How you evolve and develop when this turning point occurs is what makes the measure of a "man." It's hard when you are swept up in someone else's turning point so deeply that it is also your own. There are make or break moments in life and they are generally surrounded by harder circumstances than you think you can face. But, sometimes, life just needs to do what it has to do to open eyes and unlock hearts. Sometimes you can't see the forest, the trees, or even the sky above you because the world is so dark and your mind is so shrouded in fog. At these times, often, no words will break you from this dungeon, self-inflicted or not, so life has no choice but to shove you to the ground and knock the mud out of your head by force. You have to open your eyes because suddenly they burn too painfully when they are closed. There is a Faery in Brian Froud's oracle deck called Gawtcha. This is the role of Gawtcha in one's life. Gawtcha pulls the wool over your eyes and the rug out from under you in order to show you what you need to see. It's a jolt. It hurts. It feels like a cruel joke. But if you wait too long to help yourself, if you can't, Gawtcha knows it needs to happen. You need the "got ya" in order to see what you just couldn't see before. Sometimes what seems like someone else's Gawtcha, is your Gawtcha, too. Ok. You've got me. My eyes are opening. Eyes around me are opening. Let's move into the next phase with the veil of self-delusion lifted. Let's turn "got ya" into "got you."

Optimism

I don't know the exact moment it happened, or even if it happened all at once or over the course of days, weeks, months, years (a lifetime?) I just know that I used to be an optimist. It used to believe in the good in everything, even if I wasn't able to see it. I used to be believe everything happens for a reason. Was it some moment in time this positive outlook was destroyed or did it simply erode? Either way, it's had a detrimental effect on my psyche. Pessimism has become a self fulfilling prophecy. That is what pessimism is at its core. Pessimism does not allow you to succeed. Pessimism does not allow you to believe you can succeed. It's not preparing for the worst so the best is even better. I'm a worrier and a planner and that has nothing to do with pessimism. Being prepared for all outcomes is not pessimism. Being sure that the bad outcome is the one that you're going to get is not being prepared, it's engaging in self sabotage. Getting your hopes up and having them dashed is not optimism. Optimism is believing, even when they have been dashed, that failure is not an end but a beginning and that you fail so that you can succeed. This is the person that I used to be. This is the person whom I need to be again. Somewhere along the line I stopped believing. When you stop believing you feed that nasty energy in the world and it breeds around you like a Cancer. It circles me now, threatening to swallow me whole. But it's not going to do that. This is not how the story of m life goes. Even through the bad things that I can not change, my life is better than this. That it optimism. 

Words

I'm having trouble processing my life right now, as I'm sure anyone in my position would. Mind doesn't know exactly where to go with it and my body is a wreck trying to direct the tension in a thousand directions that all lead to the dead end of a closed circuit system. I find myself feeling more feelings of compassion and empathy than I've ever felt, but also a deeply unsettling abhoration for the act that has been committed. How does one reconcile a strong sense of hatred for an act with a strong sense of love and empathy for the one that committed the act. That is not a real question. There is no real answer. I am in no way sympathetic to the act or why it was committed because it simply should not ever be, but I feel a deeply resonating compassion toward the soul who must now bear the heavy consequences of the act, not because of the consequences, but because of their affect on an already mangled psyche. Sometimes, you're the one who puts that last straw into you own load. I don't want to see a soul broken but a soul rise from these ugly and disgusting ashes. I want to see change and healing and growth and reconciliation with the reality and the ideal. I want this to be the moment that marks the end of a long suffering not in darkness but in light. I want there to be light out of this. Brigid let there be light out of this.