Posts tagged with "winter"

almost like the blues

Now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and sur­pris­ing things, and some­times lit­tle won­drous things, spill out in me con­stant­ly, and I can count on noth­ing.

—A Scanner Darkly

Winter has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a dif­fi­cult time. In my youth, the hol­i­days were filled with fam­i­ly gath­er­ings where I nev­er found my place1. Then I start­ed com­ing into my own, but every­one else began spend­ing time with their sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, leav­ing me an observ­er with a sur­ro­gate fam­i­ly. Eventually, I grew the need for a con­nec­tion with peo­ple who could bet­ter under­stand the per­son I’d become, and again found myself in exile.

cat with bass guitar

This year is no dif­fer­ent. The weath­er has been par­tic­u­lar­ly pun­ish­ing, with extreme cold fronts that make any form of trav­el a lit­er­al pain. It’s a fine line between inspi­ra­tion and oppres­sion when trapped in a win­ter won­der­land. Even after a week of Darren’s com­pa­ny, along with new instru­ments and some of the stick­i­est of the icky, I haven’t been able to shake this feel­ing of lone­li­ness.

Continue read­ing “almost like the blues”…

  1. Now I real­ize that being forced to spend a night with a ran­dom assort­ment of peo­ple is a crap­shoot at best. [↩]

nothing lasts, but nothing is lost

It’s been a few weeks since I left the com­ic book shop. I’m glad to have gone through the expe­ri­ence of being a pro­fes­sion­al nerd, to have met the par­tic­u­lar set of chal­lenges involved and flour­ished, but I could tell it was time to quit when the stress was car­ry­ing over from one shift to the next, even with days between.

Without the need to run tour­na­ments, or the pres­sure of deal­ing with cus­tomers, I have a chance to breathe again. That means doing my best not to wor­ry about being pro­duc­tive or hap­py. Just try­ing to feel okay can be enough of a day-to-day chal­lenge.

Cat in Tigger costume

Their spe­cial bond comes from the fact that she lets him get away with more than I do.

Heather and I are tak­ing the next few months off to regain our bal­ance and adjust to our new dosages of SNRIs. Now that I’m in a place where I’m feel­ing more safe and secure, I can tell it’s still hard for me to let go of neg­a­tive thoughts, even when the stim­u­lus is gone. I’m com­ing to terms with the fact that I’ve been fight­ing depres­sion my whole life, and the fact that I’ll like­ly be on even more med­ica­tion for the rest of it1.

I wish I could turn to writ­ing for cathar­sis, but I’m not strong enough to process the mem­o­ries. Parts of the past are still too recent, too famil­iar, too painful. And some­times it’s hard to think of the per­son I was only a year ago, even know­ing how far I’ve come. I’m start­ing to real­ize that time is what I need most, which means I also need patience and trust from my friends.

Cat and Magic: The Gathering

The only com­mit­ments I’ve kept are my play­group on Sundays, and my Wednesdays with Lisa. Otherwise, I’m lost in Guild Wars; the eas­i­est way to escape and feel pro­duc­tive at the same time is to work on dai­ly achieve­ments by slay­ing drag­ons.

And that’s how I lost the Autumn. I did­n’t even real­ize the leaves had turned and fall­en. Now that I’m not work­ing (and I’m the one who always hosts), it feels like I nev­er leave the house. The only reminder that win­ter is here is when the heat comes on, and the smell of dry fur­nace air fills the room. I was look­ing for­ward to the first snow­fall of the sea­son, but the plows have already been out and I haven’t had a chance to take it all in.

  1. On top of the anti-inflam­ma­to­ries, pro­bi­otics, and psyl­li­um husks I take every day to man­age my col­i­tis. [↩]

for you, i am sweeping words together

Winter has always been dif­fi­cult at times. At ‑15 or below, breath becomes a lay­er of ice on the win­dows when parked out­side, and I can do noth­ing but wait for the car to warm up again so I can see enough to dri­ve. At that point, it means I’m sit­ting in the car for longer than my com­mute. I try to take it as a good way to prac­tice patience, but it’s a hard wait after an eight hour shift on my feet. It’s still win­ter in all it’s muf­fling glo­ry though, the time in the year I most appre­ci­ate liv­ing in Canada. Girls and cats alike are more affec­tion­ate too, and I don’t mind being the source of heat.

cats and winter

I tend to get up around sun­rise now, and every time I step out­side before the rest of the world wakes up, it feels like I’m born again. It’s a chance for me to hit the reset but­ton on the last day. To let go of the past, even if it hap­pened only sev­en hours ago, and become a blank slate.

I also grad­u­al­ly broke the habit of check­ing my feeds after feel­ing jad­ed about news and media, then com­ing across this arti­cle. After months of absten­tion, I can say that I’ve gained time and lost noth­ing. It’s left me feel­ing increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the world, but I know that means I’m begin­ning to learn what real­ly mat­ters.

pulling weeds and planting flowers

Few peo­ple have been able to fill the void late­ly. The ones who do sing to me the unashamed­ly erot­ic songs of John Dowland and help me test new decks.

Through it all, I’ve been try­ing to take five breaths every now and then, inhal­ing and exhal­ing a lit­tle more ful­ly than usu­al. Trying not to live like it’s a fri­day every day. Trying to fig­ure out if I should apol­o­gize for using your song to score the moments I shared with some­one else. Trying to rec­on­cile my old Taoist beliefs with my new Buddhist views. Trying to be hap­py with the per­son I am, instead of let­ting dis­con­tent dri­ve self-improve­ment.

house in the woods

 

Frigid win­ter days are teach­ing me patience and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Some are eas­i­er than oth­ers. I’ve been work­ing with the fick­le swings instead of against them. Otherwise, it’s a con­stant strug­gle when try­ing to impose sta­t­ic order on inher­ent­ly unsta­ble process­es. The hard part is mak­ing plans when you don’t know how you’ll feel from one day to the next.

Jesse arranges

Back in the day when we were doing cov­ers of Frank Ocean songs. One of the most rec­og­niz­able things about Jesse’s room are instru­ments strewn about.

The great­est test of my progress so far will be an acoustic show Jesse asked me to play with him on Sunday. Anxiety has been get­ting the bet­ter of me late­ly, and the prospect of hav­ing only two nights of rehearsal does noth­ing to assuage this.

I’ve been keep­ing in mind that we were able to pull off a decent per­for­mance last time when I did­n’t know the show was going to hap­pen until a few hours pri­or; one of those exer­cis­es to fos­ter pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences and com­bat neg­a­tiv­i­ty bias. Fortunately, Jesse is a great front­man to be behind, cause he com­mands the atten­tion of any­one watch­ing, also tak­ing the atten­tion away from ner­vous fin­gers and live jit­ters.

cat and girl

 

The jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery has been dif­fi­cult. When there’s a his­to­ry of trau­ma, it’s inevitable that an uncom­fort­able feel­ings get stirred up every now and then. I take care of myself by mak­ing sure I see the impor­tant peo­ple on a con­sis­tent basis and liv­ing in those moments. The lit­tle ways to heal are found in both the expe­ri­ences them­selves and the time one takes to inter­nal­ize those expe­ri­ences.

This is how I learn that self-com­pas­sion isn’t self-pity, and that most peo­ple bring less kind­ness to them­selves than to oth­ers. To get on my own side, I’ve been visu­al­iz­ing myself as a child, just as wor­thy of care as any oth­er. I would wish the best for that lit­tle per­son, and it helps me under­stand that I should wish the best for myself as well.

torpor

The hol­i­day sea­son is offi­cial­ly over when it does­n’t feel right to watch Christmas spe­cials of Only Fools and Horses. The Trotter boys are out of their ele­ment, try­ing to strike it rich in exot­ic locales, and the Peckham flat is too far away for things to feel nor­mal. Still, watch­ing them makes me miss the UK more than ever. I’ve tak­en to episodes of Sherlock to get my dose of London nights until I can find a way to make it over there again.

girl in snow

Pointer of quar­ry, tamer of cats.

Over here, it’s been a faith­ful Canadian win­ter. Bouts of var­ied snow­fall, record-break­ing lows, and a spot of freez­ing rain here and there. My gui­tar must be aching­ly dry as the mod­est humid­i­fi­er help­less­ly fails to main­tain bal­ance against the con­stant churn of the fur­nace.

I’ve been pick­ing her up again, rebuild­ing my blis­ters and re-learn­ing old songs. Sometimes I won­der how I was ever able to play cer­tain pas­sages, but know­ing I have before makes it eas­i­er the sec­ond time around. This time it feels a lit­tle dif­fer­ent though. I have a bet­ter reach and a more con­fi­dent picky, along with some new pains that have found their way into my hands.

cat in cat bed

The cold that per­me­ates the house means Dolly prefers sleep­ing in her bed over any one spot, and I can car­ry her around with me from room to room to keep me com­pa­ny. Byron is rarely far away. Even though he’s not as affec­tion­ate as Dolly, he’s still my cat in the way he comes to walk on me when I wake, and the rit­u­al play­time we have after teeth are brushed.

With the cats form­ing a lit­tle nest wher­ev­er I go, and the view of ice and snow just out­side the win­dow, I have lit­tle rea­son to leave the house nowa­days.