Motivating

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with working out – with staying healthy basically.

Walking and hiking definitely give me physical as well as soul benefits, but working out does not produce endorphins for me.

True believers (or work-out-ers) would probably say I am not working out enough, which is true considering that I am not working out at all lately.

I actually like moving my body and seeing it getting stronger, but I don’t like pain. I do almost anything to avoid pain, but I seem to spend a lot of time hanging out with pain.

Ironic, I know.

Really, it is because I hang out with motivation’s unhappy cousin, procrastination.

Actually procrastination is pretty chill. It just sits around, thinking about doing things, but never actually doing them.

Procrastination is a stoner that needs more sativa and less indica.

People who are jazzed to work out scare me, and annoy me. Yeah, I know I’m probably just jealous.

When I was growing up, Jack LaLanne, was the man, man.

On his 70th birthday, he towed 70 boats a mile upstream.

A mile upstream.

I was in my early 20’s and I couldn’t have towed a boat a foot downstream.

Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons were evolving into fitness gurus then.

I worked out at my local YMCA, working the Nautilus circuit and doing aerobics, but I was never super serious about exercise.

It wasn’t until my lower back started hurting in my late 30’s that I had to do something to function better. Pain pushed procrastination out of the way and I found the miracle of physical therapy and targeted exercise.

The first thing my PT asked me was if I had any children. (Yes, I thought, my child can be a pain, but that’s not why I’m here.) She told me that my abs were probably super weak from childbearing, making my back bear too much responsibility for hauling my ass around the world.

She said it nicer, but that was the upshot.

She gave me exercises to do every day, and she made me check in.

It was really hard to get into a routine because I always found a reason to delay, and my physical pain persisted. Finally, I realized that as soon as I woke up, I had to put my exercise mat down, and just start exercising. I had to begin before the voices in my head woke up.

And it worked!

For ten years I did those damn exercises every day with few exceptions.

Somehow I got lost a few years ago. The routine was boring, it wasn’t challenging me, but I have been in a rut that my mind helps foster. “You’re not in that kind of pain anymore. You’re good.” Says that voice. Except I feel the old pain creeping back in. “You walk or hike pretty much every day. You’re good.”

Or my favorite: “You deserve to take a break.”

From health?

I never question that voice because it’s so inviting. But like all siren calls in my life, it’s bullshit, and it leads nowhere good.

“Get off your ass,” says my militant voice, “- drop and give me twenty.” (I can usually do ten push-ups before my inner three-year-old starts whining.)

My entire work out is a battle of me telling myself how nice it would be to stop, and I think I finally agreed.

Every day is another chance to begin – and I just read an article that said even if exercise is broken up throughout the day, it still counts.

I have bundled exercise with another task, and that does help, but it still gives me too much wiggle room to give up early.

My PT also said “motion is lotion” for my joints – and like it or not, my body is aging, but I will never be as young as I am right now.

I read articles about 90 year-old marathoners (show offs), and 80 year-old weight-lifting women who are jacked! They are like honey badger – they don’t give a shit what their inner naysayer yells.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. The law of inertia.

Overcoming that inertia, besting that procrastination is my goal – but really – it’s not letting my inner three-year-old run the show.

Burning Bright

March 28, 2023March 28, 2023 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

She laughed and smiled, and went home planning to die.

She drank or drugged to feel different, and for several beautiful minutes she felt whole and worthy, but it was so brief, and it didn’t fill the gaping hole of worthlessness.

Justifying her existence became her job. Hiding became her daily pursuit. Hiding in plain sight.

She couldn’t afford to let you know her even though she was desperate to be known, to be loved, to be accepted – to matter.

Every failure confirmed her lack of value, and she told herself that everyone knew she was shit – it was a pheromone radiating off of her.

Shame was her cloak – its vile fabric wrapping its folds so tightly around her.

She didn’t even know she had fallen back into the pit. She had reopened all the old escape hatches, but they didn’t hide her anymore.

Until she remembered, and really understood, that she had to change her self-beliefs – to love her unloveable self, and learn to act differently, nothing could change.

Laughter had become coarse in her ear, it no longer held back the darkness enough, and any praise felt insincere, unearned.

Living was becoming unendurable, but she was still too afraid to kill herself.

In a fog of self-loathing, she was gifted the memory of once having worked hard to like herself – even reaching a sense of love and self-worth.

“No one provides worth or value,” came the small voice. “It is always self-derived. It was never fostered as a child – that shame belonged to others who failed their duties. But it’s still possible,” said the voice.

“Let the flicker become a brilliant blaze, and know that all fires go out if they are not fed. And a fire will burn whatever fuel its given – so feed it worthy fuel.”

Addendum: It’s also okay to borrow fuel from others if all you have is shit to burn.

None Of My Business

March 9, 2023 / Hermionejh

I heard something today that I heard a long time ago, but keep forgetting: it is none of my business what anyone else thinks of me, and none of anyone else’s business what I think of them. What I think is irrelevant.

Tending to my own life, to my own path, is all that is required of me.

I cannot count on anyone else – it isn’t fair to put that burden on anyone – but it sure is nice to have friends who don’t mind walking beside me time to time through this world.

My job is to meet people where they are and have no expectations of them. It sounds easy, but it’s not.

I hate change, and I hate having to change. LOL

It’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, even, but it’s life.

Is there some being or force overseeing all of this, guiding us, or willing to guide us if we so choose?

I have no idea.

Sometimes I would like to believe that, but in order to accept that I have to also accept that that force or being is also cool with horror. So I stay away.

Let it be.

I don’t want to argue anyone else’s philosophy, or point of view. Evil exists. We see it every day. It’s so enormous that it’s almost paralyzing, and I have to tune it out.

Maybe I’m a coward. Maybe I deserve all that I get.

I don’t know.

I believed in love. I really thought love would change the world. I really thought showing up and speaking out would change the world for the better.

Maybe it has and I can’t see it.

I don’t know. It feels like just a lot of wasted energy.

I have been very naïve my whole life. I was idealistic, I was hopeful. I’m not ready to give into the forces of evil, but they feel stronger than the forces of love lately.

I’m ready to leave the world – whenever my time comes. I believe I have done my best.

My imagination leads me to a quiet place out in the universe somewhere. There is no sight or sound, and no worries. There is no happiness, no sadness, no anger, no hate, but also no love. It’s just energy, I guess. At least that’s what science says. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, and everything must go somewhere.

A Sister’s Birthday Eve

March 5, 2023March 6, 2023 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

Once upon a time in a land called the 80’s, I was friends with my next oldest sister. We had always had a tenuous relationship up until our 20’s, but I welcomed being included (embraced even?) by my next oldest sister.

My oldest sister and I had a good relationship then. She was still my oldest sister so I wasn’t exactly a priority in her life, but at least we got along well.

It felt like an honor for my middle sister to accept me as what I thought, an equal, and for several years we related on a level that my oldest sister did not care to dwell. My next oldest sister was rough where my oldest sister was more refined. My oldest sister was more ‘white collar’ whereas my other sister was thoroughly ‘blue collar’. I have no idea what collar I would have been given, but ‘blue’ was more relatable.

Pretty much I just wanted to be accepted. I’m sure I overlooked a lot back then, or was simply clueless, or my next oldest sister really did appreciate my friendship.

It’s hindsight that helps me see what changed so drastically.

I had a child in 1990, and although my relationship with my next oldest sister was still solid for those first few years, it soon changed for her. It was subtle at first, and then I just started making excuses for her behavior toward me.

I didn’t know that it was against the laws of her ordered mind for the youngest sister to have a child before the older ones. It wasn’t like I tried.

It turns out that she was trying to have a child and couldn’t, while my oldest sister saw what a horror she might be as a parent and consciously chose not to procreate – a decision her dive into evangelicalism would come to haunt her – but that’s her story.

So, once again, I became the scapegoat. I didn’t know the rules had changed. I was so clueless.

Didn’t my sister know that being a single parent with a motherfucking asshole absent father was torturous?! Didn’t she know that living on welfare, getting no child support, and constantly being harassed and told I didn’t deserve to live was difficult at best and often terrifying?

No, apparently I had it really good – and she should have been the one to have a child, not me. I didn’t work my ass to the bone like her. That was true. She’s an amazing worker. So am I when working at something I can cope with.

She sucks, however, as a sister.

I just wanted to be included. I wanted to belong. Once she found out that belonging was important to me, she found her super weapon and my Achilles Heel.

I finally learned to let go – mostly. I still hold out hope that one day she will see that I was true. She will see I was real and I cared. It cannot come at my expense though. Life truly is hard enough.

It’s painful. The Buddhists say to not be attached. Attachment causes pain. Good for them, I say. I’m human. I might reach that kind of detachment in another realm, but I suffer here.

It hurts to no longer be invited into my sister’s life in a real way. It sucks to be surface with people I used to believe had depth with me. Or maybe I didn’t need depth then and depth is important to me now?

I hope her birthday is a happy one. I hope she gets all that she needs to carry her through her life. I also hope that her indifference to me will stop mattering someday.

I know I am not what my sister – or anyone really – thinks of me. I am mostly kind, and I am worth knowing. I am a valuable friend. But I cannot keep throwing pearls before swine. That’s on me, and I am strong enough to know and honor my worth. (repeat ad infinitum)

Implausible

February 22, 2023 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

I forgot about the passage of time. I knew it was happening, but I didn’t believe it was real. My body sure knows it’s real.

I didn’t believe I would one day look in the mirror and see my mother as she was at my age – when I thought she was old – but now I know she really wasn’t, at least not in the way I thought of age thirty years ago. It’s all perspective.

It’s also the package deal I accepted by being born. You live, you grow, you age, and then you die.

When I was 12 I saw some illustrations in a book about the human life cycle. One showed a male and the other showed a female going from babyhood to old age. I was so angry and disgusted when I saw aging illustrated, and I vowed it would not happen to me – as though it only happened because some idiot made a drawing of it.

I did not want to become old and wrinkled. I did not want my life to be taken from me. I thought I had beat aging because I remained relatively young-looking for a long time.

I’m certainly not what I assumed about that drawing – that life was over because you’ve aged – but I internalized that. I think I thought that people age because of their attitude. Some people at the commune/cult I lived in actually said that, and I internalized that as well. “You only age because you think you’re going to,” said that 20-something-year-old to the general agreement of the throng of people sitting around.

And I thought we were special. I thought we were “chosen” as I so often heard. I really believed it though. Part of me still believes it despite knowing better.

I failed, I think to myself. I let the world get to me – or I wouldn’t have aged.

I see people give up all the time – otherwise known as acceptance.

I want to fight it. I see people fighting it to the very end. Isn’t that what all the plastic surgery and body modification is about? Isn’t it a wish for immortality?

I have deeper lines and sagging neck skin now. It pisses me off every time I see it. My failure staring back at me.

My mother stopped looking in the mirror and now I know why.

Without the mirror I can feel like I am still young, and believe I look to others as I wish to appear. But then I see that I am somehow cordoned-off from those not-so-young-themselves-anymore, but younger than me, and I am shunted into the next category. It’s just an observation, but sure, it’s sad. It’s probably self-pitying.

The saying: “We’re here for a good time, not a long time,” should pacify me. I repeat many of those type of sayings to myself. “Life is what you make it – always has been – always will be,” – and the woman who said that was about 80 at the time. Grandma Moses – Anna Mary Robertson Moses. It’s just whistling in the dark though. A platitude. A pacifier.

Life happens with or without consent, approval or control. I do my best to be steadfast and positive, but you can only eat so many shit sandwiches before starting to call them what they are.

I am trying to accept my aging in a culture that tells me in a million subtle (and not so subtle) ways that to age is to fail.

I’m a little late to the show but I’m trying to embrace my aging and not just pretend to accept it. How do I do that?

Defiance.

I defy the 12 year-old girl looking at that book making a lifetime judgement through an illustration. She has no right to determine how my life has unfolded, or what my aging means. Fuck her. She’s fucking 12 for god’s sake! I defy the 20-something-year-old know-nothings, no wiser than that 12 year-old, and whose lives unfolded as all life on earth unfolds. They aged, and they died, or they will die. They have health struggles, and memory problems, right along with any wisdom accrued. I defy all the plastic surgery (which I would get in a damn heartbeat if I could afford it), but it’s still an inability to accept aging. It’s also a form of defiance too, though, but it often just looks circus-freakish (no offense to non-conforming circus persons).

So what is wisdom and perspective for? Is it just to talk to myself because the young have no interest in what the old have to say? I don’t know. My son has no use for any wisdom I possess, but maybe my wisdom is just anxiety? I want his life to defy life itself!

Maybe all of our lives do just that in the implausibility of us being here at all.

Messages To The Future

January 17, 2023February 22, 2023 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

Maybe so much of my depression has been because of all the false starts, or half-hearted attempts at completing creative projects. I hear my therapy sessions whispering that my procrastination was and is not laziness. (It’s the PTSD, stupid. It’s the trauma.)

I know the best way out is through, but how long is through? An entire lifetime? I feel like I’m missing out on life’s best moments while hitting all of life’s pitfalls. I guess I need to carry a ladder – but ladders are cumbersome aren’t they?

I know some would just say to avoid the pitfalls, but, for me, that’s like saying “just stop breathing.” So, until I figure out how to no longer need a ladder up and out of these setbacks, I will continue working on a lightweight, fold-able, unobtrusive ladder that works for me.

“Works for me” is the key phrase – for all of us. Maybe what I do is the absolute opposite of what you should do. Maybe the ladder you built, or found, or have always had and used with ease is not attainable for me. Maybe all the guru spewing, consciousness-raising, ego-deflating advice isn’t helpful.

The best I can say is that I hope I find what is important to a more creative life and way less struggle – but I’ll keep championing myself, and us, in the collective struggle, and challenges, and also revel in our victories.

On my doctor’s wall is a framed statement by Brené Brown:

What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.

She also has a sticker on her laptop that says “I love drug users,” so she’s a pretty cool doc. She’s working to address the opioid crisis, while acknowledging that the war on drugs has been a big fail.

The opposite of addiction is connection. Sometimes it’s connection to ourselves most of all.

The ability to choose something different, to hope – to persevere in spite of circumstances – takes self-love, and compassion. And it is creative, even if it’s the smallest speck of belief that I will rise, and that I will complete what’s important to me before my time comes.

Free To Love

December 22, 2022 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

I don’t mean to always be writing about a dark journey. This is where I currently am. I just don’t have time for bullshit anymore – if I ever really did.

It used to be important to me to seem like everything was fine. I hid from all except a select few. Like so many of us, most never knew my full story – they got to know what felt safe to tell them.

We grow up knowing the lay of the land, don’t we? If we want to be our true selves, we walk a narrow path. I learned to live in disguise for so much of my life.

While none of us are guaranteed another minute of life, most of us seem to live fairly long lives – in human time at least. Eventually, we have more days behind us than ahead of us, no matter how rich or well-connected we might be.

Maybe we think more urgently about our life’s purpose – if there is such a thing – or what being here means to us. Is there a point?

If you’re religious, the point is built in. You have a structure, and you never have to question anything. You follow the directions, and you’re good – safe in your salvation. Except that we’re often more complicated than that. Faith is tested – sometimes to being undone.

I was never very faithful, but I have always been faithful. A friend once told me I think about God/dess more than anyone she had ever met. It makes me laugh to think about that because I am no friend of deities. I think about it so much because I want to understand it. Who made gods and goddesses? Humans did. Maybe we need to believe. Maybe I need to believe.

But, in what? That some magical being is going to greet me when my body dies and tell me what a good job I did getting through hell?

“Fuck off” is what I will say to that being. It watched me and did nothing? It saw the shit that I and every other being on this rock slog through and thought it was okay to let us slog? Or if all it could do was watch us and hope for the best for us – what is that?

What did we gain? What is the place that we are going to that being “honed” through being alive will be useful for?

I don’t like being a pawn.

My mother thought that we’re all goddesses and gods creating this world as we go.

Roger Ebert’s last words or sentiment stayed with me. His wife said he wrote a note to her that this place is “an elaborate hoax,” or that “it’s all an illusion.”

It’s all an illusion.

What does that mean if that is true? Can you jump off and that is okay? None of this matters?

If I leave now, my son will be sad – I think. He has a whole new family now. A much better one that anything I could ever give him.

His wife’s family lives in a beautiful house on a bay of Lake Champlain. They seem to have what I wish I had had.

My son does not visit me. I am not complaining – I am noticing. I’m noticing that his preferred place is a place I would also prefer. I understand that it’s also his wife’s family home, and that is what they do – which is good. I am happy for them. I’m just saying that my absence wouldn’t be life changing.

It would be, of course, in some way. My mother’s death was life-altering for me, but my father’s death was not.

I think there was, and remains, a trauma bit left about my mother – something that my brain wiring connects to something so deep I honestly cannot describe it, but I think my son and I are clean and free from that. He does not have the trauma wiring that I have.

What a huge accomplishment that is, says my objective self.

Mostly, being free from myself is what’s important to me. I don’t know how to do that yet. It’s a work in progress. What’s important is not dragging this weight around after I leave my body (if I retain my consciousness). It’s all in my brain. And if it isn’t, then it’s all in my consciousness.

I thought that I was supposed to do something memorable in this world. But most people never do. We just live.

For the few nanoseconds (or way, way less) of eternity that I was here – if there are ever psychic archeologists – I want them to find the vestiges of love left where I walked, and lived, and was. I want them to discover that my love emanated out into the universe in a network that continues on and will never fade.

Honing My Hero

November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

In writing, “evergreen topics” are yearly or ever-present themes. Holidays, commemorations, historical events, etc., as well as overarching topics like love, career, or lifestyle, for example. Creators are always trying to “up the ante” – to find some new or distinct angle to cover.

You have to be a self-starter or find someone to kick you in the pants to get going.

I’m in the latter category and have struggled because of that. It is my evergreen experience.

Are we all born with character traits that are challenging to overcome? Probably. We are also born into places, families, and circumstances that we did not choose (unless you believe that our essence before this existence picked out our circumstances prior to being born). Sorry, I would never have chosen the circumstances I was born into. Not in an entire realm of possibilities of existence. Nope, wouldn’t have happened. If there is some guiding or directing being or essence, then I was forced into circumstances by a malevolent deity. Or it was bad luck, or just plain random chance. Of all of the possibilities, chance is the least fucked up.

I definitely have a personality type, and damaged neural pathways that I have made inroads on altering, but it has taken me a lifetime of work to do so.

There are so many medications that help alter or by-pass neural misfiring or trauma influenced wiring, but of the over twenty-four (so far) drugs I have tried, none of them have helped, and several made my condition worse.

There is evidence that psilocybin from mushrooms, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and other psychedelic, or mind-altering substances can bypass poor neural wiring and open up pathways for higher functioning brains and life experience. It is exciting research, and I hope to be accepted in a trial. If I am accepted, I could get a placebo, of course, but if I did get the actual substance, I don’t know what happens when the trial ends.

Will I just be taken off of a substance that might greatly help me? Does some big pharma company then control the distribution and price-setting? I don’t know what happens to participants in a trial that ends once the researchers have completed their studies.

For someone like me, it would come at a high price. Unless the substance is one that permanently alters your brain’s wiring after using it for however long it would take to achieve that happy day.

And what if the opposite were to happen? What if my wiring was made worse? I had two rounds of transcranial magnetic stimulation about a year apart, and it did not help my depression or change my neural pathways as others had experienced. It was not a ‘cure’, and it dulled my thinking somewhat.

It’s hard to be a test subject, but I will take the risk because the possibility of a better functioning brain is too attractive to not keep trying.

A friend once said to me that she would not want to do something that would get her unstuck because then she would be too remorseful of all the wasted time behind her.

I understand that, but I already live that, and it seems like she does too, to some extent. Guilt and shame are some side effects of trauma, but there is nothing we can do about the past except to do our best to practice self-compassion.

I did try to change. I am sure I did, in fact, change! I am sure that every person that chooses (or is forced in some way) to confront whatever holds them back or diminishes them or others in their life does change to some degree.

I could not have lived without changing. I nearly killed myself several times, and it remains on the table for me. It represents a twisted form of hope, and power.

Raising my son was a challenge I met. I may not have met it as well as some, and certainly not even to my own inner standards, but I did far better than was done for me. My son will never understand that. He did not grow up in extreme domestic violence and neglect. I had to have help to continue living. My siblings seemingly did not have to have the therapy, educational and recovery groups, and other work to function in their lives. I was also surrounded by people who had had similar lives, and sadly much worse, and we limped through those years together.

My son will never know the times I cried through making dinner because I was so mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted that it took all that I had to cobble together something healthy – and I did not have money to do differently. Even opening a can of soup would have been a challenge – and I would have paid with even more guilt and shame.

Oddly, overcoming those obstacles did not change my life as it did for others in all those success stories I consumed, trying to change my life with positive thinking and affirmations. The fact that I was still alive and functioning at all was an affirmation. I held out unjustified hope that I could change, that I could rise above my situation. It was moments of triumph for me, not permanent change.

I won’t be writing a book, giving a Ted Talk, or otherwise speaking at some puffed-up event about how I overcame my circumstances, and so can you.

All I know is that every once in a while, I rallied to the moment. I gave my son good food. We had plenty of crap food, trust me, but I did my best to have a majority of healthy meals. I also stayed as present as I could, and I did persevere. There was laughter, fun, adventure, creativity, affection, comfort, and deep love – right along with the difficulties. I read to my son every night until he grew older and didn’t want me to anymore. Those times were nearly the best part of every day. It was sanctuary – for both of us.

My son jumped poverty, and counselors and friends in my life have said it is because I gave him a good foundation to do so. There is no “control son” that my contributions can be measured, and I tend to feel that his personality traits would have helped him overcome whatever hell he might have been subjected to.

Some people do rise regardless of their circumstances. Those are the stories people love to read or hear. The successful heroes journey.

Will psychedelics help hone the hero in me?

There Was A Wedding

October 27, 2022December 22, 2022 / Hermionejh

My son and his lovely partner got married on October 1, 2022.

We do not have many rituals from childhood into adulthood in our collective culture in the United States of America. The Jewish religious tradition has bat and bar mitzvahs when their children reach age 13. A religious and ceremonial rite of passage relieves parents of responsibility for their child’s actions, which is transferred to those adolescents. Aboriginal males have, or had, a ritual of going into the wilderness on their own during their adolescence to transition from childhood into adulthood, to name two examples built into ones’ culture. The closest we have in the United States is getting a driver’s license – and then being able to go to war at age 18. Being legally able to drink alcohol is another dubious distinction of entering adulthood between age 18 to 21, depending on what state you live in.

But marriage seems like a larger ritual because the betrothed enters into an agreement of commitment to another person. The divorce rate belies the seriousness of that commitment, but the institution of marriage is still a serious one that you have to legally separate from if that time comes.

I remember hearing that marriage is for the other person in the relationship, not for yourself. It took me a while to understand what that meant, but now I see that if you’re not fully in it for your partner’s well-being, why are you getting married?

An unexpected passage happened to me. I have been aware of my entrance into older adulthood, but their marriage somehow cemented my position as “elder”. I know I already have been, but I don’t feel “old”. I feel like I’m still in my 20’s or 30’s most of the time, but this is different. This seems like a spiritual journey rather than physical. I have entered a new phase, just as they have. While they welcomed it, and rejoiced, it’s going to take more settling into this aspect for me. Maybe if I had a ritual for myself it would be easier to take?

My son and his partner did a handfasting ritual which was beautiful to see, and did this wicce’s heart proud.

I wished them enough of all that they need and want throughout their journey together, and I look forward to becoming a “Glamma” in the near future (a mom can dream).

“I look back on my life like a good day’s work; it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented. I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been – always will be.”
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) 1860 – 1961

Time, Time, Time

September 22, 2022September 22, 2022 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I hear Tom Waits singing the refrain: “Oh it’s time, time, time…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAB4uGGquX4

It’s more the song’s tone rather than the lyrics that make me think about our time-based life.

The garden so green, so colorful – so heavy with tomatoes, beans, corn, squash, and flowers just a few weeks ago is emptier – strewn with scraggly vines and stalks – the last ripening food and flowers know the end is near. The tomatoes will continue to ripen until the frost comes, but they are the last stalwarts of the garden.

I reluctantly pulled out my fall clothes suitcase today after seeing the forecast of cooling temperatures this week, with colder nights.

I folded up my shorts and tank tops, my flip-flops will overwinter in the closet.

Autumn is a beautiful season. I have always liked it, but I see it differently now. I have grown and changed. My perspective has expanded, but also contracted.

Summer used to seem longer. It used to be full with friends and parties and nightlife and doings. It’s not that it couldn’t be again, it’s that I’m not that person anymore. I do go out to events at times, but it is not like being in your twenties. I don’t have the energy I had back then. I was biologically as well as psychologically different – and that is okay. I’m not railing against that. I’m just noticing.

Of course there is sorrow – there’s grief in every season, every change. I am grateful that I am aware of the subtle changes now. I have appreciation for so much more than I used to, but I was always appreciative of nature and the earth’s beauty and bounty.

It’s easy to look back and be an “armchair quarterback” about my life – but that’s not fair or accurate because I didn’t have the information that I do now – and I likely wasn’t supposed to.

I wasted so much of this precious commodity called time. I knew it even when I was younger, but I wasn’t able to act differently then. I am more able now, but not by much. I have found strategies that help me, but they’re not foolproof. Platitudes are easy. Life is not, or it hasn’t been for me.

I can be joyful in the struggle. I can be miserable too… I’m more often just moving through my day, working on or completing tasks.

I had grander visions for my life – high aspirations. I think it gave me goals to work toward. I think I have done pretty well with what was handed to me.

Time’s drumbeat throbs more loudly now, but it may be what I need to finish up my work, and do all I can to have who and what is important in my life, and let go of the rest.