Seeking Comfort.

Feeling uncomfortable. The heat making it difficult for me to settle down to sleep. Anxiety rises. Feeling uncomfortable. Break the cycle, change the temperature. Close up the house and turn on the air conditioner. Feel guilty for needing to do that tonight for a matter of two degrees Celsius. But it’s my comfort threshold. Over 27°C air temperature and my body gets very uncomfortable. There’s that word again. Fan air movement is not enough to compensate for the heat trapped by my body against the bed mattress. I really don’t like feeling uncomfortable.

I remember feeling uncomfortable so often as a child. Unsure of school classrooms, being a quieter child, not speaking up, finding difficulty to make friends, feeling different – feeling uncomfortable. Feeling uncomfortable being teased for being smarter and less socially enabled. Feeling uncomfortable in the classroom with year-round allergies, runny nose, sore eyes, sensitive skin, twitchy muscles. Feeling uncomfortable go to an specialist and being conscious while they scrape an ulcer off my eye. Feeling uncomfortable with a sensitive eye and needing to wear sunglasses in primary school. Feeling uncomfortable with bullies and peers behaving in ways I didn’t understand.

I remember feeling uncomfortable and being self-conscious around most other people. Later, feeling uncomfortable about my mental state, anxiety and depression, unable to calm racing thoughts. Feeling uncomfortable about asking for assistance. Feeling uncomfortable about doing my self-improvement work. Feeling uncomfortable about taking medication. Feeling uncomfortable about the physical side effects.

Feeling uncomfortable in a relationship that wasn’t as supportive as I needed. Feeling uncomfortable talking to a partner who wouldn’t enter emotional territory. Feeling uncomfortable persisting with a relationship that was growing apart. Feeling uncomfortable about ending the relationship. Persisting. Feeling uncomfortable. Finally realising the uncomfortableness of staying was worse than the possible uncomfortableness of leaving.

I’ve always sought comfort. To feel safe, and loved. To distract me from the physical and mental unpleasantness that was being alive. Never receiving the guidance to navigate difficult conditions. Never having someone understand me enough to offer the support I needed. Rarely feeling comfortable in myself.

Until I took control of my life. Went out and made happen what I desired. Found the people I wanted, who turned out to be the friends I needed.

And still at times, I default to seeking comfort. When I’m unsure, worried, not thinking clearly. Do I seek comfort for peace? Is my discomfort a result of self-care lacking? Sometimes you move way past your normal comfort requirements and make new discoveries. Sometimes other needs surpass the desire for comfort.

Is comfort more a state of mind? Is it achievable more often and far more simply than I realise?

There is comfort in writing – in creating something with meaning out of struggle. There is comfort in processing and determining self thoughts.

Tonight as my body cools, as I finish writing and my brain becomes tired from the process, and as music has eased me through this task, I feel the approach of comfort. Feel the quiet, calm, cool rest that is my sleep into comfortable.

A new EōN.

Channeling in
to the pain I feel inside
The emotional upheaval
and the unknown cause
Because I don’t like not knowing
Because to just accept this,
is difficult
When my whole life has been
striving to create some comfort
within a world that was
always so uncomfortable,
physically and emotionally.

Today I had to dive in
to the difficult hours
from this week past
And describe how I felt,
what I thought,
Reconnecting to those moments
To see where my thoughts
were really at
Hearing another perspective
To understand a way forwards
And tonight I could cry
Emotionally spent and weary.

So again I’m in the midst
of uncomfortableness
Not knowing how to cry
Fearful of the pain, of
wanting to curl up
and disappear from existence
Frustrated from feeling this way
When I could be celebrating life
Enjoying my new-found
freedom within a relationship.

The drum beats of EōN
shift my energy
Once again,
music is my saviour
Can a disconnected Artificial Inteligence
know my mood
sense my feelings
interpret a response?
One day this will be commonplace
For now happenstance is my friend.

With a clearer head
and a lighter heart
I commit myself to the night
To rest and recuperation
To new beginnings in new days
Tomorrow will be
what I make of it
Conscious choice will define
every moment as I travel
through the intersecting threads
of my world.

May your world and mine
interact and play
in a positive way
May we both feel significant,
useful,
real in some way that matters
May there be reason to smile
Reason to feel really alive
An energy that carries us
Forwards, together
Creating a brighter reality
A sense of purpose and belonging.

Always Feelings.

I feel much, and I feel little.

Emotional memories stir of past events, moments that just were; but became significant, painful, and joyful all at once.

They were left behind, thought they were let go; but circumstances brought them back to my conscious consideration.

Where they stir, simmer, and grab my attention for a while. Where they knock me off-balance and pull me apart; such that bringing myself back together, back to the present, is exhausting.

So I took today to rest my body; to rest my spirit and just be in my own space with no responsibilities. Choosing to act when I felt comfortable. Choosing to look after myself without guilt; to remember myself without influence.

There is joy in feeling little; in the quietness; in appreciating the silent mind that chose to be, today.

In Time, Life Changes.

In time, life changes.
Because you want it to, because you make it.
And then you wonder, about the different uncomfortables, the different suffering.
Healing pains.
Old wounds expelling poison, slowly improving.
And you wonder, do I feel better?
Because you wanted an end to the despairing discomfort.
While you still labour with troubles, afflicted with unsettling dis-ease.
Tiring dysfunction.
Besieged by the combination of interactive physical and mental symptoms and assaults.

Wondering if there will ever be more peace than battle.
Wondering when you will get back the strength you once felt, seemingly so long ago.
You look for hope, try to locate it whilst lost in the darkness.
Hope to stoke the fire within, to spark the light and bring back brightness.

===

{ Struggling today with the tiredness, aches and unease that follow an indeterminate gluten reaction the prior day. Source unknown, and a rare occurrence these days of constant vigilance. }

Too Much Like My Dad.

Looking for answers to My health issues. Trying to find anything that might resolve or improve this situation I find my body and mind struggling with.

Then my mental negativity kicked in and made some connections to my father.

I’ve turned 50 this year. I’ve been really struggling with my health for 3 to 4 months before that and again now afterwards (interrupted only by a 3 week holiday from my Wintery home to the tropics).

And I wondered what my Dad’s life was like at this age. He turned 50 a year after I left home, a year and a bit after Mum left with my siblings. So he would have felt his life was a complete mess, he would have been very angry and hurtful/hateful. I know that’s how he was in the little contact I had with him over the next few years. I know he had a new partner to help him out at home (he needed physical assistance with his own damaged body).

So he was nearly 49 when his family left him. They left because he drove them away. His brain damage and physical injuries from a motorbike accident just over 5 years prior left him in a terrible physical and mental state for which he received little support. But he became even more negatively reacting to his family, even more critical and eventually resorted to threatening and actuating physical violence against Mum who was only trying to look after 5 children.

48 (a few months short of 49) when his life crashed apart.

I finally left my marriage aged 48-and-a-bit. I walked away from another relationship aged 49-and-a-bit. I’ve turned 50 and one of the single most significant parts of my life, my job and livelihood, feels like it’s been a mess for more than the past year.

Is that coincidence, is that linked? Maybe it’s nothing and yet maybe it’s something I need to work out – somehow.

Working through this is a big hurt of realisation. It’s an exhausting trawl through dark murky emotions and scary possibilities. I want to find some brightness somewhere, I need to find some hope in all this. I need to know that somehow this will all work out for the better. I’m living off vapours and reserves now that won’t last much longer. I want to move forwards. I want to sort out work life and be excited for possibilities, instead of dreading the entanglements that I’m struggling to sort out.

I don’t know where to start or what to do. Tonight I am scared. But tomorrow I step forwards.

Out of Focus.

There are times I can see clearly
Specifically what I need to do
Have the motivation to act
The forwards plan in mind

Often these are the quiet times
When my nearby world is asleep
And all expectation has fallen away
Clarity, focus, simplicity

Then comes the morning
With its health complications
Confusions of position and ability
Managing myself prioritizes over the externalities
And life seems too confusing to manage.

.

(5 August 2018)

So Much Feels Like Nothing.x

So much
feels like nothing

Where is worthiness?
My own significance is invisible to me.

Other tells me what they see,
what they feel about me

And mostly it is meaningless
to me.

This dis-ease is a disease

The nothingness slowly eats away
at whatever was there before

I feel nothing now
except a hollow emptiness
That I attempt to describe
to exorcise it from my being

But the process is incomplete

It is an unearthing
an exposing
only

Not remediation.

I know its not right

Yet I don’t know how to deny
the lies.

.

[ 18 June 2018 ]

Heavy as a Day.

Longing for belonging
Instead feeling outside
Without real reason; as
Intrusive fears drag me away
From all who I love
From all that I love
Feeling the pain of separation
Fearing something unreal
Lost in a negativity storm
Comfortably surrounded by
white noise and aloneness
Whilst my brain screams
for all the opposites
That I need and want.

.

.

.

Simple fulfillment
is all that I desire.

Have You Eaten (Enough)?

Munch munch munch. Feed the hungry body that craves something passing for sustenance. Shove the food in with purpose to satisfy desire. There is no pausing to appreciate the moment, nor to savour the experience, only a need to fill. A need to fill the body to pass off the soul as satisfied. 

And it doesn’t. Hollowness and emptiness sit hand in hand during this indulgence laid bare through its lack of mindfulness.

There are lessons here. And I vaguely sense their outline. But I’m too tired to make any sense from them. Too tired of feeding this ever hungriness that sits within me. 

The Ego is never satisfied. It only ever wants the attention, wants to win, wants to be the focus and the purpose. It wants and wants and wants.

So I will acknowledge that part of me for what it is. I will calmly turn my attention away from the brash forcefulness, towards the quiet part of me. The part that will accept all that I have, will accept all that there is around me and within me right now. The way that feeds my soul in a more lasting manner.

And I may sit here in the quiet for a while. But most likely I will just fall asleep and dream of days without confusion. Dream of straight forward days where clear communication begets an inner calm to all around me.

 ∞︎∞︎∞︎∞︎∞︎

[ My diary tells me yesterday was the fifth anniversary of starting this blog. I’m unsure these days whether that date was when I setup and posted my first story/poem, or if it is the date of my first (backdated) entry. Either way, I glance back and see five years of change, of growth. I am forever greatful to my friend H.C. who encouraged me to start this, and to the incredibly creative community who have supported me the whole journey so far. ]

Once More, Unto Hope.

I will not acknowledge this darkness clawing at my soul
I will not name it depression, grief or anxiety, which gives it form and offers it power
I will not give in when the desire to hide away, from people, from loved ones, from life,
Calls me incessantly and offers an uncomfortable ease to this troubled heart
I will not doubt my own worth
I will not question every part of my being that others see as positive
I will not make life-changing decisions based on the fear of my present.

There are so many ways to dive into these depths
And in the past I’ve tried them all, tested their effectiveness
So I know that path isn’t right for me right now
Despite the comfort of familiarity all of that could be
There is only right now, hunched over,
Wanting to stand tall, but bearing the weight of my world on my shoulders
So for every step forwards, and every step backwards,
I know my focus on the future will eventually win through.

Hope calls me forwards
I don’t recognise it’s shape, but the warmth is enough to draw me away from this icy cold.
Hoping for a mind unrestrained by this clutter and weight.
Hope is a quiet voice, whispering encouragement through the darkness
Leading me onto a new path
Reminding me of the light that exists out there.