Tag: emotions

Waltzing with trauma

Yesterday, a friend shared a recording of a waltz he sang.

It was lovely and inspiring.

I danced around my living room, true form and moves and everything; I felt it all through my back, that fabulous stress of tension that looks just glorious in the posture while waltzing… and I loved it.

And, while I was doing it, at one point, as I stumbled mentally on certain moves, I had the thought – the kind of thought that is more of an all-encompassing feeling and experience than it is actual words in my brain – of wanting to dance with a specific individual, as it would be so much easier if I were just waltzing with him.. it always was so easy to waltz with him…

It was a thought that made me open my eyes wider… it made me want to consider, but not too hard… for the moment, I would dance, and just set the thought to the side, and allow myself to return to it later on, so that I could enjoy my waltzing for the moment.

Today, listening to a faster waltz – a Viennese waltz – I found myself thinking again on how easy it always was, and therefore nice, to waltz with that same person who had come to mind yesterday…

I had, yesterday, found discomfort in my thoughts, via a slight worry that I actually would put myself back into interactions with this person – a person who hurt me terribly – , and thereby degrade my terrible experiences and all the feelings associated with them… kind of like just ignoring that they ever happened…

And that would feel like a disservice to myself, and a denial of my own value – for it was terrible, because I deserved and deserve so much better than the treatment I had been given – and I don’t want that to happen.

Yet, tonight, as those same thoughts arose again upon consideration of the somewhat surprising desire (?) to dance with him, I asked myself if there were something beyond that concern… What if that weren’t an issue? Is there something else to be noticed about this current scenario?

And there was, as it happens.

Just as I have said lately, and have very recently not so much discovered, but begun truly to acknowledge as being so within my own life, people are more than their good deeds or their bad deeds…. also, the good do not negate the bad, and the bad do not negate the good of an individual.

Said differently, if someone does loads of amazing things, and then does one bad thing, that one bad thing does not erase all the good things… and the reverse is true, as well, with one good thing not erasing all the bad things an individual has done.

What is the case, however, is that each action can stand for itself… a good deed can be taken as a good deed, a bad as a bad, and the one does not have to affect the other.

So, applied here, the terrible string of events and everything that happened because of that individual does not mean I need to feel guilty or worried or paranoid about wanting to waltz with him… I enjoyed waltzing with him, because he was good at waltzing… period.

And, just because I want to waltz with him, does not mean I am excusing him of all of the terrible he gave to me and my life, or even than I am saying it wasn’t a whole lot of terrible (because it certainly was a whole lot of terrible).

It simply means that, despite all the terrible, there was good, and I valued and still do value that good – in this case, the waltzing.

So, yeah… there’s that to think on for a while, I suppose.

Post-a-day 2020

Struggle Bus

Boy, has this weekend been giving me a run for my money… oh, wait… I don’t really have any money….

Well, it has certainly made me feel like I am slowly falling to pieces via a slow and painful inward collapse from anger, frustration, and helplessness…

And I know everything will be great and more than fine, and I am great and more than fine, and everything else hopeful and positive in my life will be amazing… I know all of that.

Nonetheless, I am having lots of emotions hit me pretty hard this weekend.

An escape to the forest and mountains would be spectacular right now… some nature would be good for me, instead of a house in the middle of a city with all of its parks closed for the time being…

Anyway, I haven’t got that option.

But it was nice to visualize it for a few moments…

Perhaps I’ll just go to sleep somewhat early again tonight.

I slept really hard and well last night, and for eleven hours – clearly I was lacking in sleep.

Now, we shall see if tonight’s rest will help me tomorrow…

Time for some more meditation and reading, and then I shall pray for healing through sleep.

Wishing you all well,

Peace

Hannah

Post-a-day 2020

Beyond functional

Some nights, I feel that I am just beyond functional – I cannot possibly do anything here on my own to improve the current state of my brain and emotions, so it is best just to go to bed already…, even if it is barely 9pm and I didn’t exactly get up until after noon today…

Yeah, today has been stressful, simple, lazy, informative, comedic, helpful; it has left me feeling a sense of helplessness, embarrassment, disappointment in myself, upsetting surprise, loneliness, physically stressed – like really physically stressed and in desperate need of human physical contact… – hopeful, useless, inefficient, unwanted, frustrated, wanted, lost for words, unhelpful, like I have wasted something, somehow…, and ready to cry…

Quite a day and night so far…

So, I think I am ready to go to sleep now, with a conscious hope and belief that tomorrow, taken on actively, can and will be significantly improved in just about every way from today.

With that, I bid you goodnight: May we all rest well tonight.

Post-a-day 2020

And again…

I have written a third song, now!

What is this life I’m living (right now, anyway)???

The world is going crazy having to stay home, and I am here being extremely productive, and somehow still napping as needed, or just lying on the floor for a bit, multiple times throughout the day…, and eating a lot and often… and still getting my job done…

This has been rather good for me, I think, having to stay home and all.

It was rough at first, especially since I really want to get to know this guy I kind of just met, but I think I approached the whole ‘stay-at-home’ situation with a genuine and thorough consideration for my health and well-being, and I have acted accordingly with my self-given guidelines and encouragements, thereby helping me to be extremely sane and comfortable and confident, and also, somewhat surprisingly, very productive (more so than usual, even).

And it was really good for me to have to sit with so much discomfort around that guy for the first while – I needed to be able to get through any panic and just chill out, approach the situation as myself, and not as the crazy person that sometimes won’t shut up in my head… she’s funny, but can get way out of hand, if I indulge her.

So, yeah…, this has been very good for me.

And, as mentioned, I have written now a third song… that’s three songs in a week’s time… crazy… and in a good way… a very good way.

🙂

Post-a-day 2020

The time is now

There’s no time like the present, right?

Which, I guess, means that there’s no time like one in the morning! 😛

I had just completed a few hours of meditative work both for myself and for a friend – making a mala, and being very intentional about the whole thing and its entire process, thus taking hours to do it all, to meditate first on what to do, and then meditating by doing it – and, as I was packing up things, I acknowledged that the pull I had felt the past hour or so to play my second song (with the hopes of getting it recorded to share) was worth it… bed could wait a little longer – it wasn’t like I had to be anywhere early tomorrow, nor that I couldn’t nap as needed throughout the day (though I do have to start work at 9am, it is from home, and I don’t exactly have to talk to anyone first thing, possibly at all, so I’m okay to be a bit short on sleep…, even though I struggled with sleep last night…, but I’ll get back to that in a sec…).

Plus, this pull was more than just one to record a video or audio recording… there was something emotional pulling at me through it…

All these emotions that had gone into the song, they were ready to release, to be expressed, and to start to move onward… I had sat in them consciously for long enough – it was time.

Just to be sure, I played once just for myself, just to see how it went.

It was practically flawless.

So, then, yes, it was time.

I pulled up my computer, tested the sound and video and all, and then recorded…

And it was perfect.

And it was 1:12 in the morning, and that was perfect, somehow, too.

And now, without sharing the video, I will go get ready for bed and go to sleep, with hopes that, with these emotions out of me like this, I will find rest tonight, and can wake up refreshed tomorrow… unlike today.

And yet, even with these thoughts and feelings waking me while it was still dark outside, and not allowing but another short bit of respite – although, can we call it respite when we just end up inside stressy dreams with all the same thoughts and feelings that kept us up in the first place? – I still seem to be functioning at, now, almost two in the morning… I trust that I will be okay tomorrow, especially after resting for real… yes… I will sleep well tonight.

Thank you, God, for the music and the words… they are invaluable to me right now, and I am immensely grateful.

And I am ready for whatever is next : )

Post-a-day 2020

And another…

Well, another song has come into being by my hands.

And I like this one, too.

No, it is not so love-overflowing and happy and hopeful as the first, but it is still honest, and, while it hurts some, it is releasing…, cathartic, in a way…, and it offers hope.

Tomorrow morning, I will do my first of two workouts for the day, then I will start work on yet another song as part of my homework (due at 4:30pm tomorrow), then do another workout for lunch, and be delighted in the accomplishment of my one-year relationship – the only anniversary I’ve ever had – with the gym.

I am excited for tomorrow, and I am grateful for today.

God, help me to be true to myself and thereby share and create true love in the World.

Amen

Post-a-day 2020

Grazie, Prego

I have a language exchange partner.

He’s Italian.

He’s asked me to marry him.

Neither of us is looking to date (or anything of the sort with) the other – we genuinely just want friendship through language sharing, as we each improve our own abilities in the other’s native tongue.

In a way, we hardly know one another.

Yet, we chat (via messages that are mostly text and sometimes voice) and send one another photos and videos and updates basically every day… yeah, every day, I think…, so it feels like we are closer than we are.

We are honest and open with one another… in a way, it is an extremely low-risk situation for us both, you could say… I wouldn’t say yet that we are friends, but I no longer describe him as ‘my conversation exchange partner’, but as ‘my buddy’…, because he really is a buddy to me, and I hope I am to him.

We know about highs and lows in love and heartbreak for one another; we talk about finances and healthcare systems and death – so much death right now in his part of the world, but we never seem to dwell longer than is respectful; we get nerdy about grammar and explanations of turns of phrase; we share about work (we have very different jobs yet similar setups); I sent him my song before I shared it with almost anyone else (Since he isn’t great with English, he said, he could be a good testing ground for sharing it…, which he said after encouraging me through my nerves of wanting to make the instrument side of things go well, but being worried at my skill level…)…, and he knew what and whom it was about, without a doubt (It was not about him, of course, but someone in my life here.).

(“Comunque si. Sei cotta!😂,” he said after reading the lyrics. Anyway, yes. You are cooked. (A phrase which here means, “Out of your wits in a crush on this guy”) 😛

And, what’s extra fun is that our time difference and lifestyles actually line up perfectly that when I’m getting up and going to bed happen to be perfect times for him to be messing around, messaging me… so we have two good chunks of time every day to be in communication with one another.

And it really is fun… honest and fun.

I think meeting this buddy of mine has been one of the most valuable parts of this year so far.

And I am extremely grateful.

Post-a-day 2020

Singing Sunday

Well, I accomplished a lot today, I believe.

I lay in bed, exhausted, for an extra hour and a half, after already having woken up almost two hours later than usual (!) (and I went to bed earlier than most nights); danced around my living room to the test recording of my song, to grow accustomed to it before recording it properly; stood in my open doorway, enjoying the weather, and watching people pass without even noticing me; I walked in the sun and shade on my own; I heard French(!) from some neighbors; I practiced, finalized, and recorded my song (only a video and simple audio version [versus with a good microphone, as for a CD or something], but still a finalized one!); played it for my mom (she almost teared up a bit, and really complimented it with her words along the way and afterward); painted a whole painting (from a fun and loosely-guided tutorial) on the porch, with my mom painting alongside me for a good while; I made another mala; I ate a lot of home-cooked food; I shared my song online (eek!), carefully excluding certain relevant individuals from seeing the post (okay, well, it was really just one person, but that’s beside the point); I listened to a lot of music from musicals that I hadn’t known until this weekend (Hadestown [stellar music!], 36 Questions, Heathers, Co-Op, and one whose name I am not currently recalling [only got one song so far from it and Co-Op and Heathers, but I’m liking them all so far!]); and I started to figure out the chords to a set of songs I want to learn to play on guitar.

Suffice it to say, today was a good day… emotions are very real and honest, yet very light… it is a beautiful feeling.

So, yeah… this was one of the best standard Sundays of my life… and I also stuck to my regular goal of having Sundays include painting, without even originally realizing that I was planning this particular paining event for Sunday.

With that, I go to sleep, exhausted on the other end of the day, and deeply satiated… for now. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Woohoo!!

I just ran-slash-pranced around my house, laughing and yelling cheerfully, “I wrote a song! I wrote a song! I wrote a song!… and it’s good.”

It has been a good night, I say… 😀

Song is officially recorded (though not a version to release yet), I have listened to it, and I loved listening – it’s actually good!

First time after years of preparation and training’s a charm, right?? 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Who’d ‘a thunk?

It appears by, well, all accounts, that I have just written a song.

I started at about 7 PM, and finished the initial complete draft around 8:30 PM tonight.

I then cleaned up all of my materials from my task of the day, brought them upstairs where they belong, showered and started preparing myself for bed, and then pulled out my notebook and laptop so that I could type up the lyrics and put them together, organized and in an easily rearranged format.

I then did some slight rearranging, and phrase editing, and am now ready to go to sleep with a deep sense of satisfaction both in my accomplishment and in the awesomeness of the song itself.

I can hardly wait to record it and get some instrumentation figured out for it(!).

(I’m a dork, I know – always have been and always will be, and gladly so!)

I want to get to sleep as fast as possible now, so that I can wake up sooner to work on it in the morning.

Woohoo. Haha

This has really been a fun miniature adventure today and tonight… I kept wanting to write a song this week or next, and I couldn’t seem to get the right style or topic – I kept straying from the focus every time I started to write, and then didn’t like it… until a friend (? We’ll call him that, anyway.) shared a song that he had written…

When I heard the first line, I felt struggle and pain being released… by the second line, I was almost certain I knew the origins of the song, the cause for the emotions expressed within it through its music and words… and it was, somehow, so relatable, although I had never been in the same situation… it was also so vulnerable…, which made it all the more powerful.

Thinking about the song today, I thought, Man, those are Real, meaning the emotions in there…

And it struck me: What would happen if I did that, went ahead and wrote about the heavy, loud emotions going on inside of me right now?

It might be embarrassing…, but it would be honest and to the heart…, which, I think, is a huge part of what makes my friend’s song so amazing – you can feel it, deep inside.

So, let’s get deep and put it onto paper, I guess…

I pondered on it as I walked for a while, listening to musical songs, and then, upon returning home and preparing to start work on a new mala (meditation and prayer beads), I was suddenly feeling a need to write down this idea calling out to me from inside my head – I am real emotions, hear me roar and write me down poetry style(!), it was saying to me.

And so, I did.

And now I have a song. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020