#gratitudeNow: That's Fitting

So part of my mindful practice is, well, practice. What I mean is there’s lots of time I am not mindful, catch myself at it, and gently steer back towards it.

I can be incredibly tough on myself, which often is not a good thing. And sometimes I fixate on things. I’ll have an unexpected something-or-other come up, good or bad, and firmly hook myself to it, riding off in an emotional swell of joy or despair.

My right sneaker, and the rainbow stripe sock I have on with it.

In the past day or so, I’ve done that a bunch of times. First I realized that our retirement savings are in even better shape than I’d realized. Cue joy upswing. Then I found out about a big car repair we have to do. Cue angry frustration. I made some progress on a challenging work problem. You guessed it - upswing. Realized potential issue with said work problem. And… down again.

Exhausting.

Okay, so what’s that have to do with my sneaker?

Well, it’s this. Part of mindful practice is making the conscious decision to stay present. Staying present doesn’t mean not feeling things. Just the opposite. You do feel them. You lean into them. To use a food metaphor, you don’t nibble or sip at the feeling you’re consuming. You take a big bite, a big gulp of it.

And then you swallow it, and take the next.

I woke up this morning with a bit of fatigue over my day yesterday, all that up and down. And as I was getting dressed, I decided to reach for my sneakers. I haven’t worn them in ages. That’s because of my lymphedema. I’ve become quite used to these shoes not fitting well at all anymore.

But, I’ve really become good about wearing my compression socks most days. I use my lymphedema pump at least once a week. So really, I’ve mostly got it under control.

Which is why when I went to get dressed, I decided to see if they fit well. When I first went to pull them on, I had a little anticipatory disappointment cued up. But I didn’t need it. They fit great!

Cue joy.

But this time around, I felt the joy (heck, and took a picture of my foot for this post), and then made the conscious decision to let it sort of slip out of my mental fingers.

Which, because it was deliberate, felt good, satisfying.

Embracing practice is a healthy thing.

This certainly wasn’t a unique experience. I’ve lost my practice before, and picked it back up again, countless times. I’m going to do it again, without doubt too.

Like my shoes this morning, that’s fitting.

#gratitudeNow: Cloudy with a chance of clear skies

So, a while back I wrote a post about a troublesome former friend of mine, Storm.

Not too long after I wrote the post, I bumped into Storm at a social event.

I gave them the most awkward of hugs, what I call a “mailbox hug”. That’s the sort of hug you give someone you are deeply uncomfortable with.

At the time, I didn’t bring up my feelings. It just was not appropriate.

But a few weeks later, their spouse, whom I’ll call Cloudy, reached out to me over the internet, and we had a conversation.

Cloudy asked me if I had a problem with Storm. And I said that yes, indeed I did. I said that while it was no secret that we had different politics, that wasn’t it. I explained that I have no place in my life for people who glory in cruelty, who enjoy being unkind to others and watching them suffer.

Cloudy said they understood. That it didn’t make them happy either. We ended our chat, and that was that.

Until a few months later, when I saw Cloudy expressing and condoning attitudes that agreed with Storm, and enabled them, really. I realized that Cloudy’s dislike for Storm’s attitudes was sort of hand waving, and enabling. And I made the choice to quietly not follow them on social media any more, or have them in my life.

Then… I saw them. We attended a multi-day event together. I nodded politely to both of them at various points. Then at one point, I actually ran into Cloudy, and we had a very awkward conversation.

At first, we spoke about trivial things. Life events, small talk, minutiae. At one point though, Cloudy asked me earnestly, “Have I offended you in some way?”

I shook my head, and offered to sit down for a few minutes and speak with them about things. I explained that in the past, since I’m a human being like anyone else, I had made the choice to give a pass to people who did some Very Bad Things™, because I liked their partner, and wanted to see them.

But I wasn’t comfortable with that anymore.

I explained that Storm’s attitudes and actions aren’t okay. Not even a little bit. And that while I understood that some terrible things had happened to them, that was not a pass to act so cruel, to enjoy others suffering.

Cloudy said that “I am not my spouse” and I agreed. But I said, there was simply no way for me to have Cloudy in my life without it being a tacit approval for Storm. I said that I don’t chase people, and that I don’t see that I have any right to ask anyone to change in any way. Not Storm, and not Cloudy for being with Storm.

I said that I didn’t mean to cause Cloudy any harm, that I didn’t want them to be sad, that the whole thing was unfortunate, but that things are just the way they are.

Cloudy cried. And said that they would stop bothering me then. And walked away from me.

I can’t say I’m happy about that. I understand that it’s a terrible thing to lose a friendship.

But I do have peace. I’m firm in my convictions. I’m grateful that I was able to be clear, and make as compassionate a break of it as I could.

#gratitudeNow: The heights

So I’m a busy guy.

This morning I was cleaning the kitchen, as Missy tasked me to do before work. (Task is an interesting word in this case. She told me to do it, while asking, so even though it’s not really a portmanteau, I’m treating it that way.).

As someone who is very goal-driven, who loves serving his dominant wife, and who craves the simplicity of being tasked, this worked out well for me.

I did in fact, get the kitchen cleaned.

So I grabbed my phone, and I wrote it down in WeMinder, and even snapped a photo and texted it to her.

She was pleased.

I however, was not.

Because as I was entering the good behavior into WeMinder, I noticed something wasn’t right with the look and feel of the screen.

After a bit of thought, it came to me. The height of the card wasn’t right, when the “behavior chip” of my 1 new good behavior was showing on the card.

It pushed everything down, making my brand new bottom navigation icons push too far down.

So I sat and reasoned it out for a few minutes.

I realized that a good fix for this problem was to reduce the height of the behavior list from “40vh” down to 25, 30, or 35vh respectively depending on if I were showing 1, 2, or no chips whatsoever.

Without getting too deep into the weeds of technical details, I figured out exactly how to do that, and got a hot fix ready, tested it, and deployed it into production in WeMinder.

It’s out there now, working just fine. I know, I checked just before I started writing this post.

But this post isn’t really about viewport-height. It’s about the heights of owning my own business, while also having a full-time job, while also serving my wife, while also being polyamorous, while also… the many other things I do.

It’s often really challenging. I have a lot going on in my life.

But honestly, that’s a blessing. My mind is pretty sharp. As long as I take good care of myself, I can maintain and even increase that sharpness.

This means I need to get decent sleep, allow myself rest, maintain good boundaries by often saying no to the things I can’t do, and practice copious amounts of self-compassion.

By and large, I really do, do that.

I’m 50 years old, and while sometimes that seems like a lot, it really isn’t.

I feel wonderfully in touch with who and what and where I am. I like the me I am, and the way I’m stretching myself to be more.

It feels good.

#gratitudeNow: The Reboot

This morning I rebooted several things. The kitchen desperately needed attention, so I did that. The cats’ litterbox drawer was full, so I emptied it, and wiped it down with some special wipes. I started tracking my calories again in earnest, too. I started tweeting again, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I caught up on a few episodes of Love in Brief (One of my favorite ageplay podcasts.)

And I rebooted… me.

Which I do each day, but sometimes with very careful deliberate action. I was talking to my brother Spacey last night, as I usually do most Tuesdays. We were talking about health things, and life in general.

And it got me thinking about What I Am Doing™, just my life in general. There’s a lot going on that I’m really quite happy with. But some things I’m not. The pandemic hasn’t been great for my health, specifically my waistline. I heard someone jokingly refer to pandemic weight gain as the “Covid 19.”

It’s not inaccurate.

I talked to my wife/mommy/bestest-friend-ever Missy about it last night too. And agreed that today is a new day, and I’d be starting fresh.

So this morning I carefully recorded my calories, using an app. That sort of journaling and staying under my caloric budget, combined with regular exercise has consistently worked for me before. I’m at it again.

I’m just a person, like anyone else, so I often lose sight of my mindful practice. I’ll get bogged down in regret, or worry about the future. But the awesome thing is that just like, say, cleaning the kitchen, or dumping out the cat’s litter, that departure-from-mindfulness can be undone, with a mental snap of my fingers.

Being in the moment, fully embracing it is a simple, profound, powerful act. I forget it often, and I’m always utterly gobsmacked by how good it is when I find it again.

#gratitudeNow: This VR thing is working out

So for my birthday last month, I got an awesome present, an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. It’s amazing, and I’m quite taken with it.

Besides being fun, it’s actually a dorky way to get some exercise in, too.

I’ve started this morning routine, where I spend about 35-45 minutes doing two fitness games.

The first is called Beat Saber. You use these glowing light sabers to hack and slash little block in time to music, while you duck and dodge obstacles. It’s hard, and I love it!

(Yeah, Mission 4A is kicking my ass. I’ll get it eventually!)

The second one, Echo VR I love even more. It’s a zero gravity e-sport. You are in this robot body that has thrusters in the wrists, and a main propulsion unit on the back. It’s very Iron Man like. You can float, flip, and glide through this sort of space station which has an arena in it. In the arena, you play a sort of soccer-like game chasing a disc (think TRON) around, and trying to throw it in the other team’s goal. (Each team has three players.).

So far, I mostly play it with AI teammates against AI opponents. But I’d love to get together with some friends to play it regularly. I’ve also found I’m something of a bruiser. I enjoy floating up to my opponents, grabbing onto them and punching them in the head.

This morning, that behavior, plus a sudden quick save throw got me a win!

It’s fun, but it’s also really exercise, that I look forward to doing.

And it’s totally working. I’m losing weight, actively look forward to my time in virtual space each morning, and seeking out the exercise. Yay!