#important: A sad note about a bad thing

So I’ve been sitting on some very awful news.

At the end of July, Spacey was out running and was terribly injured when a tree fell on him.

He has a traumatic brain injury and his spine was seriously injured. He’s in a coma, recovering slowly.

I’m posting about it here because one of the more exhausting parts of dealing with this sort of thing is endlessly talking about it as more people not in the immediate fallout periphery of the event find out.

It’s a rough time for our family, and your warm wishes are very welcome.

I love Spacey more than I have words for. Although we aren’t related by blood, we have called one another brother for a very long time. He’s been a part of my life for almost 30 years.

There is a post about this app on the fetlife group. You’re welcome to leave your good wishes there. There’s not a gofundme or anything like that. If we need to do that sort of thing, I’ll post about it there.

Thanks.

#gratitudeNow: Steering

It’s been a minute or two since I’ve blogged. I’ve been dealing with some heavy life stuff. I’m not gonna get into it cause it’s private.

But I’m starting to come out the other side of it, and I want to show my blog some love.

What’s on my mind lately is steering.

When I was a kid I was fortunate enough to go on a fancy trip to Kenya. One of the things I got to do while we were there was sit in the copilot seat of a small plane while we flew around Mount Kilimanjaro.

For a brief few minutes the pilot had me put my hands on the control wheel and steer the plane.

It was both exciting and terrifying.

Later in life when I learned to drive a car and first got on the road I remember how I used to grip the wheel bone tight in my fingers.

I was so scared of making a mistake, so vigilant with what I was doing.

I find that to be a metaphor for life.

I’m grateful today for some plans that I have. Missy and I want to move out of state, down to Florida. There are a lot of reasons we want to do this.

However it’s not a quick matter. It’s a several year plan, as we deal with our home in Virginia, some savings goals, and just some aspects of our lives.

My partner Spacey often says, “make a plan, but hold it loosely.”

I see the wisdom in this so clearly.

And I see that that idea applies both to the very short term and very long term. It’s a very good thing to wake up, pause, and assess your day.

For example today I plan to get a workout in before work this morning, spend my day working, and make something very nice for dinner tonight.

Just this morning, I moved around some money toward that Florida goal. There are some benchmarks I have my eye on and we are headed toward them admirably.

There is this interesting tension between those short and long-term modes of perception. It very much reminds me of driving a car or piloting a plane. You get in, get started, make little adjustments along the way. And eventually, that’s going to take you somewhere.

i’m grateful for that.

#gratitudeNow: Trauma and Casper

Okay, so it’s been a long, long time since I posted here. Let’s address the elephant in the room about this, shall we? I’ve been Going Through A Thing™.

It’s a personal problem, it’s in my family, and I haven’t been talking about it, here.

And that’s a trend that’s largely going to continue. When said problem first reared it’s sharp-toothed head, back in December, I reached out to a very small group of people I’m very close to, for love and support. If this is unfamiliar to you, if you have no idea what the heck I’m even talking about, that’s because you’re not in that group.

Which, I promise you, isn’t any sort of personal slight, it’s not a comment on your worth or merit as a human being, or even as my friend.

Sometimes I live in a weird liminal space. Because of my work in the kink community, because of the podcast, because of my books, my app, my advocacy, I’m somewhat of a public figure. People know me, and know about me. There’s all sorts of wildly intimate stuff about who I am, what I like, and how I live, that’s very much in the public eye.

But the truth is, I am more than those things which I show to others so openly. I’m a person like anyone else, and have my own burdens, my own pains, my own struggles. And during this particular one, I found myself in a new mode, sort of.

My default is to be The Guy Who People Come To For Help And Wisdom. I’m that good listener, with compassionate perspective, who’s always got a minute for them what needs me. But for the past 6 months or so, that’s not been me. Instead, I’ve withdrawn. I’ve reached out to people I feel safe being vulnerable to, and who have the chops to do the heavy emotional labor lifting I’ve needed. I have a fantastic therapist, who I talk to all the darn time.

Things are on the upswing for me. Which is good.

No, that does not mean there’s about to be some big debrief that them-not-in-that-circle will suddenly get to consume. That’s not happening.

Something odd has happened to me during this time, too. I’ve gained some perspective on my public relationship with acquaintances.

For one, there are people who only know me through that stuff. And I’ve had a few super awkward interactions during this time, where people came looking for me to sort of “Do Business as Usual” or something, and it left me feeling very bad. Leaned on, consumed like a product or a food. I’ve shied away from these folks, and these sort of imbalanced interactions like a toddler touching a hot stove. But upon some reflection, I realize that these are unwitting things. When people interact with me in that way, they’re only leaning into what they know of me. I’m not like King Baby of Diaper Mountain or something, but I do have a public persona which I’ve cultivated, and through which some people have their dealings with me. That’s not good or bad, it’s not their fault. And when those interactions feel selfish or one-sided to me, when I’m low, it’s kind of on me to recognize the nature of the connection, and its inherent limitations.

For another, I’ve gained some perspective on empathy, and what I’ll call “toxic sympathy.” You know, something terrible will happen, and some well meaning, but hapless goober, will express how the victims of said something are in their “thoughts and prayers.”

I gotta tell you, that shit pisses me off.

Because, let’s say your beloved Uncle Hypothetical gets a terminal illness, Helpful Harry’s thoughts and prayers are worth exactly nothing. Uncle Hypothetical is still going to wither and die while you watch, helplessly.

Those thoughts and prayers aren’t going to call the hospice, to set up care, they’re not going to talk to your HR department about taking short term disability so you can move in his house, and feed him, and wipe his ass for him, or whatever. They’re not going to help you get to sleep at night, knowing your uncle will be dead soon. They aren’t going to fix your lack of appetite, or motivation to even get out of bed.

What they will do, what they are doing is making Helpful Harry feel good about himself, while he insinuates himself in your business, uninvited, and uses your trauma, as a balm for his own pain.

Yes, I realize how angry this sounds. Yes, I’ve been this angry about it.

I was talking about this with my therapist today. And I had a bit of an epiphany. Recently, a particular Helpful Harry has been really trying to worm his way in to my support circle, offering me that “thoughts and prayers” flavor support that I neither invited them to do, nor want. It’s happened a number of times now. In the not too distant past, I actually took them to task for it. I said, “Hey… please stop making my pain about your desire to help me." I thought they got the message.

Just a few days ago, they did it again, wishing me a good day and a good week, “if it’s okay to do that.”

My response was a simple emoticon, a thumbs up.

Which is like, return receipt for human connection. It’s the barest minimum acknowledgement you can give another human being. It’s like that bullshit nod that men give one another as we walk past each other in a crowded space. “Why yes, I, a man, see that you, another man, has seen me. Thanks.” The social-media-thumbs up, it’s like that, but LESS.

I’ve been stewing about it for a few days.

An old ex of mine used to have this problem behavior, that really bothered me. She would intentionally ghost people, as a means of getting them to leave her alone. Instead of just directly speaking to someone, and telling them she wasn’t interested, or didn’t have time for them, or found their love of Wooden Clog Dancing Shows repugnant, or whatever, she’d just not answer the phone, not reply to the email, etc.

I remember seeing her do this, and being really revolted by it. It was one of the things that when we did split, made me glad to be done with her.

But I’ve begun to see that human interactions aren’t cut and dry, aren’t simple. Sometimes, when my interactions with someone are painful for me, and the other party can’t or won’t hear what I have to say to them about it, then it’s time to go Casper. By which I mean, ghost them in a friendly way. Give them that bare minimum of interaction which says, “Actually no, it’s not okay to interact with me in this way. But you’re still a person, and I wish you well.”

Sometimes, the things I have gratitude for, they’re not very pleasant things. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worthwhile. Life is filled with great joys and hideous pains. I’m glad that through resiliency and experience, I learn better each day how to deal with them.

#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: In which I read the grapefruit

So sometimes my daily contemplation sort of happens to me, instead of being something I go out of my way to do. Today it happened in my kitchen, a few minutes ago.

Red grapefruit, a couple of bowls, and a ridiculous amount of spoons, along with my trusty digital scale

I decided I wanted some red grapefruit along with the lovely poached egg breakfast sandwich I had made myself. So I get out this big plastic bottle of red grapefruit (not pictured), which had the dregs of the last of its contents, from my fridge. I put the bowl on the scale, and get my first spoon, the one I plan to eat said grapefruit with, out of a drawer, and begin scooping the grapefruit into the bowl, so I can weigh it.

This is so I can get an accurate calorie count, because I journal my food.

Well, this is a pain in the ass. So I decide to trade up to a big old ladle size spoon, to make the job go quicker. This is when the beginnings of my contemplation begin to form.

“Huh,” I think to myself, “part of being mindful is paying attention to how you’re doing things. Because the right eating spoon in this case is not the right serving spoon. I get those last bits of grapefruit into the bowl. It’s not nearly a satisfying amount of grapefruit. So I go grab the new smaller bottle of grapefruit from the fridge.

But of course, the big ladle size spoon doesn’t fit. So I set it aside, laughing. I get a larger-than-the-first-spoon size spoon out, and go to serve out some more grapefruit. Only to find that the bowl has sat on the scale too long, and NOW, it’s switched itself off.

Which means I need a second bowl to weigh empty, and pour the contents of the first bowl into. Ridiculous. But I do it.

So, now I’ve got my bowl of grapefruit. (157 g, if you care. Even if you don’t.)

I go to put the other bowl, the other spoons into the sink to wash them off, and return the grapefruit to the fridge. I zap the barcode of the new bottle, which finds the food in my app quite handily. Except in the app, there’s no setting for measuring in grams.

I begin to laugh.

Based on the estimate on the nutrition label, about serving size, calories, and yes grams of weight, I estimate that the portion I’ve spooned out is roughly .75 cups.

Close enough.

That was when the rest of the contemplation slid home, with a solid THUNK into my brain.

Here’s what I see about this whole silly endeavor:

First, that part of mindful practice is doing the best with what you have. Sometimes, that means you absolutely can tinker with the tools you use, the goals you have, the situation in front of you, to get the most optimal outcome.

But second, that even with all that bending and adapting, sometimes, you just arrive at a circumstance where you give it your best effort, and move on.

That’s not just true in measuring red grapefruit: I think that it’s true universally. It’s true in efforts, relationships, arguments. Because to do otherwise is to become mired in expectation.

Third though, is that no effort, no experience is wasted. Because who I am right now is in part informed by everything I’ve ever done before.

Maybe that means that the next time I spoon out grapefruit, I’ll just eyeball it, and call it good.

I’ll see when I get there.