13Aug/080
Mere Moments
My co-workers pleasantly surprised me today. I'd been asked for input on a team appreciation lunch that some of them were working on. I said the vegan items sounded tasty, but very low in protein. When I eat that way at team events I'm often famished by the end of the day, which is bad since a few nights a week I'm going to a yoga class pretty soon after leaving work. Lunch was set up and I found that the organizers had changed the salads to include a three bean type salad as well as a chick pea & couscous salad! Lots of healthy protein and I felt really touched that they made that effort for me.
I finally made something that felt like progress on getting some software installed on the test/dev web server. Although the systems group was loading what I asked for, they would fail to load any of the related dependencies. Once this was done, I was able to configure and make the software install. It was a nice note to end the day on although it has gone so poorly for so long that I'm a little afraid I'll find something else wrong tomorrow!
I met CK over at Prananda for class this evening, biking over from the house and making it there before her. It was a small, quiet class today with one new person joining us. I'd missed classes with JW and it was nice having a fairly easy class in the cool, cinder block building. I was rewarded by getting feedback that the alignment of my shoulders and hips has been improving tremendously!
When I felt a little rush of relief at CK kissing me I realized the tension I'd been hanging onto since she went home on Sunday. After weeks of tension I've been feeling I'm enjoying spending the evening with her having dinner and some nice wine. We've talked about systems work, I've even been able to provide a couple of ideas, which feels great. There is just a feeling of finding our way back to the comfort with one another we had established.
When I feel like I lose my way, especially for weeks at a time, it begins to feel like that the comfort in our relationship was illusory.My PTSD triggers can feel so overwhelming, blinding that seeing that we're still here and together seems nearly impossible. We both have a protective tendency to withdraw in our own ways and are having to learn how to trust that it is OK to leave some openness.
And I guess for me it is time to add working on that shame into my practice. I've been coasting on the fact that my therapist and Zen teacher have said I'm good working on the grief, the feelings of injustice. I've known this is big, in the back of my mind I've known for years.
At times I almost find it incredulous that mere moments in my childhood have caused such deep, lasting pain. I think of myself as resourceful and resilient, but these moments have to potential to utterly overwhelm me as an adult. The echos of emotion around them stagger me now and I'd like to think that I'm bigger than them. But they are momentous. It only goes to prove how important each and every moment is because even minutes of trauma can reach forward across years.
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