arliss: (notdead)
( Sep. 7th, 2003 07:36 am)
Had a marvelous time with L yesterday. It was wonderful to be able to walk and look at things for several hours.behind the cut )The insides of my knees are sore, but not my other joints, and this is muscle pain, so, use after disuse and a good sort of achy. I'm so pleased at this, because it's been months that I haven't been able to walk for hours at a time. I did have to find somewhere to sit for a minute or two yesterday while L stood in one place and took notes. I was fine walking, but I can't, and never could, stand for long periods at a stretch. But exercise, yay!
arliss: (notdead)
( Sep. 7th, 2003 07:36 am)
Had a marvelous time with L yesterday. It was wonderful to be able to walk and look at things for several hours.behind the cut )The insides of my knees are sore, but not my other joints, and this is muscle pain, so, use after disuse and a good sort of achy. I'm so pleased at this, because it's been months that I haven't been able to walk for hours at a time. I did have to find somewhere to sit for a minute or two yesterday while L stood in one place and took notes. I was fine walking, but I can't, and never could, stand for long periods at a stretch. But exercise, yay!
arliss: (fly)
( Sep. 7th, 2003 12:51 pm)
Several friends, "invisible" online friends as well as ones in meatspace, are going through some tough times, having situations and life changes not their fault or their making thrust upon them. That's very familiar, and realistically, unless we are Howard Hughes or his like, it's part of being and living with humans. Almost every relationship is begun with the belief that both (or all) parties want the same things from it, or if the expectations are different, at least those differences are accepted. But life happens differently to us all, needs change, ideas change, and a relationship that was once ideal becomes stifling for one partner, while becoming ever more relied upon by another. Everything shifts, whether we want it to or not. It's the not wanting it to that causes more heartache than the changes, most often.

Like most humans, when I see pain I want to ease it, make it better, help however I can. But I keep learning this lesson over and over again: another's pain does not belong to me. If I had the power to assuage it, ease it, make it disappear, I would be wrong to use that power, because it would be theft. Theft of the experience, the need for that person to live through whatever comes, react however s/he is able, and take whatever lesson from it s/he can. All I, any friend, any parent, any partner can do, is stand back and offer support, advice if it's useful or requested, sympathy and hope if it can be accepted. That's all.

I have lived through my own shifts, my own hells, every sodding minute of them. And what they've taught me is, while some things can't be fixed if the definition of fixed is "what I want," all things change, including hell. If one can maintain a fingernail's hold on life and the dumb belief in tomorrow not being worse than today, things will shift again. And while heaven may not follow hell, it will at least be a new day, a new reality, a new situation to be dealt with. Rushing at unwelcome change bellowing defiance has exactly the same result as sitting quietly and letting it wash over one. With the possible difference that in one's own stillness one might see a glimmer of the reality of the other person(s) in the equation. Which can be illuminating, even if it doesn't ease one's own pain.
arliss: (fly)
( Sep. 7th, 2003 12:51 pm)
Several friends, "invisible" online friends as well as ones in meatspace, are going through some tough times, having situations and life changes not their fault or their making thrust upon them. That's very familiar, and realistically, unless we are Howard Hughes or his like, it's part of being and living with humans. Almost every relationship is begun with the belief that both (or all) parties want the same things from it, or if the expectations are different, at least those differences are accepted. But life happens differently to us all, needs change, ideas change, and a relationship that was once ideal becomes stifling for one partner, while becoming ever more relied upon by another. Everything shifts, whether we want it to or not. It's the not wanting it to that causes more heartache than the changes, most often.

Like most humans, when I see pain I want to ease it, make it better, help however I can. But I keep learning this lesson over and over again: another's pain does not belong to me. If I had the power to assuage it, ease it, make it disappear, I would be wrong to use that power, because it would be theft. Theft of the experience, the need for that person to live through whatever comes, react however s/he is able, and take whatever lesson from it s/he can. All I, any friend, any parent, any partner can do, is stand back and offer support, advice if it's useful or requested, sympathy and hope if it can be accepted. That's all.

I have lived through my own shifts, my own hells, every sodding minute of them. And what they've taught me is, while some things can't be fixed if the definition of fixed is "what I want," all things change, including hell. If one can maintain a fingernail's hold on life and the dumb belief in tomorrow not being worse than today, things will shift again. And while heaven may not follow hell, it will at least be a new day, a new reality, a new situation to be dealt with. Rushing at unwelcome change bellowing defiance has exactly the same result as sitting quietly and letting it wash over one. With the possible difference that in one's own stillness one might see a glimmer of the reality of the other person(s) in the equation. Which can be illuminating, even if it doesn't ease one's own pain.
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