Here & now: self-regulating at home in Colorado

Here and now, at home in Colorado. 

It’s warm, already too warm for me to go for a run at 9am. It’s sunny and bright and there’s a very gentle breeze. Some birds are chirping. Somebody is mowing a lawn not too far from my front porch — I cannot see them but I can hear the lawnmower and the people’s voices when the machine is off. 

It feels like a lazy summer morning. 

Grounding myself, here and now. This is a great part of self-regulation. What I see here, what I smell, what I hear, what I feel on my skin. Here and now. Not last week, not a month ago, not in some unknown future. 

Being here and now is all I can really do to keep my mind from spinning, triggered by the renewed wave of grief and resurfacing abandonment trauma. 

And if I do want to think about the past or need to plan for the future, do it to the extent that it serves and heals me. Like planning for the grad course I’ll be teaching and focusing on my research work again. Or like remembering all the lovely moments from my road trip out in nature last week, my long walks along several rivers, my swims in reservoirs, my hikes — the mountains, the lakes, the meadows, the woods; the sky full of stars and the Milky Way so clearly visible and the shooting star I was able to admire while tent-camping; the sounds of the creek and the rain while I was cozily sleeping in my little tent that kept both me and my friend who paid me a surprise visit from Iowa warm & dry; the lovely moments with this dear friend who made the trek from Iowa to see & support me for a few days in the mountains, who went swimming in the reservoir with me, played music and sang with me, hugged me when I burst into tears and held my hand when I couldn’t sleep; the fun moments with the other friend who offered me hospitality once again in his house in southern Colorado at the end of my trip and with whom I went for a beautiful and fun morning hike, feeling so free and happy in a wonderfully childish way on our jog back downhill throw the bushes. Remember all the moments I was held, be it by loving, supportive, fun friends or by Nature itself and the connection I felt with it All. 

A connection that I can recapture again now, sitting on my front porch at home on this warm, lazy summer morning, if only I allow it. 

A connection that might lessen or soften the pain from the loss of my dad and the separation from my genderqueer European friend.

Here and now, at home in Colorado, I might not have all that I would want or wish for, but I have enough.