#persevering

[emotionallychargedtowel]

This reminds me of the Elizabeth Zimmermann quote, “Knit on with confidence and hope through all crises.”

Of course, it doesn’t just apply to knitting. But once you get the basics down, knitting can be a particularly good option when you’re too anxious or sad to be super coordinated or think very hard. Then you can adjust your difficulty level to the amount of brainpower you have and the degree of distraction you need. And in the end you get a concrete useful item and you can tell yourself, “if nothing else, I made something useful.”

Hey, also, all the anarchist shit aside, tomorrow I want you to make something.

I forced myself to draw something after the 2016 election. I forced myself to draw something when my mother died in 2018. I forced myself to draw something when my spouse was hospitalized for multiple organ failure in 2021.

When you are miserable, make something. Add a row to your project, bake a box cake, draw on a sheet of lined paper, write a poem on a napkin, fold an origami shirt out of a dollar bill, make your favorite recipe for dinner, but make something with your hands, something that you can hold and look at engage your senses in.

It won't fix the world, but it will change the world. You will have made something that didn't exist before. You will have impacted your reality, even in a very small way. And it is going to be something you made *after.* Something bad happened, something shook you, and you made something after, in spite of it.

[thepartyishere]

I hate it when the anxiety makes no sense. this isnt that bad I'll be okay why am I seconds from throwing up rn

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Pressing Toward the Goal

12 Not as though I have already received, or have already been perfected; but I am striving, so that I may also lay hold on that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself as having attained; but this one thing I do-- forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to the things that are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 3:12-14 | A Faithful Version (AFV) A Faithful Version Bible Copyright © 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 York Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Cross References: Matthew 5:48; Luke 9:62; Acts 9:5; Romans 8:28; Romans 8:39; Romans 11:29; 1 Corinthians 9:24; Hebrews 6:1

[jimekas]

The SOULs healing you before the Finale with Photoshop Flowey

Charlie: Learn with Patience you will get to the end,

Noa: Show that you're Brave in all your fights,

Sam: With Integrity, be true to yourself

Jill: Keep Persevering, don't give up !

Camille: Take care, sometimes Kindness is what's needed

Jack: You're Just you will know what is right.

Chara/Narrator: Despite all, you continue to be You,

All: Stay Determined you will get through !

(I know the colors are off but it's the only ones I can use here TwT)

Another little something for Undertale 8th Anniversary.

I wrote this a couple weeks ago. It's not much but I feel it's matching them

[j-august]

When twenty-seven independent Trading worlds, united only by their distrust of the mother planet of the Foundation, concert an assembly among themselves, and each is big with a pride grown of its smallness, hardened by its own insularity and embittered by eternal danger - there are preliminary negotiations to be overcome of a pettiness sufficiently staggering to heart-sicken the most persevering.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire

[foxfacecaroline13]

We don't dream women's dreams. Our training not women's training. The sweat on our foreheads, not women's sweat. We know what we want and we know how to achieve it. By persevering, fighting, and running, until we can't anymore. And then, continuing pushing. Our heart beats not for women's goals, but for dream goals. We discuss tactics, not women's tactics. We go out and give our all for 90 minutes. As ONE team. That's why what we love with every ounce of our bodies, every thought, and every beat of our heart is football, not women's football.

Women play football. #NotWomensFootball

[howifeltabouthim]

He had said often enough that their love was impossible — yet he had loved her in and through that impossibility.

Iris Murdoch, from The Book and the Brotherhood

[becomingtoday]

Persevering To Persevere

Perseverance allows us the ability to get through the tough times, that no matter how severe things may seem, realize we have the ability to overcome and continue our "Becoming Today".

Today’s topic is one I need your help with. Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. We all face challenges, setbacks, and moments where giving up feels like the easiest option. However here’s the secret: the most successful people aren’t those who never encounter obstacles, they’re the ones who embrace perseverance. Perseverance is the magic ingredient that turns dreams into reality. It’s…

[urgentkettle]

[lotus-pear]

partners in crime or smt idk

[thedaveandkimmershow]

It comes up, of course. How fast time moves. How years, decades are gone in the blink of an eye.

Which feels true.

Even though it isn't.

Definitely when I look back across years and decades I'm looking at a thing—Time—that's massively compressed by that act of looking. I imagine those years and decades in a literal blink of a eye. I don't relive them. I don't unpack them. So of course it all seems like it zipped by. Because in thinking about it just then...

It actually did zip by.

However.

That wasn't my lived experience.

Okay I lied just now. That wasn't always my lived experience.

Why?

Because I wasn't always paying attention. I wasn't always invested in whatever it was at the time. I wasn't always fully present for certain experiences. So yeah.

That time. Blew by.

Because I didn't really live it. A little like that Adam Sandler movie "Click" where he has a remote that can literally fast forward or rewind his life. The remote also has a memory. So if he's jumped ahead for a certain activity or circumstance once, the remote will jump him forward on its own whenever that activity or circumstance turns up again. Until suddenly he's skipping through huuuuge chunks of his life.

That's maybe overly dramatic on my part... but the lesson remains. Invested or not. Relational or not. Present...

Or not.

To be clear: life always feels like it just sped the heck by when you're looking in the rearview mirror. That's a perceptual trick, however. The real question is Did I live my life? Did I experience it with the people I love?

Because yeah. There are always ways to not.

Try to avoid those, is my advice.

😐

I'm kicking the tires on these ideas right now because I was thinking about how intentional we've been with Kimmer's aunt Jacquie. How intentional Kimmer's been. How intentional Jacquie's son has been.

I'm thinking about how we spent the last ten months during which Jacquie obviously didn't have tons of time left on the clock. I'm remembering each visit. I'm remembering sitting next to her bed and holding her hand. I'm remembering Jacquie back at her memory care home in the midst of a squirt gun fight in the courtyard on a hot day. I'm remembering walking her in the halls of her rehab place at the top of the year when she thought we could catch a ride with whoever that was parked out in front of the front doors. I'm remembering walking around her neighborhood with her. And walking around her neighborhood with her. And walking around her neighborhood with her.

I remember our family sitting around the patio table for pizza dinner when her husband, Dave, was alive and we were joined by their son and grandson.

I remember the details. I photographed a bunch of those details. I wrote about those details.

And Kimmer?

Yeah. She spent ten times more time immersed with her aunt than I (at least). And she has a better memory than I. She could tell you stories.

She could.

The reason I'm banging this drum right now is to point out that, in the rearview mirror, time is like hyperspace. You travel great distances in no time at all.

Memory, however, is different. When we choose to unpack a particular event or circumstance or relationship whether through raw remembering, photographs, or writing... time unfolds again. Not fully, of course. Just enough to remind us it didn't actually happen as fast as it later seems because...

Because we were in relationship. Because we were fully present. Because we were and are invested. And yeah. Those experiences that claim more space in our brains? We get to unpack those later. That time isn't lost to us. The experiences aren't lost to us. They colored us in ways that persist. They affect who we are and how we are. Because Life does that when we allow it to. Because Time does that when we allow it to. Because our closest relationships do that.

When we allow them to.

In the end, we have no regrets about our time with Jacquie. We ended well together. Especially Jacquie and Kimmer.

Those two ended well.

And the Why of that's not lost on me.

Kimmer invested herself in Jacquie's remaining days. Before that, she invested herself in Jacquie as Jacquie's dementia drained her of memories, names, relationships, and bandwidth. Before that, she invested in Jacquie as Jacquie's favorite niece just as Jacquie invested in Kimmer as Kimmer's favorite aunt. Two peas in a pod, their relationship was a natural expression of their personalities and experiences. They had no problem being fully present with each other. Kimmer had no problem being fully present with Jacquie as dementia began the drawn out process of taking Jacquie away from us. Kimmer had no problem being fully present with Jacquie during the last five weeks of Jacquie's life as Jacquie's cognition ebbed and flowed, as her consciousness sometimes latched onto things in the real world...

But mostly didn't.

Kimmer lived that experience with Jacquie. She walked the last lap with her.

And ended well.

No regrets.

It comes up, of course. How fast time moves. How years, decades are gone in the blink of an eye.

Which feels true.

Even though it isn't.

🙂

[eggsdrawings]

the kaminari and mina friendship is underutilized and i think we need to change that

[rockinrye]

exhausted of

[sehaniine]

link has a bad habit of getting distracted and falling off cliffs

[2-eeillustration]

I think somebody may have had too much Dark Energon.... Inspired by this doodle by th3e_m4ng0 on Twitter!! - https://x.com/th3e_m4ng0/status/1769567478382780914?s=20

[samipekoe]

summer pookies