Planning

What I learned today:
Life is so much easier when there is a plan. My plan for the day started with getting up before everyone, getting a shower, getting dressed for the day and starting the coffee. The munchkins woke up soon after, but I was centered. I was good.

After weeks of chewing over advice and thoughts, all the little pieces made sense. The serenity prayer made sense. I let go. So what if when I went to Costco - I didn't buy Creamer, or I forgot something else. Was it on the list? Yes. Is it the end of the world? Nope. Did the kids have a good time and was I ok? Yepper.

Day one of planning- turning over new leaf- complete.

Now for sleep, and hey - I am ahead for tomorrow - I set the coffeemaker to brew when I wake up in the morning! Small Steps....

Listening to my voice

"Let go or be dragged."

This was a bumper sticker that my husband quoted to me the other day. It gave me something to think about. I turn ideas and thoughts over in my head for a few days- chew them over mentally. I've always done this- it seems to be more prevalent since I now have issues with getting out of my head and speaking. Letting go....it is a recurring theme in my life. I know everyone has to deal with this. There are manuals and discourses on how to let go, move on, deal with loss. There are Self help manuals, Dummy guides for just about everything that one goes through in life. You take a chapter from this one, a paragraph from that one and find what works for you because we all are different.

Change, Loss, Letting go....
17 years ago, when my parents died, I fought against the grief. I beat my hands bloody against that brick wall too many times. I wanted to push through the pain, the loss, the agony of losing two essential people in my life. I wanted to hurry it along and get through to the other side. It wasn't until I gave myself permission to feel, to let it take as long as it was going to take, that the healing began. And what I learned- is that no - you never get over the loss of losing someone, something. You just learn to live with it. It is a scar that is etched on your heart and soul.

So here I write at what seems to be my magic hour, Midnight. I had a B.F.O while I was trying to go to sleep. (B.F.O.= Blinding Flash of the Obvious)
I remembered the bumper sticker and remembered how I dealt with the loss of my parents. I am in a time of healing, with no known time frame for possible recovery. The unknown scares the crap out of me and of course, I respond with my usual stubbornness and Irish temper and put up my fists. With my B.F.O. I realize that I've wasted enough time fighting against the process of healing. It's time I fight for myself. I need to let go of the past, of holding on too tightly to what my brain was before my concussion. This is my new brain. It is rewiring itself and works differently - BUT IT STILL WORKS.

"Life is a one way street. No matter how many detours you take, none of them leads back. And once you accept that, life becomes much simpler. Because then you know you must do the best you can with what you have and what you are and what you have become." -Isabel Moore

Waiting for relief

I have sometimes questioned my sanity. I mean - I have my whole life. Emotions are powerful things and if you are a passionate person life can be intense. I have always felt like I was two sides to a coin- the strong, kick ass, warrior, explorer woman, who took no prisoners and the other - a gentle, poet reading, nice to babies, snuggly,warm, home body woman. Both parts inhabiting, cohabitating this body of mine.

That blasted day when I hit my head, everything changed. I was split in two and left to pick up the wreckage. I'm not sure what is left of my two sides. All the little nuances, all my little tricks to being quick in the morning, to getting everything done - had to be tossed out the window. All of 'those tricks,nuances' went with that 'other' model. The one 'before'.

So here I am. Questioning my sanity again. This time - it is a welcome dialogue because it is somewhat familiar. The pieces that I am salvaging, I am mending together with the help of my lifesavers...which would be my family. My precious girls - their smiles keep me going when the pain rings the hardest within my skull. They are the sweet breath to my soul that calms me when I want to scream the loudest. My husband is my anchor as I struggle through this sea of change holding on to my life raft. This effects and affects all of us, is what he keeps telling me.

So I will leave off for now and follow the advice of my old man who said,
"When things seem tough or when you're not sure what to do - go to sleep- take a nap. Things always look better after some sleep."

The Start of something....

I had fought for so very long. I had struggled to return to 'What was' before I stood up beneath that Blasted chandelier. Desperate to reverse time to when my skull didn't ache, to a time when I was migraine free.

Oh - How I began to detest you, my dear Brain. Everyone said that I had to be patient, that it would take time. I discovered, that while I am amazingly patient with everyone else, my husband, my children, my family, my friends- I an Not patient with myself. THIS..was not something I could push my way through. I've overcome a lot in my life. I've met challenges head on, but this unseen injury, laid me low.

Some of the words I would use to describe you Brain are Splintered, Fractured and Altered. It has been seven months since that day. There is no doubt that I have progressed. I am no longer dizzy every day. I no longer have to wear sunglasses constantly. My stamina for activities have increased tremendously and I do not stammer except when exhausted. We've become a team, my Brain and I. It took a while and I still have my moments.

Instead of fighting so hard to return to what was, I've had to come to the realization that this is it. Right now - today - is what my Brain is- how it works and doesn't work. We've had to figure out new ways to work with what I've got. I do my best to write everything down. There is a pad of paper everywhere: bathroom, by the bed, in my purse. There is a dry erase board in the kitchen and I have a Covey planner.

I have to be the most honest I've ever had to be in my life with myself and with my husband. This effects and affects us all. I have to take time to center my self. This is a tough thing to do with two children under the age of five at home. Brain and I have become an expert at centering with deep breaths, a banana and a cup of coffee.

In the moments of centering, I've realized that I can't fight myself any more. I don't want to go back to who I was before my 'Chandelier Moment'. I've had to slow down, to savor life a tad more. I've become a little weirder but hey- I lost that filter that just doesn't care any more what those 'other' people think. I'm too busy embracing what I have and being thankful.