Today I had the best idea for today's blog post, but I put off writing till now and something else caught my attention and I can't remember what it was I was originally going to post about. My life has a way of doing that.
I went to more concussion therapy today. I visited with the social worker in charge of my case first. She is the 2nd person to make sure that we were honoring ourselves and our grief process on the 10th. Yes, we are. We also talked about the toll grief has taken on the concussion symptoms that I experience. I do realize that grief has compounded the symptoms, but the symptoms were there before Nick's death. It's okay, we will get this figured out, and maybe, just maybe, the recent flare up will get better after the anniversary comes and goes.
After the social worker, I visited with the speech pathologist. We are making some real progress in therapy with her. It's not really therapy that makes the symptoms go away. It's more therapy to help manage the symptoms and life to avoid experiencing symptoms. Last week we focused on getting all of our bills on auto payment so that I will not forget to pay them (which has been happening entirely too much in the last 3 years). Today we talked about phone apps to be used to help me keep lists and my life organized. I will spend this week going over the apps and getting things taken care of that way. We also discussed the novel writing project and she agreed that it is a great idea as a tool for building my brain endurance. (Ohhhh..that is what I was going to write about.)
We talked about builing my brain endurance. As an endurance athlete, this reallly struck home with me. Though I have a tendency to complete half marathons without training (or even a marathon without training), putting my brain through that kind of fete is even more painful than putting my muscles and bones through that kind of thing. If I run a half marathon or marathon without training, my body may hurt for a couple of days or a week, but I recover pretty quickly (most of the time). But if I try to push my brain to read too much too soon or don't take brain breaks, the hang over on the brain is so much more painful and really does take me out of life for a week. The brain endurance has to be built up gradually and trained just as if I was training my body for a marathon. (I never really thought about it that way).
I also had another realization today. I have been pouting about my brain limitations and having to compensate for my current brain strength. I keep comparing myself to what I used to be (the person who read a book a week). Now it takes me a month to read a book. I used to learn 10 choreos a week for Zumba and now I struggle with 1 choreo in months for belly dance. The more I compare myself, the more unhappy I get. The thing is, I did the same thing with my physical body. I compare where I am today, to the size 10 woman who ran for miles and miles just for fun. My body can't run anymore, and I am guilty of beating myself up. It has taken me quite a while to love my body for where it is right now and for what it can do right now. Looking back gets me nowhere. The only thing I can control is right NOW and I need to appreciate both my body and my mind for what it is an what it can do right now (which is still much more than some people).
Now that I have remembered that, I also wanted to share my thoughts on dinner tonight.
Tonight was a fundraiser for Meridian High School Choir tour. 10% of the food sales went to the choir. The entire family went tonight. All seven of us sat at the table together. We blew straw wrappers at each other. We threw peanut shells at each other. We laughed and giggled an shared food and drink with each other. Omi's eyes were bright and happy. Tom and Suzy as well as Nate and Trish made googly eyes at each other. And then Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's song "Fishing In The Dark" came on. Tracy and I started singing at the top of our lungs. This song came out our senior year in high school, and we used to go to the lake and sit under the stars and kiss to this song. There we were, surrounded by our happy children and remembering our high school years as lovers. I felt such bliss in that moment. I love having my entire family together.
I am so grateful for the beautiful life Tracy and I have created together. I'm so grateful to share every day with my best friend. And I am so very grateful my beautiful kids.
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