Personal journal 11/04/2016

Personal JournalNovember 4, 2016

 Art it consumes me. I look at the sky and am entranced by the layers of color, of movement above and the slowness below. White, yet so many shades of white, of grey, of blue and sometimes darkest of greys. They all call to me to ‘look!’ And so I do.

 Even in the midst of conversations I will look at the wall, at the construction of the bar or the wine lined up on the counter. I look and for a moment I am lost in the order, the lines, the shadows or the way the light sparkles on one, yet not another. I’m not always the best of conversationalist.

 In the group I attended for public speaking they call it talking ‘off the cuff’. I totally suck at it. To be asked a question, for my mind to computer what the question is, what an appropriate answer would be stretches my brain’s limits. Spontaneity isn’t my strong suit. I do so much better with planned speeches and poetry read in public. They are my own words which I created after all. They are already inside my brain simply waiting to pour out in a display of apparent emotion. Emotions I really do not find easy to express as this part is lost to me.

 I suppose one day it will become an easy thing. Practice is what is needed after all. So I push myself to engage in conversation even when I stop paying attention to stare behind them at the wine rack. Even when my mind is full of images I want to put into digital mixed media form. I push past all the uncomfortable to get to a place of becoming comfortable.

 If I can even make sense of what the conversation has been about that is.



Day 9 of September, “Year Ten”

Day 9 of September
“Year Ten”

The Hope Within the Storm Collection

Of the PTSD Poetry Project 2016

(
“Year Ten” was written about the first year after Traumatic Brain Injury which occurred in October 2013. )

Day 20 of 22

“Year Ten”

I sit and stare at the screen

Alive with movement

I don’t even care

I sit

I stare

I won’t remember the story anyway

I sit

I stare

I am merely existing

I go to appointments

Meant to help me heal

I go to appointments

Meant to lead me back to me

I sit

I stare

I look at the clock

Which tells me four hours have passed

I’m unaware of time now

I sit

I stare

Will my life always be like this?

I interact with no one

I cannot follow conversation

I sit

I stare

Until a softness begins

I remember one thing

Then I remember another

I wait

And wait

Something is happening

Inside my head

I am beginning to remember

As my body has begun healing

So has my brain

Slowly

So very slow

Fits and spurts of growth

Then stagnation for awhile

I read and reread journals

Hoping to stir a response

My brain is not yet ready

I wait

This time so very patiently

I wait

Time moves on

Without me realizing

Months have passed now

More healing happens

It’s becoming easier to look others in the eye

It’s becoming easier to censor my words

It’s becoming easier to not blurt all my words at once

I walk and walk

I walk it seems for hours

My body, in its stagnation

Has become stubborn

So I walk and walk

Telling it

We are okay now

It’s okay to let go

We are no longer starving

We are no longer in distress

We are finally in active healing

It is okay

To finally let go

***