I pictured a rainbow/You held it in your hand/Nothing compares ... A longtime friend of mine (from a 35 year matured friendship) recently, gently suggested that I try to start up my writing, again. “It might help you”, they said. TNT for my ailing, TBI'd (Traumatic Brain Injured), shaken brain?. My username or handle here: BeachBlondeChic is a shadowy, wispy, long-forgotten reference to my former lofty and far more youthfully ambitious, highly internally driven, intensely competitive self. An entire, drifted hemisphere away, in the midst of my all consuming, intensely frustrating, scattered brain fog, as well as absent, exiled, expat geographic location. I continue to adore and dream of my 'bucket' beach-escapes -Bondi and Tama. Far, far away from 'home', still. So, how am I to know any differently?. Like telling night from day. Nowhere else for me to go. The musical soundtrack in my background to my particular moment writing here is the cascading, intensely uplifting vocals of Loreen: “Euphoria” (2012).
Medical professionals in my current care 'team' persistently inquire of me, since I'm actually still here, staunchly inhabiting my own mortal flesh and bones, if I remember the exact date when the whole crux of this personal, mass disintergration began. I do. It's all that I am really certain of anymore. 3/15/2021. Akin to an epitaph marker, stenciled into my self, and stitched to my shabby soul. It's been my darkest, furtherest fall. For sure. Suspended in a drifting twilight sleep, of sorts, rather than being in a constant, oppressive coma.
Abnormal CT scan. Severe concussion. Grade 3 whiplash injury. Ongoing post concussion syndrome symptoms. Of the cognitive, executive functioning type, apparently. So I'm told. I'm in my head somewhere. Either that, or I'm too far down into the depths of some upscale variation on a very unique brand of rabbit hole that most junkies can only wish to find themselves miraculously hitting via a single vein.
I worry that this is too much inner destruction to come back from, again. Having defied medical odds time and time again, I know enough to understand the depth and gravity of my impending fight. I'm feeling extremely unsteady. I'm filled with trepidation and a lot of unknowns are competing for the weight of my attention. This hour is late. Already. Invariably.
By stark contrast, my morning awakenings are a full-on panic attack, resplendent with requisite a thundering heart, a papery dry mouth, leaving me gasping for air, hands twisted up in muted surrender.
My day has now been quite simply just enough. Because it has to be.