I really can’t blame it all on grief.  It started with grad school, 3 1/2 years, all year round, and a 60 page masters thesis.  I remember talking with a friend who graduated with me two years out, and she asked if I felt like my brain function was worse since grad school, to which I replied with a resounding YES!  Then there were the children.  With each one, I joked that the placenta and brain got mixed up on the way out. Yes, I know, gross.  But seriously, true.

Then there is this. Grief. I was smart at one point in my life. Super smart. Now, I feel like if I read through an entire medical journal article, and bonus if I actually understand it without re-reading three times, it is a good day. There was a time when I was reading up to ten of those in a day. I used to be able to multi-task with ease. When in a deep philosophical conversation, I could keep up with the best. Now. It is different. Readers, you can probably tell from my previous musings, that I often get quite frustrated with this process and its vast effects. Well, pissed off/livid/furious is still keeping it mild, but more descriptive. This one is no exception to the process. I have realized the brain can only take and do so much.

What is it doing?  Well, for me, there is this movie real that is constantly going of the things I saw and experienced that day and night. The details are as crisp as the day they happened. There is the constant awareness of my surroundings and the potential things that may trigger me.  I need to come up with a different word for that?! Anyhoo. This constant awareness “protects” me as much as it can from going into a devastating fight or flight mode that my body, having experienced severe trauma, likes to now go into. My brain is also processing grief. For over two and a half years now, it has churned over the events and emotions around Jesse’s death. I am as at peace with it as I am going to be. at least for today.  Maribella’s though. Well, that is a different story altogether. I haven’t dealt. That takes some serious brain energy right there. It is not only vaulting that up, but often is in a state of denial on top of it. It fascinates me to no end what the brain will do to survive. You see, it cannot process/accept/deal with how she died, what I found, how this child whom I gave life to is no longer here. My therapist before Christmas said to me that his supervisors suggested it may be time to start looking at the grief around Bella. I laughed at him and told them to say from me they could go fuck themselves thank you very much. I said to him just yesterday after talking about a slew of other things that I did not forget that conversation. I told him that I made a decision on it. That if his supervisors could foot the bill of the nervous breakdown that will occur when I deal with her death, lets do it (I am self employed, so if I do not work, I do not get paid). Yes, I am fluent in sarcasm. But back to the brain, it is working hard to keep me from her grief. That in itself is a full time job.

I forget things. I forget conversations I have had. I forget details of things. If someone tells me something, and I do not write it down, it’s gone. My daughter is constantly “ughing” me because she says, mom, you already told me that a million times. I did? I keep a pretty regimented schedule mostly so that the things that need to happened are ingrained and I don’t have to think about it. I live by my calendar. I miss being able to focus on things. I miss being able to track and contribute to multiple people speaking at once.  If I am in a room and that is happening, don’t ask me to recall anything from the conversation. One on one is hard enough now.  I really miss how easily learning new things came to me. And we won’t even talk about what happens if I am tired.

I have learned over this time to make as much peace with this stuff as I can. It does not mean I don’t fight it. I do. Fiercely. I am working really, really hard at self-compassion. The results of this are through no fault of my own. I refuse to be a victim. However, when I forget a detail, that never would have happened previously, instead of berating and saying a litany of unkind things to myself, I work hard to catch that installed program and insert a kinder one. One that says, hey, your brain is working really hard to keep itself together and not fall apart, give us some slack.

Maybe one day I will be smarter again. I don’t know. There are no manuals for any of this. And certainly no future predictions. Just being. Just living the best I can putting one foot in front of the other, learning as I go.