Brain on Hiatus

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    It's been longer than a month since I blogged. It started in a funk - I was depressed and my writing was making everybody else depressed. I stopped my musing online since I didn't want a legacy like Goethe's - and end up with a future Wikipedia entry that reads: "good enough writer, but people died by suicide after reading her blog!". I also stopped writing because I felt like nothing was worth it. Depression is just a symptom and one cannot put a plaster on a seeping wound by not addressing the cause. In my case, my shunt was broken and has been probably for the past year. Thought you had a bad 2020? I have you beat there!

    Anyway, one more drilling and now I am back where I was a year ago- corrective brain surgery is done and waiting for the rest of my life to begin- albeit a more subdued, less optimistic, more realistic me now. If you had wondered why I wouldn't shut up about my little brain surgery from a year ago, this was why. It wasn't working and I know this last one is working because I can let it go already. I am so ready to move on too, with the reader's blessing and gratitude, I suspect.

    A year spent just looking at my thoughts and wondering why has led me to this rousing conclusion: "Enough already!". I am now in a Rehabilitation Course with other patients who need help after things like an accident, stroke, or something else more horrible. So, here's me without even a visible surgical wound- the half-shaved head can easily be hidden with the overlong hair from the other side. Pandemic meant I had no haircuts all of last year which comes to use now. Besides that, what else can I do now that I didn't do before? I have no idea. 

    Relearning how to walk, take a breath before talking, playing board games to improve my attention span from two thoughts max to a more human level, etc. The speed or lack of it in resuming my life is exhausting. I even pondered upon writing a self-help book called "Free up", but that's so laughably hypocritical. It took me ~15 minutes to find this word from just outside my prefrontal cortex. The point is, I'm not up to helping anyone with my story yet. It's being written as we speak. Anything without "THE END" is still something with at least the hope of getting better. And that's the maximum wisdom I can impart to anyone else.

    A Rehabilitation Center for recently discharged patients is an exercise in cultivating patience and tolerance by merely waiting. While waiting, I read a book titled "Waiting for the barbarians" by J.M.Coetzee. Anyone familiar with me personally knows I have a vivid imagination. This particular book is about how people willfully blind enable systemic torture by minding their own business. Sounds familiar? It did to me too, so I had to stop reading further before bed. Ironically, last night was the first non-chemically assisted full nights' sleep I've had since long before the surgery. Go figure!

    Moral of the Story: Shut up and sleep! You, too brain!



Comments

  1. Bala VaiyapuriSeptember 27, 2020 at 10:12 AM

    As usual, nicely narrated and loved the style... Its about self realization - in any degree, that makes the life more interesting and that little bit of acceptance makes a world of difference... Happy for you to get over all and staring a new lease of life...!

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