%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt. |
|
In September 2019, a seizure revealed a lime-sized meningioma pressed against my hippocampus—the part of the brain that governs memory and language. The doctors said it was benign, but benign didn’t mean harmless. Surgery removed the tumor, and three days later I opened my eyes to a new reality. I could walk, I could talk, but when I looked at my wife, her name was gone. I called her Precious—the only word I could find. A failure of memory, yet perhaps the truest name of all. Recovery has been less cure than re-calibration. Memory gaps are frequent. Conversations vanish. I had to relearn how to write, letter by halting letter. My days are scaffold by alarms, notes, and calendars. When people ask how I am, I don’t list symptoms or struggles. I simply say, “Seven Degrees Left of Center.” It’s not an answer—it’s who I’ve become. |
| Today I woke up knowing it is a good day. Today is a good day to talk about Seven Degrees Left of Center. Not because I planned it. Because my brain feels energized and my mood is good. The gears are turning without resistance. The coffee is here, but it doesn’t have to work so hard this morning. That matters more than people realize. When your brain is foggy or tired, everything leans. Thoughts drift. Focus slips. Writing feels like pushing uphill. But on mornings like this, things sit closer to center. Not perfect. Just aligned enough to get the words on the screen. That’s what Seven Degrees Left of Center has always been about for me. Not fixing the brain. Not chasing some old version of myself. Just learning what it feels like when things line up well enough to move forward. Today is one of those days. I don’t feel rushed. I don’t feel stuck. I don’t feel like I have to force words onto the page. I’m awake, I’m engaged, and I want to write. The coffee is good, but it isn’t doing all the work today. Feeling better after two weeks of COVID helps more. I’ll take a day like this when it shows up and use it while it’s here. |
|
Thinking about writing doesn’t count as writing. This occurred to me sometime between the first cup of coffee and the moment I realized I was still staring at a blank screen. I was fully engaged in the process. Planning. Considering. Mentally revising a paragraph that did not yet exist. Very productive. Zero words written. Thinking feels like progress. It has posture. It sits there nodding seriously, pretending it’s on your side. Meanwhile, nothing moves. I told myself I was just warming up. Writers need to warm up, right? Stretch the brain. Loosen the ideas. Possibly check the news. Maybe refill the coffee. All very important steps. None of them involves typing. Then I ran into this sentence: Thinking about writing doesn’t count as writing. Rude. Accurate. Somewhere around the second reread of that line, my fingers hit the keyboard. Not confidently. Not elegantly. Just enough to break whatever spell had convinced me that thinking was the same thing as doing. So here’s today’s rule. If I catch myself thinking about writing instead of writing, I’m losing. The fix is embarrassingly simple. Type something. Anything. Bad sentences count. Complaints count. This paragraph definitely counts. Which means, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I appear to be writing after all. |
| I wrote a novel. I keep typing that sentence just to make sure it is still true. It is. I finished the first draft of my first novel, and when I read it, I did not cringe. I did not immediately start a mental list of everything wrong with it. I thought, “This is actually pretty good.” That alone feels like a minor miracle. Before the brain injury, I always wanted to be a writer. I talked about it for years. I had ideas, characters, notebooks, and exactly zero finished stories. Wanting was easy. Finishing was theoretical. This time was different. This time, I showed up. I wrote through confusion. I wrote through repetition. I wrote through days where my notes were more reliable than my memory. I did not quit. I did not wander off to start something new when it got hard. I stayed with one story long enough to give it a beginning, a middle, and an end. That matters. The novel is not perfect. It is not done done. But it exists. It has shape. It has momentum. It has characters who survived the journey with me. That is something I have never done before. I am proud of this. Full stop. Does everyone care? Probably not. But I do. And for the first time, that feels like enough. This draft proves I can finish something big, even with the brain I have now. Especially with the brain I have now. I wrote a novel. Then I made coffee, because apparently that is how I celebrate now. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
Puzzle Hub
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
Best wishes for 2026, and do please keep us in your loopy loop 
