On Monday afternoon, I had the strangest sensation. I’d slept pretty well, gotten up and read with my coffee, worked on a blog post, then got down to work. I rapidly cranked out a bunch of tasks.<\/p>\n
Something felt different, but familiar. It was like, like …. I mentally squinted, trying to figure out what the heck that sensation was.<\/p>\n
Finally it came to me.<\/p>\n
I felt normal.<\/p>\n
This year, the past 13 months, I’ve not been normal. Every day something was off-kilter or stressful or downright frightening. For large parts of every day, and sometimes the whole day and night, I was in a fog or depressed or anxious. I fought to hang onto reality; as recently as last week I endured long hours when that grasp was frail as a thread.<\/p>\n
This week, something shifted. It was so huge that it felt planetary.<\/p>\n
I’ve slept through the night with nothing stronger than mint tea. I’ve awakened looking forward to each day. I’ve made plans of what I needed to accomplish, and completed the list. I’ve exercised, read, written my blog posts, cooked good meals.<\/p>\n
Normal.<\/p>\n
The biggest change is that I could get my work done. I didn’t stare at the screen and then turn away because I couldn’t solve the problem. I didn’t feel stupid<\/a>. I didn’t feel terrified that I’d lost all my professional abilities.<\/p>\n I’m no longer pushing a Sisyphean boulder uphill.<\/p>\n In everyday activities, I’m feeling calm instead of frantic. I’m not rushing through the day grabbing at fragments of time. I feel\u00a0like the world is moving at a normal pace.<\/p>\n It’s been a\u00a0whole week.<\/p>\n No magic potion brought this about. Just perseverance. Putting one foot in front of the other. One thing at a time<\/a>. Some days<\/a>, it was one minute at a time.<\/p>\n I just kept going. And finally my brain\u00a0has righted itself.<\/p>\n I thank my grandma Alma’s booties<\/a>. I have thought of her every day in\u00a0this trying time in my life. Her story is in me. She is what I’m made of.<\/p>\n I thank my Dad for that. He gave me this blog<\/a>, and it helped keep me sane.<\/p>\n I thank Tom, who was steady for me even when he couldn’t walk.<\/p>\n I thank my brain surgeon Dr. Daniel Barrow, who told me that my brain was fixed<\/a> and he was right, because he fixed it.<\/p>\n I thank my friend Paul<\/a>, who reassured me when I desperately needed it.\u00a0Exactly one year ago, he wrote to me,<\/p>\n As frustrating and difficult as this is, the good news is that in months (be patient young grasshopper, MONTHS not days) this is going to be a LOT better. … You are going to be in a much better place by next Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He was right. Despite everything else that happened this year, I am in a much, much better place than last Dec. 17.<\/p>\n I’m so normal that I put up a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n I’m in a state of normaltree.<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 2015. The beginning of the year that wasn’t normal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Monday afternoon, I had the strangest sensation. I’d slept pretty well, gotten up and read with my coffee, worked on a blog post, then got down to work. I rapidly cranked out a bunch of tasks. Something felt different, but familiar. It was like, like …. I mentally squinted, trying to figure out what … read more A new feeling<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[67,493,121,8,525,504,20],"class_list":["post-10069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refraction","tag-67","tag-brain","tag-christmas","tag-dad","tag-normalcy","tag-recovery","tag-tom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10069"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10077,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069\/revisions\/10077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}