MORE PROGRESS MORE INSIGHTS

More therapy—occupational, physical, an evaluation for speech therapy, vision evaluations, etc.—but also every day I feel more "recovered" and back, or hopefully forward, to my old/new self.

Still tough typing, but better. Noticed this morning I wrote "are" for "our" and "to" for "so" etc. That's obviously a cognitive thing not "motor skills" (wrote that first as "stills") since the letters are far apart on the keyboard so obviously my brain is interpreting my directions as something other than I think I'm intending.

But there's motor stuff too as I often hit a letter on a close by key ("f" for "d" etc.), plus my usual two-fingered speed typing mistakes of just transposing letters (typing "throguh" instead of "through") only many more than usual.

But the reading is almost "normal" except for getting tired either mentally or just my eyes. And my capacity to take in more and more without feeling anxious or like the input is too overwhelming.

Unfortunately along with that complexity comes a loss of the simple clarity of those first weeks when everything seemed singularly special and precisely what it was (though the accumulation of these sensations like I said became overwhelming if I didn't confine my experiences to "one thing at a time"—including people etc.

One of the things that strikes me most about being at this point in the recovery of my mental and physical faculties is how peaceful I continue to feel about it all. I used to have something to read—usually a NEW YORKER or a Sunday NY TIMES—with me wherever I went, auditions, the train, doctors' offices, the gym, etc. I'd read on the treadmill, waiting for be seen by a casting director, etc.

I don't do that now. I couldn't for (I first wrote "more"!) most of the past month, and have no interest in doing it still. So when I find myself waiting in the doc's office or for the occupational therapist or whatever, and time is passing, I just close my eyes and let the time pass as it will, and does. Very peaceful and accepting feeling and I am enormously grateful for it, because as anyone who has known me before knows, I was always naturally speedy and had to work very hard (or do other things very intensely) to slow down at all. Now it seems to come "naturally"—and I don't want to jinx it but even the trouble I normally have falling back to sleep when things wake me up during the night seems to have been relieved, ever since I finished the steroids used for the first week after the brain surgery to keep the swelling in the brain down. Could it be whatever was in my brain was causing the trouble sleeping? I'm hoping, but mostly I'm just accepting the recent reality of not needing to make endless lists to fall asleep or back asleep.

But don't worry, I'm sure my compulsion to make lists will return and manifest itself in some other way soon enough. Meanwhile these posts are their own lists in a way. Including lists of some of the many things I am grateful for.