Seven Degrees Left of Center

I wasn’t at full capacity yesterday

Level 4 headache. Not hospital bad. Just enough to make everything feel slightly off-center. Thoughts took the long way around. Light felt louder than it should. My brain started up, but it sputtered like an old pickup on a cold morning. It was working, just not willingly.

And the day didn’t slow down just because I did.

I had a funeral to attend.

Funerals are heavy on good brain days. Yesterday I showed up with maybe seventy percent of myself and hoped that would be enough. Turns out, it was. Presence doesn’t require perfection. It just requires… presence.

After lunch, I let myself power down.

No heroics. No “push through and power on.” Just water, quiet, dim light, and letting my brain cool off. Self-care at this stage of life looks less like bubble baths and more like respecting the warning lights on the dashboard.

We write a lot about good brain days. The sharp ones. The clear ones. The mornings when ideas come easily, and coffee tastes like momentum.

Yesterday wasn’t that.

It was a steady-the-ship kind of day.

The older I get — and the further I get from the tumor — the more I understand that not every day is meant to be productive or profound. Some days are maintenance days.

Yesterday, I did what needed to be done. Then I rested.

That’s not weakness.

That’s wisdom I didn’t have before.