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 Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt. |
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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. |
| This morning, somewhere between the first cup of coffee and the second, I realized I’m thinking ahead. The seven-year anniversary of my brain tumor is in September. I still have time before the calendar forces me to acknowledge it. But the thought showed up anyway. Seven years. At some point, I stopped calling it recent. I also stop calling it temporary. The changes don’t feel like an interruption anymore. They feel… installed. I used to think of it as being off course. A few degrees left of center. A drift I’d eventually correct if I just gave it enough time. Lately, I know that’s not true. The course didn’t bend and then straighten out. It changed. Permanently. And after seven years, it doesn’t feel off course at all. It feels like the course. That sounds heavier than it is. Time has a way of sanding things down. Not erasing them, just rounding the sharp edges so you stop catching yourself on them every time you move. Words still slip away. Threads still drop. I still reread things I wrote and think, where did that come from. But I also know how to move here now. I know where the blind spots are. I know which mornings need more coffee and fewer expectations. I know that showing up counts, even when the path doesn’t look like the one I started on. Seven years didn’t give me the old map back. It gave me a new one. |
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