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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. |
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I always wanted to be a writer. That is no secret if you’ve been following this blog. That sounded simple enough. Writers write stories. They get up early or stay up late. They stare out the window or at a blinking cursor. They drink coffee and pretend that counts as work until the words show up. That part I understood. What I didn’t think about was being an author. I didn’t even use that word for myself until I had something published. Before that, “author” felt too official. Too big. It sounded like someone who knew what they were doing. I most certainly do not. Then a story went out under my name. And suddenly it wasn’t just about writing anymore. There were edits. Decisions. Emails. Fixing small things that shouldn’t have been wrong in the first place. Waiting on feedback and pretending I wasn’t checking for it. Thinking about what comes next. Writing feels like sitting at the workbench building something. I like building stuff. Being an author feels like someone knocked on the door and asked when it will be finished. No one warned me about that shift. I thought if I could just prove to myself that I could tell a story, that would be enough. After failing English Composition more times than I care to admit, just finishing something felt like winning. But finishing isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of responsibility. That surprised me. I love the writing. The quiet. The early hours before the day starts. That part still feels like mine. The author part feels heavier. Not bad. Just heavier. Maybe this is what growing into it looks like. You don’t stop loving the fun part. You just realize there’s more attached to it than you expected. The coffee just finished brewing. So I’ll pour a cup, sit down, and write. The rest can catch up to me. |
| 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. |
| This morning started with a cold chocolate chip cookie and a philosophical question from a news story I heard yesterday: Are young people falling in love with AI? That feels like a very modern breakfast and an even more modern first thought. It made me ask something simpler. What is AI to me? It’s no secret I lean on it to assist with my writing. It’s not a replacement for real people. AI is more like a whiteboard that talks back. I throw an idea at it before the sun comes up, and it tosses something back. Sometimes useful. Sometimes weird. Sometimes suspiciously polite. But always enough to make me think. That’s the key. It doesn’t do my thinking for me. It gives my thinking something to push against. After the brain tumor, I became more aware of how my mind works. Some mornings are crisp. Most take a minute to load. Sometimes yesterday’s memories feel like they’re still buffering. On the good days, I can feel the gears click into place. Conversation helps. Interaction helps. AI just happens to be available at six in the morning. It doesn’t replace the work. I decide what’s worth keeping. I rewrite. That part matters. I delete anything that sounds like a motivational poster. The voice is mine. The stubbornness is definitely mine. Authorship isn’t about who typed first. It’s about who chooses. For me, AI is a tool. A drafting table. A sparring partner that never gets tired when my brain stalls. It helps me warm up. It fixes my typos. Sometimes it suggests a better word. And if that warm-up happens with coffee and a cold cookie? Call it cheating if you want. It’s still my story. |
| It’s 5 a.m. and I’m already winning. The house is quiet. The town is quiet. Even the internet feels quieter. The only thing working this hard this early is my coffeemaker, and we’re a team. There’s something mischievous about being awake before the sun. Like I’ve snuck into the day. No emails. No expectations. No one asking me where anything is. The words behave better at this hour. They line up. They don’t argue. They don’t demand snacks. By the time the rest of the world rolls out of bed, I’ve already built something. A page. A thought. Then I can face the day like a responsible adult. But at 5 a.m.? I’m a little feral. A little brilliant. And very well caffeinated. |
| It is a good start for a good brain day. Gentle rain outside. Coffee doing its work. The house quiet except for the soft rhythm of water against the windows. I used to think clarity had to arrive fully formed. Like flipping on a switch. It doesn’t. Some mornings the brain boots up slowly. Especially mine. I’ve learned not to fight that. After surgery, after recovery, I stopped demanding instant brilliance. Thinking became something I do on purpose. Rain helps. Coffee helps. Time helps. There’s no urgency this morning. No need to solve the craft of writing before sunrise. No need to prove I’m a “real writer” before the mug is empty. Just sit. Listen. Let the noise settle. Good brain days don’t start with pressure. They start like this. |
| This morning, I’m doubting whether I’m a real writer. I love framing the house. I’m less enthusiastic about painting the trim. In writing terms, I love drafting. Big ideas. Fast fingers. Characters talking over each other while my coffee is still too hot to drink. That part feels alive. Revision? Revision feels like reheating yesterday’s coffee and pretending it’s fresh. The story is out of my head. The walls are up. The roof is on. Now I’m supposed to sand corners and make sure the doors don’t stick. That’s when my brain wanders. “Maybe it’s not good enough.” “Maybe real writers enjoy this part.” “Maybe I should start something new.” Classic avoidance. And here’s the funny part: while I’m doubting whether I’ve learned the craft of finishing, I’m sitting here writing a blog post about it. Which is technically finishing something. I don’t hate polishing. I just don’t get the dopamine rush from it. Drafting is that first strong cup of coffee. Revision is the slow sip after it cools. Not flashy. Not dramatic. Just steady. Framing the house is fun. But if I want guests, I need to paint it too. And drink fresh coffee while I’m at it. |
| I was up early again this morning. Not because I had a plan. Just because I woke up and stayed there. Before the worries of the day take hold, there’s a small window where nothing is asking for attention yet. No noise. No urgency. Just quiet and a little room to stretch out mentally. Early mornings don’t promise answers. They just make space. After the brain tumor and the long recovery, thinking doesn’t happen on autopilot anymore. I have to ease into it. These mornings give me time to relax before the day clamps down, to let my thoughts wander around and see what still works. It’s not meditation, exactly. More like sitting still with a keyboard and waiting for the system to boot. And this morning, I can feel it. The gears are turning. Thoughts are lining up. Ideas are bumping into each other in useful ways. Nothing profound yet, but the engine’s running smooth. This feels like a good brain day. I like good brain days. I’ll take one whenever they show up. |
| 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. |
| I’ve been thinking about permission lately. Not the official kind. The quieter version you give yourself when no one is watching. I don’t match the picture I had of a writer. I failed English 101 and 102 multiple times before I finally got my degrees. I can’t spell for sh*t. My typing is… tolerable on a good day. None of that looks impressive on paper. And yet, here I am. Writing anyway. There’s a myth that writers earn the title through struggle. Through pain, credentials, or some shared suffering that proves you belong. If the work doesn’t hurt enough, you must be doing it wrong. If it comes too easily, you must be cheating. I don’t feel that kind of struggle. The work feels quieter than that. It feels like thinking things through. Like returning to the same ideas and seeing them a little differently each time. Like sitting down early, before the day has opinions, and following a sentence to see where it goes. Sometimes I wonder if that ease disqualifies me. But then I notice what I actually do. I show up. I revise. I question my choices. I finish things. I come back the next day. Not because I have to, but because this is how my mind works now. Maybe being a writer isn’t about how clean the sentences are, or how fast the fingers move, or how many classes you passed the first time around. Maybe it’s just about the habit of paying attention, and the willingness to try again. I’m not making a declaration here. I’m not claiming mastery or authority. I’m just giving myself permission to keep going without apologizing for how it looks. |
| There are two thoughts keeping me company this morning. One is small. It’s the earliness of the day. I’m awake before the town, before the noise, before anyone needs anything from me. The coffee is good, maybe because it’s early, maybe because nothing has started asking questions yet. There’s a quiet peace in being up at this hour, and I’ll admit to a slightly smug appreciation of it. The other thought is not small at all. My niece is in the hospital with a serious brain injury. I don’t know what her journey is going to look like from here. There are too many unknowns right now. I do know what it’s like when the brain becomes unfamiliar territory. When life suddenly tilts and you’re not sure how far from center things are going to shift. My injury wasn’t as severe as what she’s facing. I’m not comparing. But there’s a kinship that comes from having walked part of that road. From knowing how much patience, grace, and strength it takes to relearn yourself when the map changes. This morning, I don’t have answers. I just have coffee, quiet, and a lot of hope aimed in her direction. I don’t have a large audience here. But if you’re reading this, I’m asking for prayers for my niece. For healing. For clarity for the doctors. For strength for her and for everyone who loves her. Every prayer counts. Truly. This is one of those moments that pulls life a little left of center. And all we can do is show up, breathe, and trust that support—seen and unseen—matters. Thank you for being part of that support today. |
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