Still
This looong recovery confirms the immense benefits that patience offers. My lack of patience 8 & 1/2 years ago: Driving to get cell phone service in order to enjoy more time at the Sanctuary, despite not having driven in 10 years (due to inhabiting cities) has had catastrophic effects: Severe TBI, multiple pulverized ribs, numerous broken bones including my pelvis, a loss of many of my friends and massive amounts of general tumult! As a result, mental healing has been & is (far less so, presently) still needed.
This recovery not only necessitates ample patience with myself, in many, many ways, but similarly demands everlasting patience with those I encounter. Generous forgiveness & love dissemination (as I soooo appreciate it & as a result, I assume that others will too) is necessary. And yes, forgiveness (of both parties) continues to be needed. Being an outlier is noooo fun (to put it mildly), as many alternative & resultantly judged/belittled parties have stated, including the disabled!
Despite the immense & varied challenges, this life-long injury is also the basis for this blog… A glimmer of the truth that my psychiatrist shared: the benefit which will result from this catastrophe, finally reveals itself! I will share my truth to serve a marginalized population (Severe TBI survivors) that hasn’t received adequate awareness before. It’s about time I have see a sneak peaked this benefit resulting from my Severe TBI! My whole life was transformed on that fateful day (that I got into my accident) 8.5 years ago & as a result, my life has taken a strikingly different maturation route (from before my accident, as well as from many of my comrades). I am finally beginning to accept this new route, however (still beginning to accept. All in time – So Much Time!!) which results in me being overjoyed.
I have no doubt that the tremendous love I’ve received thus far (and am currently receiving, from new comrades ((because they’re new, they haven’t been burned out by this lengthy recovery))) has served me incredibly grandly (as my past thank you posts reveal). My once steadfast friends, that have now grown weary of interacting, have begun falling off…c’est la vie. It seems my friends just wish for me to be the same and don’t practice patience as I necessarily must. I’m reminded of another truth that my psychiatrist told me of long ago – You’ll need to make nearly all new friends, as old friends very likely won’t stick around. An overwhelming number of survivors have encountered this, if not all…(I’m cautious of claiming absolutes, without certainty). So, despite a loss of my previous friends, I know there are many people that can relate. And therefore, I don’t feel so alone.
I recently moved into transitional housing. It’s month to month (only a 3 month lease is required to move in – which was my incentive – I need more sun than Seattle offers!) in a fantastic neighborhood in Seattle: Ravenna. It’s just a short jaunt to Lake Washington. Thankfully, I’m not living amidst college students – the UW students live a few blocks south of our apartment complex. College students are wonderful – full of energy and drive! I know not to blindly count-out a swath of people (as I’ve been the victim of misassumptions currently, based on the tittle of my disability) but college students are in a vastly different time of life than I.
Despite this new environment, patience is still absolutely necessary and I expect will be for quite some time. See what I mean by seemingly never ending recovery?!