Things I cannot change…

With some space in my day, I am realizing that the effects of the March stroke are still quite profound at an inner level, not particularly available to the outside observer. I began to realize it while preparing for worship in Rimbey during the past week. I found it difficult to buckle down to do the work. The shortness of my attention span declared itself, as did my difficult with remaining focused on a task for more than a few minutes.

I had a similar, even more dramatic experience this weekend and the last few days as I attempted to write a column for the local newspaper. Normally, this task comes easily for me. This time, although I had an idea, putting it in comprehensible form was difficult. I whizzed through the first draft, and wisely gave it to Beatrix to read and edit. When she emailed it back to me, I was shocked at the typos, and even more shocked at the places where my ideas ran out of steam, or worse, tumbled into one another like falling ten pins.

I dealt with the typos easily enough, but when the second draft came back, the ideas and references were still confused in places. I’m on the fourth draft now, and I think the thin is coming together. I don’t believe it’s up to my usual standard, but as I am always encouraging Beatrix to say, “It’s good enough.”

Sobering for me to realize this lingering, perhaps permanent, defect in my brain functioning. Somehow, I think it is connected with my tendency to become internally annoyed about things. Up goes the blood pressure until I can calm down. And a lot of my annoyance is about my own inabilities and defects in functioning. I am considering having Diego tattoo a short saying on my left arm, a bit from the Serenity Prayer of AA. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

So the recovery process moves underground. Issues and concerns that wouldn’t be available to the public are starting to chew at me. Are these things I cannot change, I wonder? We’ll see.