Suddenly the World Keeps Turning (and So Does This Room)

It's been about two years since a small car (a red hatchback, so I've been told) crossed over into my lane on a bridge over the Monongehela River. 

I am one lucky person. I am lucky because I am still spinning around the sun like all the other living people on the Earth.  I buy toothpaste and pay the electric bill. I have been able to return to work. I go for coffee and eat pretzels. I've started swimming again.

Yes, it's been about two years since the collision, and SUDDENLY IT HIT ME today that one of the greatest things about this whole "still spinning around on the planet" experience is that I get to say hello to my favorite season again very soon. This week, the ice and snow started melting, and I swear I noticed the muddy smell of last year's decayed leaves in the air.

The trouble is: the world is still turning, but I'm not always fully present to it, because while the equinox approaches and the days get longer, I still have to contend with attacks of vertigo and problems knowing where I am in relation to the sky and the ground.  In other words:  The world is turning, but sometimes so do this chair and desk.

One of the common problems for people with head injury is ongoing attacks of vertigo, as well as impairment in proprioception (knowing the position of one's body in relation to oneself and the world). 

When proprioceptive sensing is confused, your brain spends much of the day like this:

• Look, there's the crosswalk signal, and it's okay to cross. (Wait, are my feet on the ground?  Am I vertical)? 
• I see that the tulips are early this year-- I think I'll bend down and smell them. (Whoa, am I falling or am I upright)?
• Ring, ring-- Hi, Dora--I haven't seen you in a while--sure I can meet you for coffee after work. (Wait, am I walking in a straight line or am I going to collide with that building)? 

Most of the time, the brain has these conversations under the radar of consciousness. But with brain injury, the cognitive processing centers really struggle to understand the body's position, several thousand times per day. In my case, I go about my life, folding laundry, reading e-mails, avoiding the talkative mailman, comparing the pros and cons of firm vs. silken tofu, then -- BAM -- I need to drop and take a nap, sometimes for several hours.

For those of us in long-term recovery from head injury, naps are a necessity. This is because our "fuel gauge" hits empty sooner than most. The gauge may be nearly full after a solid night of sleep. But here is our fuel gauge by lunch time, after a few hours of constant recalculating position and trying to keep our balance, over and over again:

I am learning to adjust to the fact that the seasons change, and the world turns, and while the room sometimes turns too, there is the day-to-day tedium to manage. There are times I bask in the tedium, just because I am grateful that I can. The enormity and complexity of it all--the Earth, the sky, the daily trifles, and the fact that life goes on--These things can still leave me feeling ungrounded. But at other times, like when I'm writing blogs, life sweeps me right off my feet. That's why I should probably get up slowly from this chair I'm in.