My point here is that everything is relative. I have no clue what aging without a brain tumor would be like. Since the age of 44, I have forgotten things (to an excessive degree), become confused, been impulsive, overwhelmed by stimuli, etc. For some people, this is a gradual process as they age. This is life for me and it is all I know. To be honest, it doesn't seem bad to me, it just is. The silver lining inside this cloud is that I have the greatest inner peace I have ever felt. For this reason, I continue to write this blog as I try to understand, even for myself, why my inner contentment has become so much more than before.
Approximately five years ago, I was honored by a request to create a puzzle piece for a brain tumor awareness display. Similar to the AIDS quilt, patients were given the opportunity to create a puzzle piece which described their journey thus far as a brain tumor patient/survivor.
This was the first time I actually sat down and gave serious thought to my brain tumor experience to such a degree. To put something into a visual description caused me to have to think about my experience in a very different way. I found the whole experience of creating this piece to be very therapeutic and also very enlightening to me about my own experience.
I wish I had clearer pictures of the puzzle piece but the only picture I have is shown here. Being a Taurus, of course, mine is very colorful!
Starting at the top left corner, you can see smooth, silky, lavender material, casually draped. That represents my life before the brain tumor.
The black line that crosses over the puzzle piece is the road of my life. It was a bumpy texture and made it's way across the whole puzzle piece.
At the right edge of the silky section is a turquoise, sparkly, sharp lightening bolt. This represents the actual moment my life changed. It is a line that delineates the silky lavender from the other side. You may also notice that pieces of this lightening bolt follow me along the road of life. The seizures and episodes of exasperation and frustration when I attempt to do something I could do before are represented by the continuation of that bolt.
Words are scattered through the lavender silk. Words like career, job security, educational goals, college, marriage, children, etc. An organized and correct line of letters scatter across the silk - A B C D E F G H I and then slam into the lightening bolt. After the bolt, they are jumbled, disorganized and very difficult to understand. Words like fear, confusion, "what is normal", doctors, prognosis, etc. are scattered over the non-homogenous, dull sandy color of the right side of the lightening bolt. But also, surprisingly enough, are words like grateful, lucky, appreciative, calm. In fact, a picture of the Buddha is on this side.
Through creating this puzzle piece I realized something profound, at least to me. One thing was for sure, forever my life would be divided into two parts. The before and the after. BC and AD. Now and then. Me and her. I found it ironic that if you line up BC and AD, you have a sort of fumbled alphabet. But without the crisis, I don't know if I could have appreciated the calm. If my life were always calm, I wouldn't appreciate the basket of oranges. I wouldn't feel tears behind my lids when I think about how lucky I am to know and spend time with my grandson. To be able to see my teenage daughter grow into a beautiful woman. I wouldn't have the perspective to appreciate every step I take and every word I am able to utter.
My heart hurts for the puzzle piece to the left. This person has written "Let me out." Although you can feel imprisoned in your own mind when so little around you makes sense initially, it does provide an opportunity to actually examine the inside world of yourself. To accept different abilities and different limitations and set a new set of expectations for yourself. I so hope the creator of this piece has found happiness in his/her new reality.
What my puzzle piece doesn't show, I did not yet know. At the far right of the puzzle piece should be a silk worm in a cocoon. The simplest form of smooth silk. Broken down to its true nature. No more complexity, simplicity is the core of my thoughts. Some say I have survived. I like to think I have arrived.
