well, well, well, This’ a revelation!

I don’t really know where to begin. It’s been such a long time and the road in between has been a bumpy one.  The last time I posted was before the 3 year celebration and I will share with you why it’s been difficult to post. It appears that the difficulty has been my ability to keep my thoughts together and even want to reach out to update. Depressed much?

At the time of the third celebration, I guess I wasn’t in much of a positive mood.  Is it like mood swings? I guess but it’s depression in it’s truest form. What am I depressed about? Let’s see…nothing in particular, its collective. It is so heavy.  Coming to terms with having a brain injury – to go about my every day life and still have this really bad brain injury feels like “hell on earth” every day. But no, it doesn’t. Sometimes I have really good days. I think of myself as an awesome person and with that its’ really difficult when the behaviors that brain injury brings to my daily life daily exhibit themselves to be something I cannot identify with, it is so frustrating. Frustrating is not powerful enough. I can’t identify with this person that can’t remember what you told him, or what he said, or that person that can be  socially inappropriate or in an instant spin emotionally out of control at the people closest to him. I can’t identify? I can’t even understand it. Maybe you can understand it because you’re on the outside looking in and “oh, that Mike’s brain injury”. well, I don’t get that opportunity. It is freaking happening to me . Right?

But the thing is, so what? life goes on with or without you. Your life is going on and so is mine. My friends go beyond trying to understand and trying to support. Gratitude, praise…beyond what I can even articulate. I’m not handling this fine. I’m screwing up relationships but people forgive and maybe/probably I’m too hard  on myself but when I look back on some of these recent experiences, I would think “ I can’t stand him!”  I would not have the patience to tolerate me. And some don’t. No hard feelings about the people who don’t have the patience or the time to deal with the brain injury me and I don’t expect them to. I tune out, as well.  I’m not happy facing this thing that changed my life. I don’t think I have a pessimistic view but I feel like I need to be a realist and the fact that I am almost 30 and feel cursed with this blessing. Blessing of life, cursed with ambition.  Blessing – I am ambitious. I am constantly searching for the latest and greatest.  I love technology and I want to work in the field that gets my adrenaline going.  Cursed – I am ambitious about what interests me, not about recovery and rehabilitation. Who wants to wake up every day to find that this day just like yesterday is rehab! No one or at least I wouldn’t. I don’t.

I want to wake up and go to the office and mingle with co-workers and talk about the latest gadget (Motorola XOOM), the newest technology on the horizon (Honeycomb). I don’t want rehab for the rest of my life.  But then the truth sets in and I STILL have a SEVERE  brain injury. There are portions of my brain that still have to heal. The primal areas have been healing over the last three years and the executive function areas (the frontal lobes), still need a lot of therapy. It takes a life time to develop the frontal lobes and I started my life over three years ago. Becoming a young man again at the same time as rehabbing the most vital organ in our bodies;  having  the life experience of a nearly 30 year old has led me to deep philosophical thinking. I AM Mike Rosner.  I AM  a 28 year old brain injury survivor. I AM socially awkward.

I AM also thinking about spirituality. I AM. I think for sure that I have been in the midst of an epic fire walk through this rehab, sounds much worse than it actually is, but my philosophical self is attempting to figure things out. My latest figure is…

Not claiming to be an expert but in the bible Jesus speaks about “I AM”. I think that delving in to that further brings about this thought; we are all, each individually I AM.  There is power behind those two words. God gave Jesus the “I AM” that made things happen and if Jesus was a man that walked this earth, maybe we all have the I AM to change the course of our thinking. I say my life is Hell now but it isn’t really Hell. Even if it was though, with the power I AM gives us, shouldn’t I be capable of changing that thought?

If I believe that I AM, if I live my life present, powerful and with intention, I AM in control. ”We” AM in control of how we interpret life. The mind is capable of so much and I’m not saying you can fly or shoot lasers out of your arms but it’s about focus and intention. Steering the course, being in control of the course of your life.

Just because I may have figured one thing out doesn’t mean anything is easier because I am still trapped in this fire-walk. Perseverative thoughts, perseveration, perseveration, perseveration is my HELL…I am on fire and I want to see where I’m going.  After about 15 minutes of getting my thoughts back together I want to say that this is not egocentric. There are parts of the Bible that say “through me” so everything isn’t the “I AM” there’s an underlying something that I will keep working on, but basically what I want to say is this;

I think we are supposed to understand that there is greatness within us and that we are capable of great things. I AM capable of great things, YOU are capable of great things and I don’t mean what kind of car you drive, what label you wear or how much money you make but maybe I do,  if that’s your definition of being capable. What I mean is there is a crack in all of us and all it takes is a little light to seep through to help us understand.  It’s I AM, YOU AM,  WE AM and on the days that I can grab on to this self revelation, it makes me feel LESS powerLESS about the course of my life.

I AM Mike Rosner.

** thanks to Mom for listening, typing and keeping me in between the ditches.