Come Crawl Inside My Broken Brain

Imagine curling up with a brand new novel, the spine still crisp and the pages still smell of untold adventure. The light of the window falls softly over the armchair where you've snuggled up in the fuzzy soft blanket reserved for lazy Sunday afternoons. There's nothing planned for hours while dinner slowly roasts in the oven and you get to dive into the colorful new world waiting within the black and white print.

Immediately you love the protagonist. The author gave birth to a flawed and beautiful soul, real and raw and ready to learn from the waiting conflict he's about to face. You can see his world taking shape before you.

And then, it crumbles to pieces.

You're only two pages in when the words falter. They begin to spin and slip, blurring together and fading to smudges. Putting down the book, you close your eyes and lean back. Breathe in and out, as the chair rocks side to side, up and down. Your stomach joins in, twisting in knots and begging for mercy.

“Are you okay, mom?”

The question comes from far away and your brain is slow to process. You open your eyes to see his face, full of concern, but spinning wildly. You try to smile reassuringly, but everything moves slowly and feels heavy.

“Yeeeeesssssss, IIIIIIII’mmmmmmm fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine,” you try to speak normally, but the words are tumbling around in your brain just as they were on the pages. They just won't slide into place in the right way.

“No, you're not,” he takes the book from your hands. “You need to rest.”

He's right, you know it. But this is supposed to be rest. Reading is your happy place. Or, at least it used to be, before you were cursed.

He pulls the blinds shut, closing out the brightness of the sun. This helps a little, but your heart cries at being cut off once more from the world.

You think sadly how your roles have reversed. You should be caring for him and here he is taking care of you. Most teens aren't so gentle with their parents. Sometimes you wish he never had to learn to be.

The next day you're still reeling. The floor rolls up and down like waves of the ocean. It's safer to crawl to the bathroom than to attempt to walk as the walls push you back and forth like a pinball. You lay in bed, desperate for a distraction but the book you want to read has tripled. There's three of them and you can't tell which is real. There will be no reading today.

“Can we cuddle, mom?” The little one asks from the door.

He lays down next to you and turns on the tv. You know he won't want to do this much longer. He already dodges hugs half the time. So you endure the wave of nausea as he jostles the bed trying to get comfortable. Your head pulsates and spins and takes much longer than him to settle.

You listen more than watch the show. Often having to close your eyes as the movement on screen sends you spinning wildly. But it's bearable with your little boy snuggled in the crook of your arm.

“Mom,” he looks at you with big wide eyes still full of wonder and innocence, “Do you have any more stories to read me? I like the ones about the wind.”

Oh, how you would love to read him your stories! You would love to write tales just to share with him.

“I'm sorry sweetie. I can't read today and I haven't been able to write for a bit.”

“Okay,” he's not disappointed. He's not even concerned. It hurts your heart that this is normal to him.

Tomorrow is better. The waves have calmed to a gentle roll. You can focus your eyes and the world is moving at a fairly normal pace. But your brain is still full of fog, a constant reminder that things are not quite right. But you go about the day as if you are just fine. Those who know can still see it in your eyes, but to most you appear to be perfectly healthy.

Until you go to the store.

A quick stop on the way home from work. But there's noise everywhere. The boppy song you loved in highschool that's now horrifically considered an “oldie” is playing overhead. There's a toddler screaming in protest that Mom won't buy her candy. A couple of teens are laughing riotously over some silly joke. Old neighbors are catching up on years worth of gossip. Attendants are answering questions and complaints. Everywhere there's noise and your brain struggles to filter it out so you know you have to hurry.

But of course Walmart has decided to rearrange the shelves again, so you have to scan the aisle up and down trying to find what you came in for. The labels are dancing about crashing into each other and blurring into a whirlwind of color. From somewhere far away you hear a question and realize you've been staring blankly for several minutes.

“Ma’am, are you okay? Can I help you find something?”

“Yesssssss,” suddenly you realize you can no longer remember the name of what you came in for. “IIIIIIII'mmmmmmm l-l-looking for sweet stuff.”

“Candy?”

“Nooo, the sssstuff you bake with,” the words each take an eon to find their way out of your mouth.

“Sugar?”

“Yeah, but the one that's brown.”

“Brown Sugar.”

You cringe as you see the look you knew was coming in the eyes of the teenage clerk. You notice a few other shoppers nearby glance at you sideways, the same unspoken judgement etched into their faces. This is why you pay for Walmart Plus, you remind yourself. You could have had this delivered for free to your doorstep.

Thankfully, you see your oldest and his fiancée, racing toward you. Silently you thank God that they had a craving for brownies at just the right time for them to come to your rescue.

Finally, a morning breaks and for the first time in two weeks you feel normal. On these days you are always surprised how much you've forgotten what normal feels like. Today is the day to catch up, do all the things you haven't been able to, and enjoy the passions you often forego.

You return to your favorite armchair. The sun is at a great angle, not directly shining through the window, but bathing the chair in a soft glow. You glance at the book you started. You know better than to tempt fate. Reading on your phone is more manageable, less words and larger font, just not nearly as cozy. But at least this way you get a chance to catch up on Vocal.

On Vocal, you find emotional sagas of young girls gone missing, sisters who never grew up, and grandparents who've passed. You find poems of raw passion and whimsical wonder. There's stories of unexpected neighbors and terrified teachers. There's fantasy and futurism. There's adventure waiting to whisk you away from your tiny living room and danger lurking in the form of extra strong mints.

But most of all there's a community. These are your people, friends you'll never meet in person yet they've left an undeniable impact on your life. Their words speak to your soul and inspire you to stop reading and start writing.

It's been too long and you have stories bursting at the seams, eager to find their way to the page. It takes longer to write these days than it used to. You keep coming to a stop, the cursor blinking impatiently at you, as you try to find the words that have danced just out of reach. You know this isn't unique to you, every writer experiences a blip in thought while trying to find the right word. But it happens way more now than it used to, each time you push down the fear that one day you won't be able to find the words at all. But that day isn't today.

After hours, your newest piece is done. You read through it, tweak it, read through, change it, read through it, and smile. Finally you have something to share.

More than a story, it’s a thank you to the community you love.