I was reading posts and blogs today and I don't know how I missed it before but a thought hit me. I guess it's about acceptance...not sure. I have said over and over that my physical deficits never really shook me and that's true but the cognitive and emotional did. I've been fighting and struggling and wrestling with it from day one...and going nuts!

No one here knew me before stroke and never will because that girl is gone and even I don't know the girl who is now because I've been fighting so hard to hold onto the remnants of a ghost that I never embraced who is here now. If something threatened to stop me, I found a way to keep going.

But I can't think like I could. I did fine accepting that I can't landscape a yard in one day anymore or many other things I could do but it never sunk in that my brain couldn't get me out of the mess I was in.

I've been fighting what is because I really can't see who I am...that I have anything of value so I've been doing too much to try to find that one thing.

No more. I am not quitting but I am not going to keep beating my head against the wall. I haven't heard of any medals being given for Stroke recovery. I'll keep trying but not for the reasons I have been and I'm going to slow down. Maybe I won't get "there" wherever "there" is but I'll get where I'm going. And it will be good enough.

Jamie