On August 25, 2026, I will mark the six-month anniversary of my stroke. Over the next few days, I’m revisiting my early writing from that traumatic period.
Something changes in you when your brain breaks. A stroke. Even a mild one. If there is such a monster.
Inside, you see, feel, and hear the world as you remember it before February 25, 2026.
Speaking loudly.
Performatively.
Your seventy-seven years of living in the Bronx, Washington, D.C., New England, and Southern California burst out of your mouth in a jumble of accents, phrases, and a mish-mash of energy.
It’s what happens after that date.
Outside your brain, in the real world, in the world you walk, see, feel, and hear, there's another dimension of reality.
Suddenly, someone flicked one switch off and another on.
Where one moment, you were seeing everything clearly.
Feeling the strength throughout your entire body.
Hearing life's meaning clearly.
Then, the words inside your mind just can’t escape your brain through your mouth, and you struggle to find the right letters and syllables.
And you turn to the people around you to fill the silence with your thoughts because you can’t locate them.
Tell me what I’m thinking so I can say it.
Help me find the words, the letters—I know what I want to say.
But, I’m too tired to look for them.
Searching for the right word, the true meaning—damn, it’s right there on the tip of my tongue.
Five weeks since the stroke.
It has been four weeks since the operation.
An eternity away from that old life.
All I can see is today.
Searching for words.
The path to finding the words, the right ones I need.
To move forward, since I know there’s no going back.
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