So as Gloria Gaynor so wonderfully states “I will survive.” 

I work best creatively when I have this — large swaths of time with no appointments, meetings, obligations. I can get into my curious head and muddle through designs and pull my paint brushes out and create. 

The reality is that now my father’s health is in limbo. We all know that someday either sooner or later, a tumor will develop that won’t be treatable, and then he will only have 2 weeks. I believe this limbo is what my therapist was thinking of when she was confident I will handle it. So much of my life has been in limbo the past few years.

And now that it seems like my business is FINALLY almost through the big wrench thrown in our way, I have put my father and family as top priority. I would not change this for anything, but I am feeling my inconsistency with my work and how necessary it is for me to step up to the plate again. 

My dad is doing really well right now and I am hoping that if a tumor can hold off maybe we can get many more months with him. But I also realize that is my greediness talking. I want him here. I want a miracle of his cancer to enter remission. What does Hamlet say, “there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

That’s the thing about a head injury- emotional weight, stress, not taking my normal breaks throughout the day all add up and make me useless until I do the self care to get back in balance. It’s wild to think that this year it will be my 21 year anniversary of the injury.  Living with it has gotten easier with time as I have gotten to know it well and how I function best with it. It is always a surprise to see how little or strongly it hits me as I didn’t expect it to take me out today. 

Things like not getting a full nights sleep or working longer hours than I should do have a huge impact on what I am capable of doing. It’s funny as this is a universal problem - no one likes not having enough sleep. But for us TBI survivors it really shuts things down.

The past 4 days my brother and his family have been visiting. We have had the best family time. It really couldn’t have been better. We got lots of photos, videos, and frankly had so much fun talking, doing puzzles, creative projects, reading and just being together. We are hoping that a June vacation will be possible and we can create more memories, but we had this magical time. Sitting in the kitchen with my mom after lunch, when it was reinforced to not uproot myself, my mom said to me: “Christina, you were here all of last year and have spent so much time with your father. What a blessing your injury turned out to be.”

As the days are getting longer and flowers begin to bloom I think this curiosity is the solution for my double disability that has choked me up. When I got sober and would be whining about all the problems I had, my incredible sponsor would tell me to find solutions. Always look for solutions. My therapist and I will talk about hooks (self pity in this case) that latch on and take up valuable real estate in the mind.

I’m very open about my traumatic brain injury in 2003. I have shared that my art is a direct response to this trauma. Living with it is a daily thing and I will carry its aftermath until I die. What I have not been explicit about is my business being the only feasible course of action to build a career that can financially sustain me the rest of my life.

What a year 2023 has been. It makes me think of Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities as this year has been the hardest of my adult life, but has also been the most rewarding. I have written about being rear ended last January. That injury still persists in my right wrist and to this day I am still unable to produce work. I have an amazing PT and hand surgeon and we are seeing if it can be healed without surgery. But the rest of that is a tale for 2024.