What’s Holding Me Together
We all live with constraints.
Things we can’t do, shouldn’t do, or have to do.
The word ‘constraints’ has a negative emphasis. It sounds, well, constraining. Restrictive. The curbs placed around us, the structures and prohibitions.
Lately, I’ve been reframing the word. Looking at it not as what fetters my life, but as what holds my life together.
The analogy that came to mind, which I like the best, is that of anchor plates or anchor stars.
Anchor plates are the cast-iron ornaments you see on the outsides of old brick homes.
They decorate many of the tilted ancient brick buildings lining the canals of Amsterdam.
They come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.
On the east coast of the U.S., they most often eight or ten inches tall and made in the shape of five pointed stars.
I used to think they were only ornamental. They’re not.
Anchor Stars are retrofitted into old brick buildings.
They help to hold the building together!
The brick walls – supported only at the edges – begin to buckle inward or bulge outward as they age. To help protect the building’s structure, eight or ten inch metal stars are placed on the outside of the bricks.
On the inside, unseen, they are connected to metal rods that run along the joists and stabilize the building.
Anchor stars are permanent.
Like the anchor stars, I’ve had to retrofit many things into my life after brain injury.
Naps, rest times, quiet periods throughout the day. Early to bed. Late to rise. I need eleven solid hours of sleep every night.
Each morning, I make a daily outline/plan. I began by drawing six or eight stars down the length of my journal page. Each star represents something that holds me together. Timeout, quiet time, rest, or sleep.
In-between the stars, I fill in the zones with what needs to be done.
On an average day, I have about two to three good hours of brain function, then need to take a break. My brain just gets exhausted in a way that it never did before.
The odd thing about brain injury, the thing that’s difficult to explain, is how permanent it is.
Because my injury is invisible, because I look good when I’m out and about, people think I’m cured. Healed. Fixed. Like I had a broken leg and it’s not broken anymore.
Brain injury is more like having diabetes.
It’s chronic.
If I was a diabetic and had worked diligently getting my exercise, diet, and medications balanced so that my blood sugars were stable, friends wouldn’t look at me and say, “Wow! You’re doing so well. Guess you can quit your insulin now!”
Yet that’s often what friends and relatives expect of me with brain injury.
Believe me, it’s not that I don’t want to go on a girl’s weekend retreat, join you for that play or concert, spend a day at the lake, drive down to Minneapolis for this or that. Believe me, I would if I could.
Cheat Days!
There are days when I choose to do a special, long or intense activity, like being on the North Dakota Today Show! :)
I call them cheat days. I carefully plan both the day before and the day after a cheat day. No going out, no visitors coming over. No television, no phone calls. A day of rest for my brain.
I enjoy the cheat days a LOT. Like a cheat day on a diet, they are okay and even necessary once in a while, but then it’s back to my diet, my routine, my anchor stars. Back to the things that hold me together.
My Anchor Stars
The routines I keep, the sleep I need, the stillness my brain and ears and eyes demand, the rest periods ... these are a perpetual part of my life. These anchor stars, built into the mortar of my days, are not optional.
They are not an elective. They are not a fad, a fancy, a whim or a preference.
These cast iron anchor stars – retrofitted into my life after my brain injury – are what continue to stabilize my life and protect it from buckling, bulging, and collapse.
We all have constraints.
We all have things that help hold us together.
May you learn to see the stars supporting your life as beautiful.
May you learn to live as Peter Pan instructed, “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”
Thank you for reading. Thank you for following along on my journey.
Love always,
Jill