Yoga with Debi and Alyssa, and Creative Process

November 8, 2023

Today, I didn’t wake up feeling insanely depressed. I’m trying to start this earlier in the day because I didn’t do it yesterday. I woke up and took meds at 8:15am so I could take them like 12 hours apart more easily since I’ve got Creative Process tonight. I also thought that I should maybe buy some new yoga socks that have sticky bottoms, and stop wearing the socks that Mayo gives me for MRIs every time. Had meds with one of the Target hot cakes for 12g fat.

Then I did my makeup, and wrote down that “makeup is an important thinking time for me.” During makeup, I came to the conclusion that not everything before or after the TBI is all good or all bad. That thought happened because I thought I needed new brushes, and realized I had eyebrow brushes from pre-TBI. My first thought had been that while some things after the TBI can be better, I need to be careful not to think that EVERYTHING after the TBI is an improvement.

Then, I went to yoga with Debi. The class was on the small side, as hers usually are, compared to Jordan’s. She said she can’t do the more popular 9am time since she takes her kids to school. After class, I was taking my pic with Debi, and another girl made a face in the background. Her name was Alyssa, and we talked about the Alyssa vs. Elyssa spelling.

I also told Debi that in the future, I might not be able to come to her class since I’ll volunteer with the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance. They offered me Monday, Wednesday or Friday. I see Jessica on Mondays, and chose Jordan’s class over Debi’s because it’s a lot busier, which I even told Debi. After class, I decided to go to the hot tub because I’d showered last night and didn’t wanna get my hair wet swimming. I decided that even though the hot tub had been a bit of a symbol of depression for me, it doesn’t have to be when I have a reason to not swim in the pool.

After yoga, I texted Talia to ask for a good, cheap place to eat in Highland. She recommended Centro, and I ordered one chicken tinga taco, which I was surprised to be hungry for. Then, I decided to finish my shopping list at Walgreens, where I’d parked. There was a bunch of stuff I hadn’t been able to find at Target the other day, and most of it turned out to be clear Walgreens items, like wet wipes, EOS chapstick and dental floss. (more notes here, but idk if they’ll all fit on one page)

Then I went to Creative Process. I always go into it thinking there’s no way this is gonna solve my life, but today it kind of did tell me what I should be doing. We made a Venn Diagram with four circles: values, talents, skills and passions. We filled it out, and she said that whatever ended up in the middle of all of them would be our answer. My answer was: “working as a translator.” I love that because it draws on something I learned pre-TBI, but it’s also not something I’d ever done pre-TBI. So it draws on the old, but it’s totally new. I also love it because it gives me something to work on. I’ll keep taking classes and working on perfecting my Spanish. Basically, having that as a goal will give me something to work on constantly, and it’s something I really enjoy as well. And being a translator at the food shelves, I feel very useful and needed too.

I have a couple notes from like three pages I didn’t narrate, and the most important things in there were that 1) I made a new any.do list called “therapy” with things to tell either Whitney or Jessica, 2) that I believe the TBI has led to a period of huge growth for me and 3) about accepting the TBI, mom had told me that I didn’t have to like it to accept it. But I don’t think I could have accepted it without coming to appreciate the benefits. I also literally had the thought that I might miss this period of my life before I started to feel a bit happy.

Given that I finished yesterday’s today, I’m kind of thinking that the way I didn’t even include my morning meds/food in yesterday’s til the end is a representation of me moving away from relating every single unimportant detail. Also, I found a way to space out paragraphs w/o adding an extra line in InDesign, which helps to fit everything on one page.

Also, meds at 8:16pm with a breakfast bowl with 12g fat. Grateful for Creative Process, and the teacher, named Paige.