I’m about to have a birthday so I’ve been reminiscing a bit and thinking about how my life has played out so far. I sometimes play the “what if” game. Have you ever done that? If you do, you’ll probably find some irony in a number of the circumstances.
What if I had gone to college?
What if I had been rich?
What if I had been born into a family that didn’t show their love?
What if I had not sustained a brain injury?
Of course I can’t go backward and I can’t change what my circumstances were years ago. I can only learn from my mistakes and go forward no matter what my current stage is in life. In most instances I would not want to change my past. I think of all the people who would not be in my life today if things had gone a different direction and it makes me so thankful. I definitely would not change that part of my life.
All articles in this blog are brain injury related – thus the title Beth’s Brain Injury Blog. So - back to thinking about the past.....
I was driving (on my way to work), and thinking about my childhood. (I do a lot thinking when I’m driving) In particular – not sure what triggered it – I was thinking about when I was in elementary school learning the multiplication tables. I was just not getting it. Most likely it was because I was trying to think of a way to get around having to memorize them. Anyway, my mom “somehow” knew I was struggling in that area – maybe a bad report card?
Soon after that, she had me sitting on a kitchen stool as she continued to cook, drilling me on the multiplication tables. Being stubborn I fought her efforts at first, but to no avail – she was determined I would memorize those multiplication tables. She even insisted on including the 11s and 12s even though I kept insisting I only had to learn them though the 10s.
Nevertheless, I did memorize them and the fact that I did served me well for years. That is until my anoxic brain injury in 1990. Let’s just say I am thankful in today’s world there are calculators, computers and smartphones.
So, the irony, in this case, is that no matter how much effort I had put into learning those multiplication tables, that knowledge was gone in an instant when my anoxic brain injury occurred. The lack of oxygen to my brain wiped the slate clean in an area that can never be written on again. Because that was explained to me by a knowledgeable and caring brain injury therapist, I understood how important it was for me to use other areas of my brain and to find new tools to compensate for that loss.
This is not the only area of brain injury irony in my life and each brain injury survivor has several of his or her own. We can look back for a glimpse of the past and the irony in many circumstances, but we must continue to move forward to find the better life that is ahead of us.
What if I had gone to college?
What if I had been rich?
What if I had been born into a family that didn’t show their love?
What if I had not sustained a brain injury?
Of course I can’t go backward and I can’t change what my circumstances were years ago. I can only learn from my mistakes and go forward no matter what my current stage is in life. In most instances I would not want to change my past. I think of all the people who would not be in my life today if things had gone a different direction and it makes me so thankful. I definitely would not change that part of my life.
All articles in this blog are brain injury related – thus the title Beth’s Brain Injury Blog. So - back to thinking about the past.....
I was driving (on my way to work), and thinking about my childhood. (I do a lot thinking when I’m driving) In particular – not sure what triggered it – I was thinking about when I was in elementary school learning the multiplication tables. I was just not getting it. Most likely it was because I was trying to think of a way to get around having to memorize them. Anyway, my mom “somehow” knew I was struggling in that area – maybe a bad report card?
Soon after that, she had me sitting on a kitchen stool as she continued to cook, drilling me on the multiplication tables. Being stubborn I fought her efforts at first, but to no avail – she was determined I would memorize those multiplication tables. She even insisted on including the 11s and 12s even though I kept insisting I only had to learn them though the 10s.
Nevertheless, I did memorize them and the fact that I did served me well for years. That is until my anoxic brain injury in 1990. Let’s just say I am thankful in today’s world there are calculators, computers and smartphones.
So, the irony, in this case, is that no matter how much effort I had put into learning those multiplication tables, that knowledge was gone in an instant when my anoxic brain injury occurred. The lack of oxygen to my brain wiped the slate clean in an area that can never be written on again. Because that was explained to me by a knowledgeable and caring brain injury therapist, I understood how important it was for me to use other areas of my brain and to find new tools to compensate for that loss.
This is not the only area of brain injury irony in my life and each brain injury survivor has several of his or her own. We can look back for a glimpse of the past and the irony in many circumstances, but we must continue to move forward to find the better life that is ahead of us.
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