I wake up Saturday after a fabulous ten-hour sleep. There’s so much to understand!

How did I process thoughts in the past? I scribble in my journal. Was my brain like a super computer? My hand used to be able to write faster than I could think. Now I have to spell really slowly and with intention. I feel like the incredible shrinking woman.

I go for a walk in the valley. (Walks always help.)

I write in my journal, but again I have to really concentrate. I watch my hand create words. I feel like I’m my own (lonely) experiment.

I’m rivetted my Claire Smith’s memoir, Falling into Now: Memories of Sport, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Education. I read and I read. We’re so different and we’re SO FUCKING SIMILAR, I write in my notebook. Claire felt her horse beneath her. I felt my bike. We both fell.

I call a friend who’s been through Alcoholics Anonymous. Perhaps AA is 1,000 years ahead of brain injuries. We’ve only just had the 13th world congress of the International Association of Brain Injury. We’re just beginning to study women and brain injury. (In fact, women and the brain, period!)

I tell my friend the equestrian’s story and she says, “Did she give her brain enough time to heal?”

That’s a question for me, too. Am I giving myself enough time to heal?

I want my former self back.

I observe my hand. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.