I’m sitting at a table on the side walk outside of Vic’s on Main Street in Louisville Colorado, the best small town in America, sipping a 16 oz iced half-soy, half-rice milk latte--way too many syllables for one drink. But, at least I don’t have to use the syntax required at Starbucks. Plus, Jenny knows me by my drink. I love that! She sees me coming and simply asks, “Kathe, hot or cold today?”
Jenny wears skirts, sometimes pleated, with white ankle socks, bare legs and loafers. In the dark of winter with raging snow and temperatures in the teens, she wears an outfit like this. I asked her once, “Aren’t you cold.” A simple, “no” was the reply. No explanation. No excuses.
As I was preparing the entry for yesterday’s blog post, it brought me back (again) to the way things were. I don’t remember much those first few months. As best as I can figure, I lost about four years of memories. There are a few recollections, but that’s mostly because I had a notebook and wrote things down a lot. Also, I was beginning my therapies and everyone asked the same questions, so, I told the story many times.
The recollections of those years are more like remembering the details of a movie, than the experience of a life. There is no emotional memory, because, you see I wasn’t really there. I was somewhere else. I was not ok.
My before-the-accident-self was going through the motions of my daily life. She’s good! We now call her ‘the Betty.’ She’s amazing really. She can do almost anything. She’s sharp and quick and focused. She’s strong and confident. She can work on a Ph.D. and start a business and run a household and raise two kids on her own and faux finish the dining room walls while making Halloween costumes. But, the enormity of the situation overwhelmed even ‘the Betty.’ She went missing.
I was not ok. Some well-meaning friends offered kind suggestions, but they didn’t know what I was going through. They didn’t know what is was like to drive to work on a route I’d traveled for years, only to get lost and arrive late (again). They didn’t know that I couldn’t check the change I got back at the store, because I was like a five year old and couldn’t make sense of the money. They didn’t know I couldn’t understand what they were saying if they spoke too fast or that at a restaurant (the few times I went) I’d order what they did because I couldn’t read the menu. They didn’t know the pain in my body and the headaches and the noise and the light and the rapid pace of it all.
When did it get so bright and so loud and so fast! I was on a slow soft train. Everyone else was on the high-speed express.
I was not ok! Don’t tell me it’ll be okay, because you don’t know! You really don’t!
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