8:13 PM, Fall break day 2, Stroke recovery day 37: Woke up satisfied with coffee & a state qualifying XC runner. Messages from the runner’s mom made my efforts, from morning car line fist bumps to teaching to assuming my position to offer, occasionally scream, encouragement for the last 200 race yards, incredibly satisfying.

The satisfaction was short lived,  “didn’t” interfered with fall break plans. Two books & I didn’t read enough pages filled with words. Four notebooks & I didn’t fill enough empty pages with words. Still sitting is an unfinished opus, another didn’t, on basketball’s Plan B for when Plan A goes south. On the plus side, no unexpected medical events like 37 days ago occurred requiring hospitalization.

Me & Miss Julie explored a small, charming southern downtown & all the channeling of Lewis & Clark made us hungry. So we entered a $14 for a pimento cheese sandwich deli. Mine came with nureofatigue & a tired leg for sides.

I’m a horrible patient & learning, slower than Miss Julie & the ladies I share a schoolhouse with deserve, that strokes don’t just happen to other people. That naps & self extended grace for mental fog & sore limbs & somedays firing at ⅔ wattage because that’s all I’ve got are part of brain injury recovery. That getting in the wrong lane in an unfamiliar town is a forgivable offense, as Miss Julie, nearly engaging her Pirate Ship Captain mode, reminded me.

Learning, whether it’s a day I conquer books or pages or Plan B’s or find the correct traffic lane for the way I want to go or it’s a day my biggest win is I managed to tie my own shoes, button my own shirt, & get unwanted sides with a sandwich, either day counts. Each day has counted more in the last 37 days because finishing the day is more important than starting, even if the didn’t column is longer than the did.

Plus, Miss Julie, our blood family & family with different last names on their mailboxes, deserve my effort to adjust the attitude, to not expect so much of the guy in the mirror, they’ve endured 37 days of did & didn’t too…