Tearful Presentation

 

The presentation in Friday Harbor was incredibly emotional. It was powerful to scan the room, see my brother, my mom, my sister-in-law, my Carol, Libbey & Mary, Danny's mother, Susea, and other familiar faces. I had everything organized, the timing of the photos for the slide show, note cards, even blog posts, but quickly it was thrown out the window. I became overwhelmed, and for the first time during a presentation, I cried. 

It was embarrassing to be so vulnerable, but the eyes upon me had compassion. Some teared with me. I love to share my story because I'm grateful for my life. I want to empower people. I want to help them find their smile. My goal is to encourage the audience to ignore other people's expectations, and to never give up.

I often can't believe what an incredibly extraordinary life I have. I'm so happy to be alive, and I want to share that joy, my perspective, with others.

I don't know exactly why those who teared up felt emotional. It could have been empathy for me, or it could have related to their own life. Either way, I was thoroughly touched. I share because I want to impact lives in a positive way. The Rotary in Friday Harbor gave me a huge gift. A gift of support, kindness, patience and love. It was not the seamless presentation I was trying to accomplish, but the fact that they connected emotionally was everything I was hoping for.

Friday Harbor Rotary Presentation

I'm headed up to Friday Harbor today with my mom. I have a presentation with the Friday Harbor Rotary, and I'm really excited. It will be fun to see familiar faces, and hug people that I haven't seen in awhile. One of these days I'm going to video record a presentation to share here on the blog. I'm not too crazy about watching myself, but I'm sure it'd be a really helpful exercise.

For this presentation, I was wanting to revamp my whole process but I just couldn't pull it together. My mind is often cloudy and I feel like the synapses aren't firing at the optimum level. Sometimes my brain feels like Homer Simpson's.

I still feel like my brain is grasping for connections, and my thoughts don't work as seamlessly as they did before the surgeries. Last night, as Danny and I were talking about this frustrating little situation, he reminded me that I've only had one year to recover.

It's hard to be patient though. It's easy to feel like I'm plateauing, or even regressing. Sometimes I feel stupid. I do fine talking in conversations, the problem is the thoughts swirling in my head when I'm trying to organize large scale ideas. My inability of mental organization is incredibly foreign. I used to conquer all kinds of difficult mental tasks. I loved a challenge, and excelled at schooling. Now I feel slow, and inept. At times I still feel like a guest in my own brain, trying to navigate through thoughts. It's hard to explain.

Brain trauma is hard to explain to people. You can't see it. A lot of times, people can't tell the difference between Jessica before and after. I have a hard time when I'm exhausted or stressed, and that can be isolating and frustrating. I'm not able to just push through. It's not the end of the world and I'm incredibly grateful to have progressed so far already. I'm just sharing how I feel on the inside, the part that people can't see.