Coffee Space
learning to write again after a TBI
Every writing teacher that I’ve ever had has told me some version of this truth: if you wait around until you find the time to write, you’ll never stumble across it. You have to make time, plan ahead, and guard that time like your art depends on it, because it does. This idea takes on a whole new meaning when you’re trying to learn how to write again after a brain injury.
After my TBI when I reached for my writing in my mind, all I touched was a dark void. For months, there was a nothingness, a blank spot in my brain that I wouldn’t have thought possible until I felt it myself. Here and there, I’d manage to scrape together a few words from the edges of the void and herd them together in a sad parade of jumbly sentences.
I knew from past experience that I’d never be able to write creatively again if I didn’t push myself. Nothing would get better if I didn’t try. So ten months after my TBI, I slowly started writing, maybe just a page every session. I thought if I could write just a single paragraph, it was something. But every time I sat down to write, migraines wrapped around my head and tucked themselves behind my eyes. The page would swim, and my sunglasses never blocked out enough light.
To motivate myself, I started taking myself to the local cafe to write. I’d sit at my favorite wobbly table, sip a London Fog, and stare at the empty pages of my notebook. I’d people watch, often with Dylan or Gwen sitting beside me. While I did very little actual writing at first, slowly my pages filled with my scrawling handwriting.
For months, I made no real progress, and every writing session acted like a pressure cooker on my skull. My brain throbbed and felt like it was going to melt and run out my ears. I’d sit. I’d sip my tea. I’d write short, punchy sentences that I hated. But stubbornly I kept trekking over to the coffee shop, sitting down, and opening up my A6 journal. And every time, I’d go home and put on a purple ice hat over my head, curl up on the couch with Gwen, and stroke her silky fur as we sat there in the dark.
For the holidays, my spouse, the Corgis, and I visited my parents in northern Kentucky. One afternoon, I pulled out my A6 and start writing. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just wrote until I couldn’t stand my head anymore. When I paused and looked up, I realized I’d written five or six pages. I flipped back and forth through what I’d written in disbelief. Since I’d written so much, I waited for a monster migraine to hit. It didn’t. Had I just had a breakthrough? I was too afraid to hope.
After we got back home from Kentucky, I started my A6 Hobonichi Techo for 2025. A month in, I’ve been able to write everyday. I don’t know what to make of my new ability. I don’t know how long this will last, but if there’s anything that my experience with repeated TBIs has taught me, it’s that I can’t take this time for granted.
But this isn’t a happily ever after. This is where the real work begins. As always, thanks for following along.
Happy that all your perseverance paid off and you could write consistently for a while!
Cheering you on from across the ocean! 👏