The Book – My Realest Real

I shared a month and half ago why I was writing a book. I wrote my truth, albeit in an extra concise, marketing-friendly way. And I stand by that piece. It just wasn’t complete.

You could be curious why I’d write a book about something as scary-creepy-intense as coming back from a brain injury. Here are the motivating factors and my truest, deepest reasons.

The following is not intended to make you feel sorry for me or to send you running for the hills of escapist material. I hope you’ll read this, share it with your circles, and know that you have my appreciation for doing either or both of those.

I was supposed to have died. I didn’t.

I woke up from a coma with barely a memory in my head. That empty seeming mind went on for a minute.

For the first time since I was 14, I lived with my parents for more than a couple of months.

I made bad – more like some terrible – decisions regarding money, business, family, friends, dating.

I did not know who I was for a while, because so much of my self belief had been caught up in how I looked, what I did for work, how I was known.

And had a book like what I’m writing existed when I was “recovering,” so much post-trauma nonsense, hurt, self-hatred, and time lost could have been prevented and handled with kindness, respect, understanding, and acceptance.

If I’m going to be on this Earth, I will bring to the world all that I am capable of doing. That includes showing up and sharing the balls out, candid, embarrassing, empathic truths I am telling in this book.

I mean to bring to everyone dealing with struggle something that I did not have immediately and subsequently following what happened to me. Why? So my fellow survivors and soldiers can feel, do, and live happier than I did.

THAT is why I’m writing this book.

Everything happens in life to bring us joy, to teach us something, or both. I recently came to know and accept:

There is no rush.  Things don’t happen on time, they happen in time.

You’re here.

And that is the…everything.