Writing By Laura

Since last week’s blog was an essay where I revealed I’m living with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), I actually started to write a lot on my memoir. Because of that, I’ve decided to focus this writing update on just my memoir. [Note: If you haven’t checked out my other blog where I also talked about my TBI here’s the link. And, if I haven’t mentioned it enough the Brain Injury Association of America promoted my blog on their Facebook and Twitter.]

My memoir is about how I awoke from a coma following an accident and have worked to recover who I am post Traumatic Brain Injury. It’s interesting because I almost feel more myself than I did before the injury. When I say that it sounds odd. I describe it in more detail in the memoir because the brain injury definitely changed how I walk through life now (sick pun not intended since I had to relearn to walk). I was always quick with a joke before but I think my sense of humor is lighter. More jovial.

Speaking of jovial… this graphic of a giant chocolate 🍫 makes one pretty jovial! 😊

And since I discovered this new-to-me “brand building” App called Over that has reawakened my interest in graphic design (I used to be a project manager at an advertising agency who worked with graphic designers frequently) I designed a few graphics that I’m currently including in the memoir. Creating them has helped charge up my creative juices. Now, I know doing silly little graphics like this is not traditional for a memoir (from an adult anyway). However, I may not keep them. They’re just there right now to get me creating. And as I learned with the start of this blog and my pop culture blog last year (not to mention my puppy Selby’s Instagram account @selbysweetie and her cousin Bella’s @bellajocavalier) I love designing things in the name of fun and humor. When it comes to designing graphics for this blog or the other one I am having a good time. So by including them in the memoir (even temporarily) I’m leaning into behavior that could be deemed procrastination. And by making the graphics a part of my memoir I’m hoping I prevent it from truly becoming procrastination.

Speaking of graphics I spent time on, this one below was created for my Watching Pop Culture With My Parents blog that I posted yesterday. Click on the graphic to go to that post. I talk in that post how my brain injury has greatly changed my hearing and this graphic is supposed to represent that. Especially the sounds clouding around the brain and not penetrating.

Graphic titled “Sounds & My TBI Brain” from my other blog.

I have a lot to say about #TBI and I’m happy to give a voice to brain injury. I’ve been reading more that people have been posting online who have survived brain injury. I’m enjoying learning from others. And I think the key for me as I keep exploring is to keep writing. As I’ve said before, I am a procrastinator, so I was using my enthusiasm for creating these graphics as a step to continue working on the memoir. If I include them in the memoir I might feed the procrastination monster!!

#amwriting

#amwritingmemoir

#livingwithTBI