an epiphany while bowling

At some point, you have to understand that you’re going to have to let go.

My stroke literally nags at me. telling me everything that i’m doing wrong. You write slow. You said that incorrectly. Why can’t you run?

And, I can’t put up with it anymore. The way i see it, i have two choices. Fix it, or go fucking insane. The problem is, I dont know which one i’m trying to do, and which one im actually doing. I know all of these beautiful things that no one else seems to know. Life isn’t hard. Just be. Smile for the hell of it. Yet the more that i act in this optimistic, self-motivating, Boddhisattva style, the more difficult it is to believe in what im preaching.

Its just as true to believe that my stroke was a happen-chance, one in a million, freak occurance as it is to believe it was something greater. So why question it? because it nags. I’m not even talking about religion. im not talking about me living for a specific, determined reason. I’m talking about enjoying life. Really, absolutely, obsessed with, over indulgent in, and completeley overwhelmed (in a good way) by life. And the more i feel this way, the more it nags at me; Am i just going insane? Is everyone else insane because they don’t see this?

I’ve come to realize that others just aren’t going to see things the way i do. And that fine line between being insane and being the overly optimistic person i am is going to get blurred sometimes. I just need to be.

I had a conversation with my step-aunt, who’s a doctor, at my sisters wedding a couple of weeks ago. She asked about the left-brain, right-brain phenomenon of many stroke patients. What’s it like to have a dominant right brain, or even to be only using my right brain for a significant period of time? And it seems to be only explained by the frustration, yet pure joy, of the previous paragraphs. Everything is beautiful. For example, I went bowling the other day. I bowled a few of the worst games of my life, which just frustrates me and my usual left-brain competitive side. Then, I had that epiphany moment. I don’t have to be here. I stood on the center of the dotted arrows pointing towards the pins. The lights reflected off of the greased lanes. I noticed that i was putting the majority of my weight on my right side. The bowling ball felt light in my right hand. Everything was so easy now. My mind just clutters, and worries, and places expectations on these things that really are unimportant in life. I finished the game with a 114 after starting out horribly. Not that that’s a great score, but it made me realize that I get in my own way more than anything else. Stop. Notice the things around you and appreciate them, and the rest falls in line. Friends, a good meal, or something as trivial as bowling.

Smile, it feels good.

B

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