As the days are getting longer and flowers begin to bloom I think this curiosity is the solution for my double disability that has choked me up. When I got sober and would be whining about all the problems I had, my incredible sponsor would tell me to find solutions. Always look for solutions. My therapist and I will talk about hooks (self pity in this case) that latch on and take up valuable real estate in the mind.

I’m very open about my traumatic brain injury in 2003. I have shared that my art is a direct response to this trauma. Living with it is a daily thing and I will carry its aftermath until I die. What I have not been explicit about is my business being the only feasible course of action to build a career that can financially sustain me the rest of my life.

What a year 2023 has been. It makes me think of Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities as this year has been the hardest of my adult life, but has also been the most rewarding. I have written about being rear ended last January. That injury still persists in my right wrist and to this day I am still unable to produce work. I have an amazing PT and hand surgeon and we are seeing if it can be healed without surgery. But the rest of that is a tale for 2024.

2023 has been a year of incredible challenge for me. I was badly rear ended in January 2023, resulting in back problems from my coccyx up to my jaw (I was diagnosed with lock jaw/TMJ at the ER the next day) as well as a wrist injury that STILL 9 months later hasn’t healed.