Very little brain, and words fail me

Yeah, cute. I started this um with the goal of writing essays. I do have a few that I have started or planned, but it doesn’t work like it did once. I don’t have the um to create and make complete a text where I bring out an idea that started with my own thinking anymore.

I wrote the preceding paragraph without looking any words up, and I didn’t attempt to find correct idioms. My English has always been recognizably non-native, but the experience of not finding words, or being unable to form even reasonably-formed sentences is new (as in, I started noticing it in 2019). I don’t like it. (ETA: at the time of writing this text I didn’t know yet that I had had a stroke and that the aftermath of that had affected my language faculties.)

It’s kind of hard to write, to process an idea, when writing feels like chewing with broken teeth. That doesn’t mean that I going to stop trying (yet). Then again many things are hard. I can’t juggle ideas in my mind anymore, when I try the clubs (looked that one up, then wondered why I didn’t use ball) just fade away or get lost. My latest programming project petered out in summer 2019 when I realized that I couldn’t encompass it the way I needed. Not being able to program in more than minimal snippets makes me feel bad.

Without looking on the screen, I don’t know what date it is. I need to stop and have a look around sometimes when I’ve lost the mental picture of my surroundings. Cooking is just too complex. I sometimes see and hear things that aren’t there. I can’t plan ahead or make decisions. Time runs away from me. Talking on the phone is just too painful except with close family. I don’t seem to be able to watch a film without someone present to help me focus. I’m drowning in my own liquefying (spelling control helped me out there) brain.

I was being investigated (checked out? probed? examined? oh well, a doctor was looking into it) but Corona gave them more important things to do. I hope I can get back to that soon.

New plan, then. No essays, but I’ll try to write a bit about things that people ask about and that I find that I can successfully answer with the help of Google, Merriam-Webster, and my own bookshelves. Sometimes, the right conversation, the right context, helps my brain start up again. I’ll try to capture that.