Page 9 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

Catherine’s eyebrows jumped, as though things connected and she at once feared I was going to hop in my car, drive to Illinois, and off my brother or something. “I don’t think anyone could prove that. I mean, it’s likely a combination of the chemical balance you were born with and your life experiences.”

“But it could be.”

Catherine took a bold posture. “It is highly unlikely that your injury is the entire cause of your mental illness.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Okay.” I didn’t want to be mad at Kevin. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. I would have done the same thing to him, and he’d been nothing but good to me for the rest of our lives.

I sat in my car in the parking lot for an hour and a half after that appointment. If I’d had my laptop with me, I might have done some research, but I didn’t, so I just sat there, my new prescription on the passenger seat, watching the trees across the street blow in the breeze. Who cares if it’s some stupid flaw that makes you write? It didn’t matter if a head injury opened the floodgates. I had twenty-eight books to my name by then. Whatever the cause, I decided, I was okay with it. And if a little bit of crazy came with it, well, we all had our quirks.

Things were fine for six days after my first dose of the mood stabilizers. Sunday morning, I started a pot of coffee and sat in front of my laptop. Many days, I just picked up where I left off, or was off running with an idea I’d come up with in the middle of the night or in the shower. Nothing came out, so I waited for my coffee, poured a cup, and made myself some cereal. There were thoughts swirling in my head; that was a good thing. I hurried with my breakfast then brought a second cup of coffee back to my office. And nothing happened.

I spent much of the morning trying to get what was in my head onto the screen, but it felt like everything dissolved somewhere between my brain and my fingers. It was frustrating, but I spent the day doing other things, figuring I could just have a fresh start the next day.

Monday came, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I taught my classes. I walked Ollie. I slept and ate, but I did not write. I couldn’t write. Was this writer’s block? I’d never experienced it before, but people talked about it all the time. That had to be it.

I tried everything over the next two weeks. I tried dictating what was in my head, but the words wouldn’t come out. I tried writing longhand in notebooks like I had when I was a kid. I tried to start other projects. Nothing helped. I got about five pages finished and it was like pulling teeth. Five pages in three weeks. This could not be writer’s block.

I was desperate the next time I saw Catherine. “I can’t write.”

She had barely closed the door. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing comes out.”

“A lot of people have writer’s block. Great writers have struggled mightily with it.”

“I don’t think it’s that. I have ideas, okay, but they’re stuck in my head. I can’t get them out.”

“Has this ever happened before?”

I shook my head. “I’ve tried stepping away from it, I’ve tried dictating, I’ve tried everything.”

“Have you tried telling a story to someone else?”

My jaw tightened. “I’m telling you, there’s something wrong. Really wrong.”

Catherine was quiet for a moment. “How are you feeling besides that?”

I hadn’t really thought about it. “Good, I think. I mean, I’ve been panicking a little bit about this so I can’t really tell but—”

“How have you been dealing with it?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “I mean, panicking.”

“Like old Sam panicking or new Sam panicking?”

“New Sam panicking,” I said, starting to feel a little lightheaded. “I mean I guess I’ve dealt with it pretty well, all things considered.”

“No angry outbursts? No self-harm?”

I shook my head. “It’s working, isn’t it. This is it working.”

“I think so. It works on that rogue temporal lobe and—”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. “It turns it off.”

“Right. You should still be able to feel things, but it turns off the—”

“It turns off the writing.”