Entry 24.1

I think… a lot. I don’t know if it is a gift or a curse, but I struggle to shut my brain off and just live in the moment sometimes. It’s really annoying when you wake up in the middle of the night and want to get back to sleep. I know it happens to everyone at some point in their life, but for me it’s a constant struggle. Not surprisingly, those thoughts now are all about golf. So many minute details that most people probably never give a second thought. But once it’s my thought, I hard for me to get rid of it without solving the puzzle that made it my thought in the first place. When I can’t get rid of the thought I do two things. I get out of bed, pull out whatever book I’m currently reading as part of my research, I read, and I take notes. It’s important that it’s a book, not a screen, and that I read slowly enough to take notes. It might take an hour, but eventually I fall back asleep.

One of the tools that I learned to use to help me calm my brain down while going through therapy after my last deployment was to write. A journal if you will but not a “Here’s what happened today” journal, but a “Here’s what I thought about today” journal. While my therapists assured me that over time that thoughts wouldn’t come back, but I haven’t found that to be the case. Thankfully, I know why. One of the fastest ways for me to lock something into my brain? You probably guessed it… writing it down. If they were paying attention and I know some were, classmates would see me furiously taking notes during class. The edges of my textbooks would be full of notes after reading the material for class and more notes would be added to both the textbook and my notebook both during class and afterwards while studying. It was the key to my battle to remembering, especially after my TBIs. But back to my thought journal, even though the thoughts I want to get rid of eventually come back, for an undetermined period of time I am free.

The question remains, why am I telling you all of this? To be honest, I have no idea. One of the thoughts that popped into my head was “You know what Tim? You should start a weekly newsletter where you write down something you thought about, did or witnessed over the past week and share it with the students.” I think the thought comes from our most recent PGA HOPE graduation. Let’s just say it was an overload of emotions both high and low. When it was my turn to speak at the end of the class, I broke down. Like tears streaking down my cheeks broke down and I am not a crier. Every time we finish a class, I am left wondering if I did enough. Not did I do enough to help another veteran with their golf game, but to let them know that I care. That I am here for them no matter what. Because I don’t do PGA HOPE to help players with their golf game, I do PGA HOPE to hopefully make an impact on their lives. But I was missing something up until that graduation: the impact they were making on my life. The outpouring of love and support from my brothers and sisters was incredible. I honestly had no idea the impact I was making until that day. One of them encouraged me to write a book. Not the first time I’ve been told that, but I’m not ready to write a book.

So, I’m going to start small and just put to paper some of the jumbled-up mess that rattles around in my brain. I honestly have no idea what each weekly entry will hold. It may have to do with golf, it may not. There may be a point, there may not. I don’t know. My hope is that each week you get something out of it. Some encouragement, a method to try, an interesting thought, some insight or just a smile at the scrambled writings of the crazy loon with a beard in the upstairs corner office.