Looking back, I believe the universe pushed me into doing the one thing I’d always excelled at and would never have taken the risk of trying:

I’d never lost a job, and now I’d lost two in a row in the same month. His business had been going bankrupt long before he hired me. On Christmas Eve of 2002, he laid off all his employees. I started looking for work I could do from home, and landed a remote job writing item descriptions for a man who ran an online store and shipped merchandise out of his garage. It would take me nine months to recover about ninety percent of my speech and facial expressions, but I lived as a shut-in for a couple of years. I became severely depressed, and didn’t want to leave the house. My appearance and my inability to speak at full capacity destroyed any motivation to try and interview for other similar positions. It derailed my plans to become a licensed psychotherapist. Within a few weeks, they compelled me to resign. The students I advised stared at me in curious shock and horror, and my work superiors were less than compassionate about my situation.

When I spoke, I looked and sounded like I was drunk. It left me partially paralyzed on my one side, mostly affecting my face. It was one of the most devastating events of my life. You know the expression: “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm.” In November 2002, at thirty-three, I was working at a stressful job in a university counselor center.

I had to think about it for a few minutes, and the answer took me back to a dark time… “What was the first TV show you ever binged?” I was mentally exhausted, scrolling on social media - wondering what the hell to write about in my newsletter - when I saw a post: I’d just written my way back from burnout and sent Muscle Cub: Bear Camp Book 2 to my editor.

The Uncut Wood by Slade James