Home > Work > The Night the Lights Went Out: A Memoir of Life After Brain Damage
1 " To live on, you have to make the good happen. A different life need not be a worse one. You have to decide if you’re the lucky one or not. Why live on otherwise? "
― Drew Magary , The Night the Lights Went Out: A Memoir of Life After Brain Damage
2 " Death and life are not in opposition. So when someone tells you to live every day like it’s your last, kindly tell them to fuck off. They’re wrong. You should live every day like it’s your first. Live it like it’s your last and you’ll just run around like the house is on fire. I don’t want a bucket list. I don’t wanna live like I’m dying. I wanna live like I’m living. And I want there to be more possibilities left when I die, not NONE. Why rush to tick off all of those boxes? You don’t get a fucking gold star from God for that. I know now that I am going to spend the rest of my life incomplete. But life was designed to be incomplete. It’s not a worksheet you fill out. It’s an open platform. You do some things, but you also leave behind infinite possibilities for those in your wake. That’s the freedom. "
3 " I wanted to be who I was, and I remained deluded that I could. The more I tried to be that Other Drew, the more frustrated I became. I had to give in. I had to understand that my injury had not only changed me but also changed everyone I loved. I needed to understand that my best bet for salvation was embracing the very people I was keeping at arm's length. "My job is to translate the world for you," Sonia told me. "That's what marriage is all about. " I kept hoping that medication and time would render that translation - along with therapy and honest self-criticism - unnecessary. I lacked the brain power to see how foolhardy, and how selfish, that plan was. "
4 " The fact I suffered a haemorrhage is doubly irritating because haemorrhage is a word I will never ever spell right on the first pass. "
5 " For two weeks I existed outside of the universe. And it was lovely. "
6 " will never know what Carter’s early life was like. I don’t even know his real age. I can only speculate on the potential traumas he may have endured as a stray dog or as an unwanted pet. But I don’t regret saving him. Ever. And I’ll always love him, even though there are things about him I can never, ever know. Love means accepting each other’s mysteries. "
7 " You spend all your life grappling with the idea of finality. When you do, you adapt and embrace your limitations fully, and that makes you freer. That’s how you get your identity back, even if that identity is altered from the person you once were. The man I had been died that night in the karaoke bar. Back down here, this was the only man I could be. I was growing more adept at being him. You can defy your mind when you’re young and have it pay off. That wasn’t the case for me any longer. I had to accept this new mind and learn to live with it. "
