Bracelet Making

Hey Everyone

I wanted to talk to you about glass beading class. I can’t remember if it was before glass fusing or after it. I just know I wanted to keep creating and we did a few classes at The Opportunity Centre. They were fun. I liked handling the beads. I remember my hands sometimes would shake and if I did it to long I ended up needing that thing you wrap around your wrist to give it support. Also I would get tired after and sometimes would need a nap.

I enjoyed touching the beads and feeling the different weights and different materials as well. They made a lot of different noises when you searched through them. It was soothing. I sometimes would just search to hear the noise. For awhile after the accident noises with people bothered me. I can tolerate them now, except if I get too tired.

There are times when people talk to me, and I am watching tv I don’t hear them, or if two conversations are going on I can not keep track. Some people who have a brain injury do not do well at all with a lot of people and just need to go.

I took a class with a teacher who I don’t even remember her name, or what she looked like. It was a special kind of class for a special kind of bracelet. I still remember how to make them and the specific wire I need because of making so many of them at the time. The reason was I made them over and over again in many different ways. I find if you repeat doing something over and over again, if your brain is able you can remember how to do it. If you can’t remember you will still have a lot of amazing things you created. I’ve kind of let bead work go as I went on to other things.

Everything in that class is nothing but blurry colours and shapes even the teacher. That happens a lot for me, when trying to get memories. The memories could be people, classes, things that happened. It is such a mixed up jumbo in my head. For me though this is hard. Before the accident I could pull up a memory from when I was 5 and see it all. Heck picking up a book I’d know if I read it from the title and cover. I would read a lot, and still do. Just now a days I pick up the same book from the library over and over again.

The bead work I did in the Opportunity Centre are ones I do not remember as much. They were more of a one and done kind of thing. Mostly vague thoughts and memories of what we made, but not always the whole picture of what we did.

The main reason I liked making bracelets was because I enjoyed the fact that I could see and hold and feel it afterwards. To me they were beautiful and fun to make. I could create even if I couldn’t paint. I felt close to being who I was before the accident. Yet there are still so many of the old pieces of me missing. Not enough for people to see or understand, but they are gone. I had to find ways around those missing pieces. To go through them and find new pieces to fill the holes that are gone. Not everyone can after a brain injury. So in that aspect I am lucky.

Please keep trying to create, or start to create and keep trying. Enjoy finding you. Everyone finds different parts of yourself as you age.