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Author: RobBaugh

Is it just me?

Posted on by RobBaugh

Maybe this is what getting older looks like—measuring today against memories from thirty years ago and wondering when the shift happened. Or maybe it’s just that life has slowed me down enough to notice things I once rushed past.


I don’t get out of the house very often anymore. Constant headaches, anxiety, and crowded places have a way of shrinking your world. So when I do step outside my carefully managed bubble, I tend to observe more than participate. Lately, what I’ve noticed hasn’t always been encouraging.


There seems to be a growing impatience in the air—especially among people my age and older. A sense of entitlement. A short fuse. Just today, my wife and I were walking to our car after leaving Target. A man parked next to us was backing out and had to wait—maybe three seconds—for us to clear the way. Three seconds was apparently too much. The frustration on his face bordered on a tantrum.


I turned to my wife and said something that surprised even me: Have you noticed that younger people seem to have more patience and respect than their elders? I’ve seen it in public places. I’ve seen it in the workplace. Not across the board, of course—but often enough to pause. In many cases, the younger generation appears to be working harder, listening more, and complaining less. That’s just my observation, not an accusation.


And then—because life has a way of balancing itself—we stopped at a local bakery. One of those unplanned stops for a donut we definitely didn’t need but somehow really needed. They were out of my favorite donut—the one with caramel and peanuts. My wife mentioned it casually to the woman behind the counter, who looked to be in her early sixties.

Without hesitation, she smiled and said, “We have plain donuts left. I’d be happy to make one for him.”

That had never been offered to us before.


Not only did she make it, she went the extra mile—extra caramel, extra peanuts. No fanfare. No expectation. Just kindness. I walked back to the car while my wife paid. When she joined me a moment later, she handed me an extra $1.50 and said, “She gave you a little discount. Said, ‘Here—you deserve it.’”


In a world where it’s easy to lose faith in people—where parking lots feel like battlegrounds and patience feels extinct—sometimes kindness still finds us. Quietly. Unexpectedly. In the form of a stranger who simply chooses to care.

So maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe humanity isn’t gone—it’s just hiding in small places. Behind bakery counters. In extra effort. In caramel and peanuts.


I hope that on your hardest days, when the world feels loud, rushed, and unkind, you encounter a stranger willing to go the extra mile for no reason at all.

And may your worst day still be filled with extra caramel frosting and extra peanuts.

My Brain Injuries Perspective.

Posted on by RobBaugh

Some days, the only thing separating me from the old version of myself is the constant weight of 24/7 headaches and the quiet gaps where memories should be. On the outside, I can look the same. On the inside, a “normal” day is often layered with anxiety, frustration, amplified emotions, and the feeling of being overwhelmed by things that once came effortlessly.


I’ve accepted that my life no longer resembles what it used to be. But acceptance doesn’t mean I live in the past. I don’t spend my days longing for who I was. Instead, I’ve come to see life through a different lens.


Everyone has a shelf life. None of us are getting out of this alive.


If we were given the privilege of seeing our life’s timeline laid out in front of us—if we knew exactly how many days we had left—I think something would shift. I believe we would stop obsessing over what we’ve lost, what we lack, or what didn’t turn out the way we planned. We would start focusing on something far more important: significance.


We would ask ourselves how to spend the days we have left in a way that matters. How to use whatever gifts, talents, and breath we still have to bring joy—not just to ourselves, but to the people placed around us. And maybe, if we lived that way, we wouldn’t need a timeline at all.


Because the truth is, we don’t know how many days are ahead of us. None of us do. So perhaps this is how we should be living anyway.


Take the extra five seconds to make a stranger smile. Pick up the phone and call someone who might just need to hear a familiar voice. Offer kindness without keeping score. Choose presence over perfection.

When the end eventually comes, I don’t think we’ll wish we had fewer headaches or more certainty. I think we’ll hope we spent what we were given—however imperfectly—on love, connection, and moments that made life feel meaningful.

And maybe that’s enough.

New Year and getting older

Posted on by RobBaugh

The holidays are finally behind us, and in theory, this is the moment when life returns to “normal.”
But I’m no longer convinced that normal is a real thing.


When I was a child, normal was simple. You went to school, rushed home to finish your homework, and then played until bedtime. If you’re anywhere near my age, you probably remember quietly staying up past that bedtime to catch Johnny Carson’s monologue—and if he had a good guest, you knew you were going to pay for it the next morning. That was normal. At least, that was my normal.


As we get older, though, our versions of normal evolve—and often unravel. What once felt predictable becomes complicated. These days, my normal looks more like controlled chaos. And I don’t say that negatively. I say it honestly.


Our days are filled with after-work responsibilities: allergy shots, doctor appointments, counseling sessions, and helping care for aging parents. If there’s any time or energy left after that, we use it to sit down for dinner, knock out a few chores, and then collapse into the evening, hoping tomorrow will be manageable.


The one constant that never seems to change is how fast time moves.
Before my brain injury, that used to bother me deeply. Aging bothered me. Not death itself—I’ve never been afraid of that—but the idea of simply getting old unsettled me.


I turned 50 last year, with another birthday right around the corner, and something surprising happened: aging no longer scares me. Living with chronic pain has a way of reshaping your perspective. It forces you to confront what truly matters and strips away fears that no longer deserve your energy.


If I’m being honest, I long for the day when I can finally be pain-free. But I have never given up hope—and I don’t plan to start now.

And neither should you.

The New Kitten

Posted on by RobBaugh

Earlier this year, we said goodbye to our oldest cat, Ginger. She was my constant companion—my quiet shadow, my comfort on the hard days. Animals have a remarkable way of knowing when your heart is heavy, and Ginger always seemed to sense it before I ever spoke a word. If you saw me, she was never far behind. Losing her felt like losing a piece of myself.


There’s a strange truth about grief: sometimes we mourn our pets in a way that feels even deeper than the grief we carry for people we love. Not because those relationships matter less—but because the love of an animal is so beautifully uncomplicated. It is pure, forgiving, and unwavering. You can step on a tail, lose a favorite toy, or come home late, and they still greet you like you’ve been gone for years. That kind of love leaves a quiet ache when it’s gone.


Our younger cat has felt the loss too. She still peers into the garage, as if Ginger might be waiting there and we simply forgot to look. Hope can linger in the smallest places. Ginger wasn’t just my buddy—she was hers as well.

Getting another cat wasn’t part of the plan. You don’t replace a soul like Ginger’s; that kind of love is singular. But Emma needed a friend, and maybe—someday—we’d open our hearts again.


That someday arrived sooner than expected.


Last month, while my wife Sheila was visiting her mom, a tiny kitten appeared to greet her as she stepped out of the car. He was impossibly small, his little nose a bit battered, but something about him felt like grace showing up unannounced. We talked it over, and as usual, my heart spoke louder than my logic. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog. Saying yes felt natural.

Now, a month later, that little soul has filled our home with a joy we didn’t realize we were missing. Thunder—our three-ish-month-old whirlwind—has officially become part of our family. He hasn’t replaced Ginger. He never could. But he has reminded us of something just as important: love doesn’t run out. It expands.


I still miss Ginger something awful. But in the quiet spaces where grief once echoed, Thunder is helping mend what was broken—one purr, one playful leap, one tiny heartbeat at a time.

Plate Spinning and Podcasting

Posted on by RobBaugh

It’s only Tuesday, yet the weight of the week already feels heavy. Sometimes, I stand back and wonder how I manage to keep so many plates spinning without letting them crash. Tuesday is usually my marathon day—between my day job and hosting the online support group, I try to protect my remaining brain power by keeping the schedule clear.


I was supposed to record a podcast tomorrow, something I was genuinely looking forward to. Then came the email: a scheduling conflict. The guest asked if I was free today.


Normally, my automatic answer to a last-minute change is "no"—I have to protect my energy. But today, something made me pause. I checked the calendar. Aside from the support group, the slate was clean. I checked with my wife—my constant reality check—and she gave me the thumbs up.

I broke my own rule, and I am so glad I did.


I preach constantly about not taking on more than we can handle, especially as brain injury survivors. We must be gentle with ourselves. But sometimes, when I step on my own toes and ignore my own advice, something beautiful blossoms from the chaos. I didn’t just record an interview today; I forged a deep friendship with an amazing fellow survivor.


I know I sound like a broken record to those who follow me, but I do this because there is a fire in my soul to connect. I need you to know you are not alone on this recovery journey. You have the loudest, proudest cheerleader in your corner.


I don’t do this for fame, and certainly not for fortune—podcasting isn’t exactly a goldmine. I could have chosen a path of simple comedy and easy laughs. But that isn’t my calling. My calling is to heal broken hearts, lift weary spirits, and make sure that every single one of you feels seen, heard, and validated.

Being thankful and the THROUGH

Posted on by RobBaugh

Some days, finding a reason to be thankful feels like a battle. I live my life to make others happy; I am a people pleaser by nature, and I offer no apologies for that. It is who I am. But when it comes to my own happiness, I’ve learned to look for the microscopic miracles. I don’t do this because it’s easy—I do it because everything matters.


Society teaches us to measure success by bank accounts and viral trends, yet we forget the currency that actually keeps us alive. When was the last time you were truly grateful for the air in your lungs? We can survive without the latest video game or TikTok trend, but take away our oxygen, and the game is over. So, I hunt for the little nuggets of gold that most people walk right past.


My brain injury, in a strange way, was the gift I didn’t know I needed. It amplified my gratitude. Yes, it came with a warehouse full of challenges, but I refuse to let a day pass without finding one thing to be thankful for. Every win, every loss, every mountain, and every valley—they may be glorious or disastrous, but they are mine. I wasn’t promised today, yet here I am.


Recently, I realized something that stopped me in my tracks: "Do not get rid of your pain until you learn what it has to teach you."

It is a simple phrase packed with a harsh reality. When we hurt, we want instant relief. We want the shortcut. But let me get raw and real with you: The magic happens in the THROUGH.


We cannot grow if we take the easy exit. If we silence the pain before we understand it, history will only repeat itself. The "through" is where the lesson lives. It teaches us what we are truly made of. whether it’s learning to treat our bodies better, changing our habits, or simply slowing down. Listen to the pain. Find the lesson. And be thankful that you are strong enough to survive the lesson.

How Thanksgiving is like a Brain Injury

Posted on by RobBaugh
thanksgiving

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I thought, How would Thanksgiving be like a brain injury? This is my opinion — shaped by lived experience, healing, frustration, and a sense of humor you sometimes need just to survive the day.

 

1. The Overwhelm Hits Before You Even Begin

Thanksgiving looks simple on paper: cook food, gather people, eat. But anyone who’s hosted knows it’s never that smooth. There are lists, prep work, last-minute changes, the oven acting up, guests arriving early, and that one dish someone always forgets.

A brain injury is the same way. People on the outside see the “simple” version — just rest, heal, and you’ll get better, right? But inside, it’s chaos. You’re juggling symptoms, fatigue, overstimulation, memory lapses, and unexpected setbacks. And just like a kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, things get overwhelming fast.

 

2. Too Many Voices at Once

Thanksgiving gatherings are loud. There’s laughter, kids yelling, multiple conversations happening at the same time, dishes clanking, football on TV, and someone blending gravy in the kitchen.

For someone with a brain injury, that level of noise is every day — except it doesn’t take a holiday crowd to overload you. Even one room with a few people talking can feel like a full-blown family reunion inside your head. The world doesn’t politely quiet down just because your brain needs it to.

 

3. You Have a Plan… Until You Don’t

Every Thanksgiving cook has a plan: start the turkey at 9, potatoes by 11, rolls in at 12:30. But inevitably, something throws the plan off — the turkey cooks slower, someone uses the oven when they’re not supposed to, or the timer that should’ve gone off… doesn’t.

Brain injury life follows the same unpredictable rhythm. You plan your day, schedule appointments, make a to-do list, but all it takes is a headache spike or fatigue wave to knock everything sideways. Flexibility becomes survival.

 

4. People Mean Well… But Don’t Always Get It

Thanksgiving comes with well-meaning comments:

“Are you sure that’s how you make the stuffing?”
“You don’t look tired — are you sure you don’t need help?”
“Relax, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Sound familiar?

After a brain injury, you hear the same types of comments. People want to help, but they don’t always understand the mental load, emotional strain, or physical limitations you’re balancing. They don’t see the 90% of the struggle happening internally.

 

5. It’s Messy, Imperfect, and Somehow Still Meaningful

No Thanksgiving is perfect. Something burns, someone forgets an ingredient, someone argues, someone cries — yet the day still matters. It’s real. Human. Connected.

A brain injury is messy too. It changes your routines, abilities, dreams, relationships, patience, and limits. But even in all the chaos, there are moments that deepen you: flashes of gratitude, personal growth, new perspectives, emotional clarity, and the strength you didn’t know you had.

 

6. You Appreciate Small Wins

On Thanksgiving, a “small win” might be:

  • The turkey coming out juicy
  • The rolls not burning
  • Everyone eating before 9 p.m.
  • Finding five minutes of quiet in the bathroom

 

With a brain injury, small wins are everything. Getting through a day without a breakdown. Remembering something important. Having energy for one meaningful conversation. Feeling like yourself for an hour. These victories matter more than people realize.

 

The smart phone and the injured brain.

Posted on by RobBaugh

I tend to be a smartphone critic.

Every time I see someone on their phone, I make a mental note of the case — “Gee, that case looks great, I wonder where they got it?” And sometimes it’s more like, “You spent a thousand bucks on that phone and put a five-dollar plastic ‘protector’ on it? Let me know how that pans out for you.”

But I’ll admit — I quickly judge people who walk around with cracked screens.
It drives me crazy. I find myself thinking, “How in the world do they navigate through life like that?”

That’s when the light bulb went off.

 

Living with a brain injury is just like living with a cracked screen on your phone.

 

The phone still turns on. It still rings. It still holds all your memories, your messages, your apps — the core of who you are — but the cracks distort things. Sometimes you press one spot and nothing happens. Other times, it reacts, but not in the way you expect. You try to swipe, but it freezes. You open one thing, and something else pops up.

 

That’s what it feels like inside an injured brain.

You know exactly what you want to say, what you want to do, but the message doesn’t always get through. The “touchscreen” of the mind just doesn’t respond like it used to. You can see what’s behind the cracks, but getting to it takes more patience — and sometimes, more grace than the world is willing to give.

 

And yet, just like that cracked phone, the heart of it still works. The music still plays. The memories are still stored inside. The soul is untouched — it’s just harder to access.

 

What we often forget is that we live in a world that upgrades its phones every year, but struggles to show patience for people who need time to heal. We’re quick to replace, quick to judge, quick to move on — but healing doesn’t happen on a fast charger.

So the next time you see someone with a cracked screen — or someone whose “signal” seems a little slow — remember this:
They’re doing their best to navigate through the cracks.

 

And even when the glass looks shattered, the light underneath still shines through.

Because both the phone and the brain — when treated with care, compassion, and understanding — can still connect, still function, and still bring light into the world.

 

 

Even a cracked screen can still illuminate the dark.

Do you live in the future?

Posted on by RobBaugh

I do my best not to live in the rearview mirror. There’s too much pain back there—too many memories that still sting. Sometimes I wish my brain injury had wiped those moments clean, but that’s not how the brain works.


A neurologist once explained it to me this way: long-term memory is like a record—remember those old vinyl albums? Every experience, every emotion, every sound is etched into the grooves of our brain. You can’t just scratch it out. Short-term memories, on the other hand, are fleeting because they never get “pressed” into that record. They fade quickly, as if they never existed at all.


I know that’s a long setup to get to my point—but stay with me.


How many of us live in the future?

How many spend every waking moment worrying about tomorrow—about whether there will be enough money in the bank, enough time to retire, enough health to make it that far?


I hear it everywhere—at work, in coffee shops, at the grocery store. Conversations filled with worry about what hasn’t even happened yet. And I can’t help but think… I remember hearing those same fears as a child. Different people, same worries.


Somehow, we’ve been conditioned from birth to plan for what’s next. To think ahead. To save, to prepare, to predict. And yes, there’s wisdom in that. It’s good to be responsible, to make sure our families are taken care of. But somewhere along the way, we moved out of today and started taking up permanent residence in tomorrow.


The truth is, none of us are guaranteed another sunrise.


This morning, somewhere, someone who was busy planning their future didn’t wake up. Their family is now preparing for their final goodbye. Maybe it was a father who kept saying, “I’ll go see that movie next week—it’s cheaper when it comes out to stream.” But next week never came.


And that’s what we risk when we live in the future—we miss the sunsets, the laughter of friends, the warmth of a neighbor’s hello. We trade the beauty of now for the illusion of someday.


So, take a breath. Slow down. Turn down the heat on worry and let it simmer quietly on the back burner.


Look behind you when you need to learn from it.

Look ahead when you need to prepare for it.

But live—really live—right here in the middle.


Because this moment, right now, is the only place life actually happens.

The Toothpaste Principle: What a brain injury taught me about squeezing through life.

Posted on by RobBaugh
ChatGPT Image Nov 9, 2025, 06_44_35 PM

If you’ve ever had that moment where you’re standing in the bathroom, half-awake, staring at a nearly empty tube of toothpaste, then you know what perseverance looks like in its purest form. You start at the bottom and roll it up. You press, you flatten, you twist the cap, and somehow—somehow—you manage to get just enough out to make it through one more brushing.


That’s what living with a brain injury feels like most days.


It’s the constant squeezing, trying to get something useful out of a part of you that doesn’t always cooperate anymore. You press in all the right places, but sometimes nothing comes out. And sometimes, too much comes out all at once—thoughts, emotions, words—leaving you with a mess you didn’t plan for.


The Great Toothpaste Experiment

Before my injury, I never thought twice about toothpaste. I’d grab the tube, get what I needed, and move on. Easy. But now, even something that small can become a test of patience and coordination. Some mornings, I’ll stand there, gripping the tube like it holds the answers to life itself, realizing that fine motor skills and focus don’t come as naturally as they used to.

It’s humbling.

It’s frustrating.

And—if I’m honest—it’s also a reminder.


Because no matter how difficult it gets, I still get the toothpaste out. It might take a little longer. It might not look pretty. But it gets done.


That’s the thing about brain injuries—everything that once seemed simple now requires effort, creativity, and grace. The toothpaste tube becomes a symbol of resilience. You learn to adapt, to find a new way to make the small things work.



You Can’t Put It Back in the Tube

They say you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube, and that’s true for brain injuries too. Once it’s out—once your brain is rewired, changed, or scarred—you can’t just go back to how things were. But maybe that’s not the goal.


Maybe the goal is learning to live with what’s come out.

To make peace with the mess.

To find a way to still smile—teeth brushed, heart full—even when life no longer squeezes as easily as before.



The Hidden Lesson in a Morning Routine

Each day, that small act of brushing my teeth becomes a quiet victory. A reminder that healing isn’t found in grand gestures or overnight miracles—it’s in the tiny moments we push through. The ones nobody sees.


Every squeeze of that tube is a metaphor for endurance. Every drop of toothpaste that still comes out after I think the tube is empty tells me there’s still something left inside me too. Something worth fighting for.


So, the next time you’re standing at the sink, annoyed at your toothpaste for being stubborn, remember: you’re holding a symbol of persistence. You’re holding the daily proof that no matter how much life’s been squeezed out of you, there’s always a little more left to give.