Sheehan Consciousness and Soul “Stuck in Neutral”
My poem Sheehan told my story — SIN tells Shawn’s
Every time a follower of mine reads and reacts to my pinned story Sheehan, I am reminded of who I am as a writer and a human being. And why I’m doing this thing we do.
No single event or experience can represent all of ourselves. We are a blend of loving, good qualities and selfish bad ones. I am the worst of men and the best, the kindest and most generous and the most cruel and evil.
As writers and poets I think our most important task, a lifelong learning responsibility, is to look at ourselves and our lives and try to always put love at the center of our purpose, our understanding, and our growth and learning, using our words to advance this purpose.
Reading my Sheehan poem will burn part of you up. It will scar you and it was meant to do so. Sheehan I - by Terry Trueman - Trueman & Triola Newsletter
This June, 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the hardbound publication of Stuck in Neutral. After a lifetime of wanting to “make it” as a writer, and more than a decade of trying to figure out how to write about the problems and challenges I dealt with from my son Sheehan’s birth, the story finally was completed.
The book changed not just my world but the world at large; no one who reads and understands Stuck in Neutral can ever look at a person being pushed along in a wheelchair, seemingly detached from reality, the same way again. This is not a hopeful wish on my part, it is something I have heard from readers of all ages for this last quarter of a century. Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman | Goodreads
Reading Stuck in Neutral asks you to consider more fully what a human life means, yours and mine and everyone else’s. These two works tell a reader everything that matters about our work, our lives and, hopefully about the human capacity to survive loss and replace despair with love and hope. Not a bad way to spend one’s life . . . not bad at all.
We each have a story to tell and a reason for being alive; the trick is to find both these things and spend your consciousness and energy showing your progress on this journey to your soul.
Great work if you can let yourself work it.
