2013 or the rest of my life.

For reasons I can't really describe or defend, it's 2013 in my head.

I realized this when I stumbled onto Andrew Belle's album "Black Bear." It sounded new and perfect.

And, I remembered that sometime in the near past, I had listened to this album on YouTube on repeat for a while.

When did this album come out? I wondered.

So I went to look.

2013 -- before the country split apart in factions, before Covid-19, before spine surgeries and injections and long hospital stays and endless PT and more spine surgeries leading to more injections, PT, failing to recover, walnut sizes cysts impinging on nerves, and long hospital stays, before Hachette made a deal with Amazon, before...

In 2013, we bought a hybrid car. The husband found and bought four leaded windows salvaged from a house in Detroit. I worked with this lunatic to put them into the house. I had friends that I laughed with at over starchy breakfasts every other week. I went out to coffee houses, bought advertisements for the books, and participated in the insanity that is our neighborhood association. I started a dinner club where we added one couple with each meal and went from house to house.

I went to PT to try to get stronger. I returned to swimming again. Our dog, Rose, was old but still joyously living her best life. My sisters were mad at me but had been going on for more than a decade. I wrote a lot of books and could hardly wait to write more. I was involved in this crazy writing project.

I also wrote regularly on this blog.

Everything seemed possible in 2013.

Until it wasn't.

Seven years, three spine fusions, nearly a decade of PT, the death of Rose and introduction of our feral Plott hounds (Cassie and Dottie), my mother's death and the end to any primary family relationship, the friends scattered in a humiliating burst when surgery was imminent leaving only the oldest and dearest beloved friends, my profit margins dropped to a laughable state, I struggle to write due to crazy meds I have to take to keep the nerve pain down, our vegetable gardens were stripped away to make space for upgrading the sewer and electrical to support two people working full-time in this old house, and....

I am not saying that NOTHING is possible.

I just no longer believe that EVERYTHING is possible.

I don't know what's next for me, honestly.

Will I let it all go and find something else to do with the remainder of my life?

Will I just get on with writing, editing, marketing, selling books, laughing lunches, and the rest?

At this moment, in April 2021, I have no idea.

I hope to survive the Covid years. With one Moderna shot down, one to go, survival seems likely.

I hope to add movement to my life.

Currently, I cannot walk or stand for very long. I dream of being able to go to Costco or Target, on a lark, and walk around. Hiking and backpacking, let alone the 150 miles we walked of the Colorado Trail, seem like a long forgotten dream.

We do short, doable yoga programs every morning, and I'm swimming, some.

I need to get moving on writing projects -- Ava and Seth mystery novellas, another Alex the Fey thrillers, Abee Normal, and, of course, the Denver Cereal.

For now, I stand on the edge of what might be THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Everything is not possible. Nothing is impossible.

This necessarily means that some things are possible.

I just have no idea what. I hope to write about all of this here. After years of promising to blog again, and not showing up, I won't promise to be here.

I just hope that I will and together we will move.

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