Starting Over… Again

I have been missing in action and I do apologize. When I first retired in February 2020, I thought I would have so much time to write and do the things I love. Then the pandemic hit. I felt like I lived in fear for the next two years. My motivation to do much of anything dwindled to nothing. I can’t say I was depressed, not medically because I never sought help for it. I figured I wasn’t the only person moving around in a fog.

I can’t honestly describe all the feelings I felt at that time. Anxiety, worry, fear were probably the big ones. But I feel confident that if we are not at the end of that crisis, we are very near the end. I feel much better about life, more hopeful.

It wasn’t just the pandemic but the results of it that made life difficult. I lost a lot of friends during those two years. I am not sure why they died because most of the time, I found out afterwards and didn’t have anyone I felt comfortable with to call and find out the details.

My most difficult loss was my best friend Susan. Her death was not Covid related but I do blame Covid for her situation. She had a heart condition and needed a valve replaced. Because of Covid, she had to wait to have the procedure done. That is the part I blame on Covid. If we had not been dealing with Covid, I believe she would not have had to wait so long. She did not survive the surgery.

Susan and I were like Lucy and Ethel. We attended writer’s groups, retreats, workshops, and we met for lunch and chats either at Barnes and Noble or my patio when weather allowed. Susan was also my casino buddy. We would meet at either the casino near me, or the one near her and have lunch together and tried our luck at the slots. We used to joke about building up our arm muscles so we could carry out the bags of money we hoped to win. Susan was a more quiet, reserved person, until you got to know her. She could come up with stuff out of the blue and I would look at her like, “Did you really say that?” and then we would burst out laughing. She has been gone for a little over a year now and I still miss her. She was the only friend I felt comfortable enough with to call on a daily basis.

This year I have taken a deep dive back into writing and reading. I attend a couple of writer’s groups. I have attended those continuously, virtually for a couple of years, now again in person. One is a new critique group and they have helped motivate me to begin writing again. Their encouragement doesn’t actually make me run to my office and laptop everyday but it does make me sit down a few times a week and work on my current project.

I decided this evening to go back to my abandoned blog and maybe re-connect with some old friends on here. So I hope to post on a regular schedule. For now book reviews and maybe a chat or two, mostly writing related. I will share information about author events in the future as I become aware of them.

I hope you don’t think too badly of me for not blogging. I had to wait until my heart was actually in it again. I am hoping this is the time. Please comment to let me know you read this and if there is anything you would like to chat about in the future.

Hopefully you will welcome me back. I look forward to hearing from you. Are you writing and reading? If so, tell me about it.

Until next time,

Virginia