It’s been a year, y’all.
Almost exactly twelve months ago I discovered my websites were corrupted by some lines of text that didn’t belong. I messed around with my web host trying to get it fixed, and they sent me to my security company, and I paid them to do a deep clean, which they said would fix the problem. It didn’t.
Ok, I deleted the paragraph I wrote that detailed the conversations I had with the web host… Suffice to say, I had a few, they all lasted at least an hour, and yet nothing was fixed. It wasn’t the only challenge I was facing, and I finally couldn’t deal with it anymore and gave up. I knew I might have lost everything on both of my sites, and I didn’t care. It was clear there were other places to focus my energy on.
I stopped writing online, stopped writing for clients, and focused my energies on family who needed me, home stuff that needed me, and tried to listen more.
The calendar turned over, and we saw some relief in the constant barrage of challenges that came at us in 2018. But I think the culmination (for me) of the lightening of the load was a trip to Portland for the AWP writing conference last month. It was my first writing conference, and I only went because I was able to stay with my sister and save the cost of lodging. In fact, she works at the convention center where the conference was held, so I didn’t even have to worry about transportation. Win-win!
The three days of sessions were inspiring, informative, and eye-opening. I learned things I didn’t know, I had suspicions confirmed, met one of my favorite authors randomly on a stroll through the book fair, and – most importantly – came home with a fire lit to get more words written and to embrace the fact that I’m a writer and PROVE it.
Finally, at the end of that week, my sister and brother-in-law and I spent several hours climbing all over a beautiful part of the Columbia River Gorge, and I felt GREAT. The heart issues that I was blindsided with in January of 2018 have been addressed, I am feeling good when I exercise, and I’m ready to get in even better shape than I am now (which is better than I was then).
If you’re still reading, thanks! I really don’t know what the purpose of this post is except to say I’M BACK. And to kind of put a marker on the timeline. I have some ideas about a newsletter I want to create, I’m writing little poems every other day, and I’ve downloaded all the connections I made at the conference into a spreadsheet to keep my writing submissions organized. There’s a lot going on, but I feel so much more focused, I’m ready to see what the rest of the year brings. Thanks for following along.
Photo credit: the author communing with nature, taken by my sister, at Coyote Wall, Washington
