I haven't written a blog post since early March. 

I haven't written much of anything since early March.

My life has been pretty much on hold since I had a SECOND fall (this time on black ice) and a SECOND fracture (this time a "proximal fracture of the right humerus" - terminology I had never heard of until this unfortunate event) on March 21, almost three months to the day after tripping over an exuberant grandchild and breaking my left elbow. Luckily, I could just switch the cast on my Vermont Teddy Bear from one arm to another.

For what seemed like forever, I couldn't write with a pen (my favorite activity on this earth) or type (my second favorite activity on this earth) or dress myself or use a can opener or scoop out hard-frozen ice cream or drive or . . . or . . . or . . . anything at all, really.

Long famed for cheery resilience in the face of trauma and tragedy, I have to confess I just gave up. I moped. I whimpered, whined, and wailed. I sulked, sniffled, and sobbed. 

I still loved my sweetheart, and he still loved me, but he now had excruciating and incapacitating sciatica pain. At least we had complementary disabilities and could offer compensatory services, he with two functional arms, me with ease in bending and stooping. But it wasn't exactly a season of great joy. Nor did having to shovel the 34 steps into our house after a series of spring snowstorms (one dumped twenty inches of heavy, wet, white stuff) appreciably increase our daily quotient of rapture. 

I published a book but wished it had gotten more effusive reviews. I abandoned the plans I had made (which I probably wouldn't have carried out anyway) to figure out how to promote it on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Why bother? What bother about anything?

Bowing to age and infirmity, my sweetheart and I decided it was time to leave our little lovers' paradise in the mountains for the ease of living in town, and we managed to find a sweet hundred-year-old cottage to which we will be moving next week. It's the right thing to do, but oh, it's hard to leave this place we have loved so much. Will we ever be that happy anywhere else? Will we ever be that happy ever again?

The first half of 2024 has been HARD!!!

But today is the first day of the month. For decades I had the practice of starting a new life on the first day of each month. And it's also the first day of the second half of this challenging year. So it's time to start an EXTRA-new new life, right? A complete restart? A chance to salvage 2024? A chance to salvage everything?

Wish me luck!