2024 has been the hardest year of my life… and that’s saying a lot.
My husband didn’t just break, he shattered his leg, leaving me caring for him in home while he was entirely immobile and at the same time scrambling to pick up the pieces at the family business we both work at since he obviously couldn’t work and deadlines don’t wait.
Our wolfdog developed a spleen cancer bleed, and we were devastated by being forced to end his suffering. There was no possible future where they could fix it. We have dog health insurance, money was not the issue. Then, because he was in a cancer vaccine trial, I had to drive him to Madison for his necropsy. Thankfully my brother stepped in and did the actual driving because I couldn’t see my eyes were so swollen. Handing his body over was so, so very hard and my husband couldn’t even be there.
And now my mom, my biggest fan and supporter in my writing, is in hospice. I’m thankful I have this time with her, to say goodbye and make sure her wishes are carried out, but it’s tearing me apart. Thankfully, we can care for her in the home – the office is upstairs, and we can take turns while we work caring for her, but most of the load is on my dad.
And you know what? It’s really hard to go back and forth from facing her death and putting on a happy face for her to someone yelling at me over the phone because their property taxes went up.
I’m carving out little bits of time for edits. Captured Pawn is written, and it’s rough. I struggled through writing the draft with my world imploding, and it shows. But it’s fixable, and I think it will be a fun book once I get the edits done. Content edits are in, and I’m sorting them to make a checklist of what needs to be done in each scene. Then I’ll have line edits, proof reading, and finally formatting before I’ll be able to hit Publish.
To the kind person who reached out to make sure Captured Pawn is still coming… it is. And thank you, because you reminded me that there are readers that care about my books, and I needed that so much.
To the friends and family who got silence and messages left on read… I’m sorry. My world is on fire right now, and I just don’t have it in me to be social.
So, here’s to 2025. I tell myself this will get easier, but I suspect we haven’t hit the hardest part yet.
