Pat Bertram's Blog, page 8

Dry January

I had to laugh at the blog prompt WordPress left for me today: What could you do differently? Sheesh, that’s not much of a focused topic. Anyone could do anything differently. I think a more important question is: do you want to do anything differently? Or perhaps: how could you do something differently? Or even: if you want to do something differently, would it change anything?

At the moment, I am doing something differently, at least differently than I did last year. I’m doing a “Dry January.” A relative does this — she enjoys drinking, especially wine, and so she uses January as a time to reset her body. I hardly ever drink — in fact, I’ve gone decades without a single sip of alcohol — so my Dry January is about getting me off the sugar kick. I don’t know why it’s been so hard the past several months — I’ve gone for years without indulging in sugary treats. I have a hunch it’s more that I don’t care, at least not all the time. I go from wanting to do the best for my health to indulging my every whim no matter how unhealthy. Unfortunately, I am not one of those who can take a few bites of something — a cake for example — and stick the rest in the freezer for a later time. Nope. If it’s in the house, it’s fair game. (I know for a fact that frozen cake is almost as good as unfrozen cake!)

Surprisingly, so far, I haven’t had a problem with my Dry January. It helps that I stopped beating myself up over my lapses, being kind to myself and accepting of whatever I do. It’s not as if I commit crimes (alas, not even fictional ones lately), so the things I do that I don’t like are minor infractions of health parameters more than anything else. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of trouble a person can get into while reading, and I read most of the time.

Not giving in to sugar cravings does change things. For one thing, it gets rid of the cravings. For another, I have a little more energy. Since this has been a dry January weatherwise so far, the streets are finally clear, so yesterday I went for a walk. Admittedly, a mile-and-a-half walk is rather paltry compared to what I used to do, but it’s a heck of lot more than I have been doing lately. What surprised me more than anything is that I actually walked. Not trudged. Not plodded. Not dragged. Walked! Upright, moderately fast, with not a twinge in my knees. That sure felt good!

There are many other things I could do differently. Although I tend to be a person of habit, habits come and go. I ended up with a Magic Bullet my sister wanted to get rid of, and I might actually use it. I do have a blender that I never use, but this small blender might be fun. And it would be good to be able to add a few new flavors to my life. I’ve never been interested in things like smoothies, but they might be nice for a change. Also, I’m considering trying different things that can be made quickly with the Bullet, like carrot ginger soup or broccoli soup.

Or not. It might be too big a difference. Still, you never know. As I said at the beginning of this blog, anyone can do anything differently, even me.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Verbosity

I hardly ever read a whole book anymore. Too many authors use too many point-of-view characters, which to me is sort of a cheat. I know it’s supposed to ramp up the suspense when the reader knows that the antagonist is doing but protagonist doesn’t. Knowing that doesn’t help since it works the opposite for me. It takes me out of the story and makes me forget why I am supposed to care about the hero. So what do I do? Follow along with the protagonist and skip the villain’s story. That way I don’t have to get in the mind of reprehensible characters, and I get to read a one-person story. In all the hundreds of books I’ve read this way, I think there might have been a single book where I had to go back and look for a point that I missed; in all other cases, I understood the entire story. Which means that most authors write a huge amount of redundancy.

I think the book I just finished was the worst — there were a couple of villains each with their own point of view, a couple of heroes each with their own point of view, and a couple undetermined characters. (One started out a villain and turned out to be a hero; the other started out a hero and turned out to be a villain.) After I got tired of the whiplash from changing points of view every couple of pages (short chapters!), I finally gave up and only read the series character’s point of view. (After all, that’s why I picked up the book — I wanted the series character’s story.) That made it a very short book, but way more interesting than all the flopping around. (The only good thing was that he flipped back to the past just a couple of times. Even more annoying that authors who switch frenetically between multiple POV are authors who keep taking the reader to earlier happenings when a sentence or two of flash back would have been sufficient. I don’t read those previous-time parts of books, either.)

As a novelist, if I can still call myself that after my long hiatus of not writing, I prefer writing from a single straightforward timeline and a single point of view, though I have written a couple of books from multiple points of views. In A Spark of Heavenly Fire, for example, I thought the story of the epidemic (which was the true antagonist of the book) needed to be seen through more than one pair of eyes. After having lived through The Bob, I’m sure you can understand that — everyone has had a different experience with the disease, from getting no vaccines and not getting ill to getting jabbed multiple times and getting sick multiple times despite the vaccine; from no problems to the worst problem of all — death; from “sheltering in place” with a house full of people to having to spend months at home alone with no one to talk to. If I told the story of The Bob from my point of view, nothing would ever happen. If I told the story from the point of view of people who are still fighting problems years after getting sick, that would be a completely different story. As would the tale told from the point of view of a doctor, nurse, hospital official, or politician.

As in the case of A Spark of Heavenly Fire, sometimes a story has so many sides it needs to be told by many characters, but there are very few such stories. Most of the horde of multiple point-of-view characters is simply author style and adds very little to the story.

Unfortunately, my reducing the length of any book I read to a single point-of-view character means that I go through more than one book a day. Which means more trips to the library. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that’s so unfortunate. It gives me a chance to sample the weather in all its variety, and gives me a chance to wander around the library and even speak a few words to a real person.

I suppose I should feel bad for reducing the author’s efforts to something akin to a novella or a pamphlet, but then, they should feel bad for subjecting me to their verbosity.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Wolf Moon

The full moon we experienced on Friday is called the Wolf Moon because traditionally wolves howl at the moon at this time of year. As romantic as that sounds, the supposed reason for the howling is rather sad — they howl at the moon because they are hungry. Actually, they howl at other full moons, too, though perhaps they are not actually howling at any moon. They are crepuscular creatures, meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk, and the Wolf Moon in January (at least it did this January) rises in the dusk. The howl is a social cry to rally other wolves to hunt; it’s also a territorial call. Because raising their heads makes the sound travel further, it makes it seem as if they are howling at the moon.

Whatever the truth of wolves and the moon, this full moon was supposed to be a powerful one. According to astrologists and spiritualists, the wolf moon is an emotionally charged one, signaling a time of change and introspection, a time to face our fears and trust our instincts, a time to use our inner strength and wisdom. It’s also a time to connect with the earth.

Whether the Wolf Moon means anything beyond its astronomic meaning — that it’s a micromoon, appearing smaller than a normal full moon because it takes place at the moon’s furthest point from the earth (252,146 miles away) — I decided to take action as a sign of female empowerment. So, as I walked home under the bright light of the moon, I howled.

Why howling at the full moon is supposed to be an empowering thing for women to do, I have no idea. I certainly didn’t feel any different yesterday or today. What was different is that as I walked home Friday evening, I was accompanied all the way by the howling of dogs. Apparently, I did make some sort of connection, with those dogs if not the earth.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

I Coulda Been a Contender

I was cleaning off my desk yesterday when I found notes for a blog post, including the famous line from On the Waterfront, “I coulda been a contender”. At first, I couldn’t figure out what I’d planned to say about that famous line, but eventually I remembered the circumstances and what I’d been thinking. Nothing inspiring, that’s for sure. In fact, the complete opposite.

For the past year or so, almost every night as I get ready for bed, I get hit with a sudden pang of loneliness. On one particular night, along with the loneliness came the feeling that I was wasting my life, that I wasn’t living up to my potential, and the words “I could have been a contender” kept playing in my head.

And then I had an even worse thought — what if I am living up to my potential? What if this is all there is to me? It made me wonder which was worse, knowing you could have been a contender, could have been someone if things had been different or knowing you never could have been a contender, that it simply wasn’t in you.

I really do tend to believe that we all do the best we can at any given moment, and if we feel as if we are slacking, then perhaps there are other factors at work besides a disinclination to do what we think we should be doing. I’ve often thought I was lazy, even back when I was a child. I remember being sick once, and not wanting to go to school. I was out for a long time because I kept “playing hooky.” I stayed in bed and read, and was quite content. I don’t know what made me finally agree to go back to school; the only other part of that episode I remember was that I didn’t get a report card because I’d been out of school for so long. Years later, I mentioned this to my mother. She looked at me in astonishment and said, “You weren’t faking. You really were sick.” I don’t know what I had — maybe a cold. When I get sick, even with something minor, it tends to linger for weeks or even months, which is why I try to stay away from potential risks.

In a way, what I was feeling a couple of weeks ago is similar. Obviously, if I really had been sick when I was a kid, I couldn’t have gone to school even if I wanted to. And now, at my age and with my knees, there are a lot of things I couldn’t do even if I wanted to, like hiking great distances (or even short distances on treacherous ground). Even more unfortunately, I never could find a way to become a bestselling writer — I am not a salesperson, and despite my best attempts, I have never been successful at selling my books.

Looking back a few weeks to when I was feeling bad about being — or not being — a contender, I now realize it was in the middle of December during the bleak time of frigid temperatures and little sun. Because I didn’t really feel depressed (despite the depressing thoughts), it never occurred to me that I was having my usual winter bout of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Luckily for my peace of mind, the feeling of wasting my life passed. Oh, it’s possible I really am not making full use of my life, but the sun is out, and we are back to our usual winter temperatures (highs in the forties, lows in the high teens and twenties), so it no longer seems to matter.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Body Farm

I’m reading a book about the body farm. In the first paragraph the name of the place was capitalized — Body Farm — and I wondered who Body was. In my mind, I pronounced it Bodie rather than Boddy, which mistake I immediately had to laugh at. I mean, I knew the book took place on the Body Farm. I knew it was a mystery written by the fellow who founded the Body Farm, and yet, there I sat, momentarily mystified by the identity of Body and wondering what we were doing at his farm.

I’d heard of the Body Farm before, probably the same way most people did — from a book of that name by Patricia Cornwell, back when I thought she was an okay writer. For some reason, I had the idea that the Body Farm was owned by the FBI since they use it for training exercises, so it came as rather a surprise that the FBI doesn’t have their own body farm but use existing ones.

The first body farm was created for the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Center in 1981 by Dr. William Bass. Apparently, after a janitor cussed him out for storing a dead body in the restroom, he went to the dean to find a better place to keep the corpses he was studying. He calls the field (behind the football field, of all places) where the bodies were left to decompose “Death’s Acre,” but “The Body Farm” is how it is generally known. The FBI has been training there for 24 years as part of their Recovery of Human Remains course. There are now seven such “Bodie” farms in the United States, but Bass’s was the first.

The place is intriguing to read about, but even if I wanted to see the place, I couldn’t — they don’t do tours because if all the people who wanted to see the place were allowed in, researchers would never get any work done. Also, I’m sure, having sightseers tramp through the place would affect what they are trying to accomplish — studying how the human body decomposes under various conditions, which helps with identifying bodies as well as learning the time and manner of the death. Anyway, even if I could handle the gruesome sights, I probably couldn’t handle the smell. Over 400 different compounds are given off by a decaying body. Interestingly, the bodies of people who die during or shortly after chemotherapy decay a lot slower than normal, which leads to the question of whether chemotherapy is a sort of live embalming process.

This is all very macabre, I know, but it started with a mental mispronunciation. And speaking of macabre — like most people who read a lot, I had (have) a huge vocabulary. I remember once a father of the kids I had just babysat was driving me home, and I mentioned that something was “mackaber.” He laughed and laughed, which embarrassed the heck out of me. How was I supposed to know how the word was pronounced? And anyway, if linguists can’t even agree on pronunciation — some say it’s “mikaab,” others “mikabruh” — why is “mackaber” so outrageous?

I particularly remember the macabre debacle because that was the last time I ever spoke out loud a word that wasn’t in the common parlance. Now, apparently, I can’t speak common words in my own mind without recurring laughter, even if it’s my own.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Through an Author’s Eye

In yesterday’s post, “Body Image vs. Self-Image,” I touched on some of the difficulties in describing characters realistically. For example, if you are writing about ordinary characters and mention that they are overweight and out of shape, you’ve already lost your audience. Even in non-romance genres, such as thrillers and suspense, readers want the fairy tale of beautiful heroine/princesses finding their hero/prince.

To that end, writers are limited in how they describe a character. Characteristics that in the real world have no meaning but are merely the luck of the genetic draw, become destiny in fiction. For example, a weak chin denotes a wimpy character, though in actual fact, it means nothing of the sort. Thin lips, while common in the real world and say nothing about the person, seem to denote a strait-laced character who looks at the world with disapproval. A receding hairline, which means nothing in real life except perhaps an excess of testosterone, makes a male character seem less than manly. Likewise, thin hair on women characters makes them seem ungenerous, though luxurious locks certainly don’t indicate generosity.

Eye spacing is also part of the genetic crap shoot, though wide-spaced eyes are used to show innocence and narrow-spaced eyes to show deviousness.

A character past their youth can have laugh lines, which makes them seem pleasant. But crow’s feet or marionette lines seem to indicate not someone who is simply getting older, but someone who is not taking care of themselves as they are getting older.

I’ve learned to stay away from describing characters other than perhaps mentioning eye-color, hair-color, and a ready smile, and leave the judgement to another character. Although a character — like a real person — might not be all that attractive, they can be beautiful when seen through the eyes of love. Evil characters who might be considered attractive under other circumstances could be seen as ugly from the point of view of the character who is caught in their clutches.

It’s not just body parts that hint perhaps erroneously at character that has turned me away from giving more than cursory descriptions of my characters (more than three attributes is unnecessary in any case) it’s that too many authors who write that their character is beautiful then go on to describe facial characteristics that other people obviously find attractive, but that I don’t, such as pillowy lips, high cheekbones, and a narrow nose. In fact, because of this, I never read descriptions of characters any more — or settings, either for that matter.

It’s a good thing that in real life we have photographs that might tell the truth of how we look (I say “might” because as far as I know, no one’s driver’s license photo looks like them). If we had to describe our thin hair, thin lips, lumpy bodies, to people who have not yet seen us, no one would ever want to meet anyone.

Thinking about this and how we become fast friends with people who would never physically meet the standards of a literary protagonist, it makes me wonder if in real life we ever do see the physical person or if the body is sort of a mirage pasted over the truth of the person, as if we are seeing each other through the mind’s eye. If so, how lucky we are to see each other that way rather than through an author’s eye.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Body Image vs. Self-Image

In a book I recently read, a woman who’d recovered from anorexia but was slipping back due to stress, reminded herself that body image is not the same thing as self-image. That really made me stop and think because too often our self-image is reflected by our body image. For example, even though I am fairly realistic, seeing my body as it actually is, I don’t always like the way I look. I try to minimize my flaws, of course, but with mirrored closet doors in my bedroom, it’s hard not to see the unclothed truth. And, even though I generally accept myself for what and who I am, there are times when I can’t help but be influenced negatively by that mirror image of myself.

As a culture, we seem to think that beautiful, thin, fit folks have more worth than those of us who are rather ordinary and out of shape. Although people don’t treat me badly because of my looks (perhaps because the hat amuses them and my smile delights them), I can’t help but feel as if I’m not worthy of all the good things in life. Well, that’s not exactly true. I am worthy. It’s just . . . well, it’s hard to overcome that conditioning.

To be honest, I don’t want to fall in love again — I really am fine as I am — but it does bother me that deep down I think that I am not romantic material. Perhaps it’s due to my reading. In almost all books, whether thriller, horror, mystery, romance, suspense, the heroine — no matter what her age — is beautiful, tall, intelligent, feisty, fit, and attracts the well-muscled handsome hero.

Even if a writer wanted to have an out-of-shape, unattractive heroine, there’s really no way to present the character in a good light. All the adjectives to describe someone of oh . . . I don’t know, perhaps someone of my body shape, are rather unpleasant. Even “pleasingly plump” despite the “pleasingly” part, is rather negative especially since so many of us not-thin folks are not pleasingly plump — unpleasingly lumpy is more like it.

Stout, chunky, hefty, overweight, heavy, obese, chubby, dumpy, rotund, flabby, paunchy, stolid, pudgy, corpulent — these are not words that bring “heroine” to mind. Nor are they words that lend themselves to a love affair, even though most people do not fit the ideal portrayed in books or movies. One of the most disappointing movies to me was “Shallow Hal.” Jack Black was supposedly hypnotized into seeing the inner beauty of a 300-pound woman. Except he didn’t see the inner beauty — he saw her as a thin person which just exacerbated the whole “the only worthy woman is a thin beautiful woman” mystique. Or worse, that “inside every fat person is a thin person struggling to get out.” The movie would have been so much more satisfying if he actually saw the fatness but could see beyond that to the inner person.

It’s amazing to me that anyone of any body shape manages to develop a good self-image despite the current body image situation. Everything we see and hear corroborates that social norm of beauty as all important, so not-so-beautiful people tend to be at a disadvantage. It’s hard not to live down to that body image. As for those with the socially acceptable image, I imagine it’s hard to live up to it. Truthfully, I don’t have much sympathy for tall, beautiful woman because no matter what their self-image, all sorts of good things accrue to them because of how they look. (Of any two job candidates, the winner is generally the taller and prettier.) But still, I do concede that social conditioning is a hard thing to break out of.

No wonder I was so taken with the comment that body image is not the same thing as self-image. It’s an important point to keep in mind as we — no matter our size or age or level of attractiveness — navigate the pitfalls of life.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Snow Globe Weather

As I was walking home from work yesterday evening, I felt as if I were in a snow globe. Huge snowflakes fell, and the darkening twilight softened the usually harsh-looking street. It wasn’t really all that cold, which made the walk even more pleasant. We didn’t much snow, nowhere near the three inches they predicted (after they predicted no snow, then light snow, then no snow, then one to three inches). Shortly after the snow fell, the temperature must have dropped quickly because the snow froze and turned my footprints to ice. When I tried to sweep the snow off my ramp this morning, all I could remove was the top layer — the rest was solid ice. Needless to say, I’m not going anywhere until the ice melts.

I’m pleased that before this storm hit, I got some wildflower seeds planted, though I’m not sure if they actually are in the ground. The snows from early December finally melted — except where I wanted to plant the seeds, that is. Oddly, although the north side of the house doesn’t get sun in the winter, it gets too much sun in the summer, which is why the strip of grass died in that area. Fifteen hours of unrelenting summer sun is too much for many plants, which is why I want desert plants in the garden area on the north side.

Since the snow hadn’t melted, I raked it off the garden as best as I could — the snow had hung around so long, it had turned hard and icy, and didn’t want to go anywhere. Still, I got the area cleared as much as I could, tossed my seeds on the ground, and scraped the snow back over the seeds. If none of these come up, I have plenty more to plant closer to spring, but I’m glad about getting some seeds safely under the snow.

Considering how early severe winter weather came this year (last year, winter weather didn’t show up until winter actually came — most of December is fall, after all), it’s possible that we’ll also have an early spring. It’s just as possible, of course, that winter weather will continue way into spring. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. Around here, we can’t really plant anything until after May fifth since that’s supposedly the date of the last frost. (I say supposedly because there have been freezes after that day.)

Regardless of what happens, it’s good to know that one more chore — planting the wildflower seeds — is off my mind.

And yay! The sun just came out so perhaps I can go for a walk later after all. It will be good to stretch my legs, and besides, I’m due for some new library books.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

What Big Events Took Place in Your Life During the Past Year?

When I stopped blogging every day, WordPress started sending me daily blog topics. It must have been a glitch since I didn’t sign up for them, and the prompts eventually stopped, but while it lasted, I found some of the ideas interesting, such as the question in the title: what big events took place in your life during in the past year?

I made note of this topic to use at some point, and apparently, this is the point, though to be honest, I can’t think of five events that have taken place over the past year let alone big events. Probably the most noteworthy thing that happened in that it devastated upset me was the death of swaths of my lawn as well as the invasion of Bermuda grass. Eventually, I will dig up the dead and unwanted grass and replant it, but all that brown is so unpretty! I’m learning that the yard will never be beautiful for long stretches of time because it is a living thing in constant flux, so it’s important for me to enjoy the beauty when I can. That lesson is not an event, of course, but is an important one that I hope to take to heart this spring and summer as various plants grow, fade away, and die.

Stopping my daily blogging is not exactly an event either since it’s something I didn’t do rather than what I did do, but it was a big deal — for three years I blogged every day, and then I didn’t.

My sisters came to visit, and that truly was a big event! (This should have been the first thing I remembered, since it really was the most noteworthy, and I am a bit embarrassed that my grass and blogging came to mind first. Luckily, my sisters don’t read this blog so they won’t know where their visit was relegated in memory!) All the big events of the year came during that visit — visiting Vogel Canyon, finally getting to see a tarantula, visiting Bent’s Fort, and various other activities.

It’s surprising to me that a year that went by so quickly is so hard to remember. It could be that in living for the day, I’m not storing the things that happened. It might be that since I gave up daily blogging and so didn’t write about everything, that events didn’t stick in my memory. Or it’s possible that memory retrieval is breaking down due to age. Whatever the reason, it was a year of big events and small, memorable and not. And I grew a year older.

At my age, that final point truly is a big event. During 2022, so many people did not have the opportunity to grow a year older (approximately 67 million), that I am blessed to have the opportunity to continue aging.

What about you? What were the big events of your life last year?

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Cheers

I’ve never really celebrated New Year’s because it doesn’t mean that much to me and it’s a relatively arbitrary date. The calendar numbers change, but that’s all. It’s certainly not a universal new beginning. The Chinese New Year this year is on January 22, the Jewish New Year is on September 15, the Tibetan New Year begins on February 21. Various other cultures celebrate their new year on completely different dates.

January 1 is not even the beginning of a new season or of a solar cycle such as a solstice or an equinox. Nor is there any personal demarcation — no black line separates the old from the new. The world is no different today from yesterday, nor are we. We carry the old year with us because we have the same problems, sadnesses, hopes, fears.

Despite all that, last night when the fireworks awakened me at midnight, I felt relieved that the old year was done with and a new year was beginning.

Oddly, 2022 wasn’t that bad. In fact, a lot of it was good, though there were no major milestones to celebrate or times of especial gladness. Still, at midnight, there was that catharsis of letting go of the old.

Perhaps it would have been the same as every other year — just a mild annoyance at being awakened by the fireworks — but yesterday was rather unsettling. I’d accepted an invitation to spend the afternoon with some friends, but somehow the guest list changed to be more of an extended family gathering (their family, not mine), and no one told me. I didn’t feel comfortable — too many people in too confined a space, too many people I had nothing in common with, and too many more chances of catching one of the diseases going around. If I had known about the change ahead of time, I could have graciously made my excuses, but I didn’t find out until I was there. Since it would have been rude for me to turn around and leave, I stayed.

Some of it was nice, some not so nice, and the rest, just . . . ho hum.

In retrospect, it seems a fitting end to yesteryear. Some of the year was nice — I truly did enjoy seeing things grow, but the work did get hard to do, especially with my wonky knees. I also feel bad about my spate of compassion fatigue — it didn’t seem right to just drop people and stop my daily blogging because I couldn’t handle any more grief, mine or anyone else’s, but I didn’t see any other recourse. The rest of the year was unmemorable. To be honest, now that I’m looking back, I don’t know if it was truly unmemorable or if I simply didn’t remember a lot of what happened. (Though perhaps that’s the same thing? Anything memorable that happened would probably have been remembered, right?)

I don’t know what I expect of this year, but I am going into it with the attitude that it is new. A time not to start over so much as to start fresh. Today, when the year has just begun it seems sparkling with promise, as if anything could happen. I’m trying not to let the gray day or my normal realism dim the promise. And who knows — it could be a very good year, not just for me, but for you, too.

Cheers!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.