2010: In Summary, Part The Second

In terms of suckage, 2010 goes right up there with the meanest of them on a personal level for me. Just when I thought things were clearing, another storm appeared on the horizon. And it was Katrina-sized.

After the lull of June, I was coddled in a safe sense of tedium. July came pleasantly enough, if a bit too humid for my tastes (what you gonna do, though? This is the Ohio River Valley). My mother and one of my sisters made their first trips out of the States to visit my sister Amy in Japan, I got a nice visit from a friend from down south, and I FINALLY managed to get my passport renewed at great expense. Hopefully I'll use it someday.

But July also brought sadness. Remington, my beautiful mastiff puppy (all 200 pounds of him) with the golden hair, had to be given up after I woke up one morning and found him standing outside the window with a chicken in his mouth from next door. The loss of Remmy didn't seem to affect Alex too much. I think she was happy to have all the attention returned to her, but I miss that big goofy dog. He's in a good home, though, and probably as energetic and troublesome as ever.

August (and everything after) was a mess. There was some good. My best friends Maxie and Miranda moved back to town, Patrick Fillion's IlLUSTrations (which I wrote the foreword for) was released, and I finished Another Enchanted April. But it was also a month heavily weighed down by my brother Brent's TWO brain surgeries and my own money problems.

Then there's September...

I left for Florida the first of the month. It was the first really big trip I had taken in years. I was very excited to be getting away. My friend Keith had invited me and I met many new friends while there. A day or so before I was to return home I started feeling odd. Sickish. By the time I got home I definitely had a cold, but I thought that was all it was. I went through my emails. The most important one was a mass letter from YOM saying they had closed shop and telling everyone they were no longer publishing. I was a bit relieved by this actually, so it's not a bad thing.

And then I collapsed in the bathroom.

At King's Daughter's Hospital in Madison I was told I was very close to dying. I found out later I had a strain of pneumonia very similar to that which had killed Britney Murphy and her husband. They needed to shove a tube down my throat to keep me breathing and paralyzed me temporarily to do it. THAT was one of the most frightening experiences ever. I have new empathy for any paralysis patient. To be locked in like that is nothing short of absolute terror.

I spent three weeks in a hospital in Cincinnati before I was transferred to a hospice place in Hanover for a week. Apparently, it was touch and go for the first week or so. I didn't know, though, because I was so heavily drugged. In my head I was being taken all over the world in my hospital bed. I went to China, I was on a pirate ship, in a Star Wars space freighter, and in a grand Victorian home, to name a few. I even thought I died once. Mom was in the room with me and I saw her wearing Victorian garb, as was the nurse, Lily. It all seemed real to me, and maybe it was. Everything around us is atoms and particles anyway. Maybe my head just shook it all up and let the pieces fall. All I do know is, it was sad and I'd never been so alone in my life. There was no god. There was no boyfriend to hold my hand. There was me in a bed, being flung here and there at random and not being able to move. I go to bed thinking abot it every night. I can't help but to. I'll use it for my writing someday, I suppose.

The thing that sticks with me most about the experience: Where were my friends? Only three friends (Maxie, Miranda, and Jeremy) came to see me the entire four weeks I was ill. I'm not talking about the friends who live states away. I wouldn't have expected them to drop their lives and get on a plane. I'm talking about the ones who live within a few miles of the hospital. That irks me still. It causes me to question, and maybe this is not the forum for that.

I got home October 4th. I started breathing therapy immediately and then was back in garage/barn/gym two weeks later doing what I could. I missed my good friend Alma's wedding, which was on my list of things I had most looked foreword to all year. On the good side of things, however, I did sign contracts for both Another Enchanted April and Woke Up in a Strange Place. The former comes out January 12; the latter (and some of my very best writing) has yet to receive a release date.

Things have been pretty quiet since then. I've been to a poetry reading with Miranda. I bought a Wii and kick Frisbee golf booty. Basically, I've been recovering and watching the snow fall. I'm feeling good, but I've learned not to expect anything from the year ahead. Or rather, I RE-learned that. How many times does life need to hit me over the head to teach me something, huh?

All I can do is hope. Hope without resolution. Hope without specifics. And Happy New Year to you all!