A Day at a Time

I’m not sure how, but six months have passed since I last sent you an email. Several of you have reached out to check on me, and I’ve often wished for updates from the rest of you. How have these months been for you? How are you today?

My plans for today include mowing the lawn, continuing to edit my novel (I finished writing it!), performing a mish-mash of back-to-school tasks, and playing with my four-month old puppy. I expect to have a big, full day—one that wouldn’t have been possible for me two years ago, one year ago, or even as recently as this spring, in the first months following my Covid reinfection.

There are, of course, no guarantees. A pop-up thunderstorm might prevent me from mowing. Brain fog or fatigue sometimes still curtail my writing and editing. My today and my tomorrow may contain yet another Covid reinfection, monkeypox, economic recession, war, cancer, the loss of a loved one, a house fire, a dumpster fire, or even, I don’t know, a freak gasoline fight accident. All I can really be sure of is that I will eventually die and that until then, life can only be lived a moment at a time.

My lawn must be mowed one pass at a time. A body can only heal one day at a time. A book can only be written one word at a time. There’s really no better—or worse—news for an aspiring novelist.

Writing a novel while struggling with brain fog, light sensitivity, impaired memory, and fatigue has meant a lot of stopping, starting, stopping, and then starting again. I’ve had to grow my capacities for both tenacity and flexibility, grit and surrender. These post-Covid years have been the most wonderful and terrible of my life. I’ve lived them the only way I could: one day, one moment, one word at a time.

How do you navigate the tension between living with dreams and living with limitations? How do you balance on the tightrope between wholeheartedly accepting what is and fearlessly living into what might be? Or is there some other, better question I should be asking you right now? Some question that feels truer to your experience? Where in this balancey, tippy, topsy-turvy, up and down that we call life do you find yourself today? In other words, how are you, friend?