This is not for anything.
That is a lie, of course; I would not set my challenge without a purpose.
But this is not for anything.
I am not raising money for a Noble Cause (not now, not with this) or embarking on a Grand Project or setting forth on some sort of Quest.
…Maybe I am doing that last one, a little.
But to name what I am trying to do seems to me like a way to threaten it as well, and so I will keep that to myself for now, and instead say: Hello again. How are you?
How have you been?
That last especially seems like a bit of a silly question, doesn’t it; I disappeared from here and from everywhere for over a year because of the Great Sickness that upended everything, and I still cannot decide whether things going “back to normal” seems like a good thing or not.
And yes, I am among the legions for whom it hasn’t been entirely great. I have held up well enough, I suppose; things have gotten done around the house and I have grocery shopped and done laundry on the regular and I have tried to be assiduous about keeping in touch with isolated friends.
I have tried to be supportive, and I have tried to be kind, and I have tried to look after myself, and oh I am not so good at that but I have tried. Honestly. With my inconsistent routines and my wavering but earnest attempts at healthful eating and my persistent failure to sleep enough because sleeping seems to steal time from the precious chunks of free space that aren’t consumed by the minutiae of adulting.
Soon, within the next few months, I must prepare to re-enter the World. To be in places with more than five people. That will be hard, I think.
Perhaps in a way this is training for that.
And perhaps it is just self-care, of a kind. Set a modest goal, try to meet it regularly, without judgment for one’s failures. Sustaining exercises for the voice.
That’s all right.
Isn’t it?
I may be rather timid at first. I beg a pre-emptive pardon for that.
And now I suppose we see what happens next.