To be honest, when I logged on to write this today, I was surprised to find I’d done a post in March 2020. It feels like so much longer. Like everything these days.

If there is one thing in this life I am good at, it’s denial. Denial of reality, denial of emotions, of feelings, of potential, of pain. It is perhaps this skill that has allowed me to still be on this earth in the middle of this shitshow we are currently living through.

If you can ignore the complete lack of normal, the missing of people, the futureless, if you are able to exist on shallow breaths only, then maybe, just maybe, you will be here at the end. If there is one. Because I fear if I stop FOR ONE MINUTE to truly see, I won’t be able to bear it.

I feel like there is a haze over everything. Even the things that used to be joyful. There was an article in the New York Times recently describing “joyless aimlessness”. I felt that term deeply, in the very heart of me. I worry there will never be joy again.

We are remodeling our kitchen and bathroom. Last night I nearly had a panic attack when I found out we might not be able to get the refrigerator I want without losing counter space (in our tiny kitchen, this matters.) Utterly ridiculous. A refrigerator! But I just want ONE THING to be the way it should be. ONE THING to look forward to. ONE THING that doesn’t suck.

The lack of joy and wandering from sucky thing to other unknown sucky thing is exhausting. So I grab hard to the things I can count on. Designing and buying WAY too many bags. Talking every day to my virtual like-minded friends, not just about bags, but families and heartache and things that make us laugh. I am aware a lot of my real life friends think my purse obsession is insane. I’m OK with that. Just be glad I never tried heroin.

The last year hasn’t been a TOTAL loss. Thanks to one of these purse friends, I rediscovered quilting. It’s brought me peace and distraction.

And more tattoos over the last month. A work in progress. Somehow adding art to my body that I can see anytime has given me a spark of joy I haven’t felt in a long time.

Friends coming to town in August. A wedding. A beach trip.

A solo trip to the East Coast and Colorado in the fall to see friends, eating and drinking and shopping and laughing til it hurts. And in theory, the planning for Europe in 2022.

And a new kitchen and bathroom in October. Hopefully with a badass refrigerator.

I’m trying. I’m trying to see the glitter and shine of these things. Hope to see you soon, too.