to restore to life; resuscitate.
to give fresh vigor, spirit, or courage to.
to stimulate to renewed activity.
Similar to the year that passed after mom died, I feel as if I spent much of 2019 being dead to the world. My partner and I were embroiled in a series of crises—personal, financial, spiritual—and it was only through the strength and support of each other, and of those who were our allies and friends that we pulled through what was perhaps the toughest year of our marriage to date. You don’t see struggle on social media; not from me, not from anyone. In my case, that obfuscation isn’t intentional. I try and show my realest self, though that’s not easy to do in the context of an image or blurb. It’s not easy to do without dialog and nuance. To some extent YouTube suits that purpose for me, of having ‘real’ conversations, though the most exact form of this communication is and will always be the written word: blogging, or the stories I write.
I hadn’t realized how necessary this output was for me until it was taken away through circumstance. Justin lost his job, and I immediately went back into the workforce—as one can not justify a modest living playing make-believe when there are bills to be paid, down payments to be made and a mortgage only months away. We did not ask for help—financial help—because we are both industrious and creative and within a few months Justin was able to land another job (which wasn’t the job in which he settled in at the end of 2019—so many upheavals!). We picked ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps and sorted ourselves out. During this time we moved, we had a sick cat, we had Justin’s $100,000 prosthetic leg fail outside of insurance coverage, we had a grand, overdue and likely final falling out with some fractious family members, and we eventually shifted Justin into a second job, which, coincidentally is right back at the same organization he left three years ago. Full circle and all that. During the summer, we also lived under construction, had some shady trades ruin our new home, then had some less shady ones fix that damage. As far as the sick cat that was mentioned, our old girl, Persey, fell repeatedly and mysteriously ill, which cost us thousands of dollars and brought us to the precipice of that argument where we valuate life. She’s as tough as the rest of her family, though, and she pulled through; bouncing back entirely once we figured out what was wrong with her (it’s gross and involves poo and I won’t go into detail unless you ask).
Then as we were settling in—or so I thought—our builder decided that they wanted to move up the closing of our property by eight months. We found an amazing broker, pulled off the close, congratulated ourselves on beating this hideous year of ordeals, and then were both promptly ravaged by a flu. I spent my New Years high on NyQuil while many were high on less legal substances.
But we can’t regret (well, we can and do, but shouldn’t), we can only look ahead. That’s where I’m staring: to the horizon. I wish that I’d done more for Geadhain and for her fans last year than I did, but I was struggling to tread water. That said, I finished the saga, the last book of which should see release this year. I still managed to maintain and nurture some incredible professional relationships, such as Geadhain’s new visual storyteller, Prabath. And I was blessed to make a host of new fans and readers. Thank you to all of you who explored and were entertained by my world, even though I had to distance myself from it. However, 2020 is all about Geadhain. New stories, new media, new projects. I also want to get back into the habit of my regular chats with you, which is why I’m writing this blog and why I will resume a normal cadence with such projects.
I guess that’s all for now, since you’ll be hearing from me again soon.
All my love,
—C
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