“Truly Accomplished”

“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”

-Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8

It’s been a year…

I started 2020, as I usually do, with ambition and high hopes—a new project in my head, and all kinds of ideas to implement.

In early January, I released the second edition of Find Wonder in All Things

…followed in mid-February by the 10-year anniversary edition of my debut novel, 1932, completely re-edited with new chapters to round out the story the way I always wanted it to be. These re-releases were the culmination of almost a year’s worth of work—new editing, new formatting, new covers, new launch plans.

In late February, I went to Nashville for the Public Library Association conference, where Son of a Preacher Man, the one I call my “special baby”, was honored by the Indie Author Project with Kentucky’s 2019 Adult Fiction prize.

I followed that with a book signing at a local venue, Tastefully Kentucky.

The year was clicking along, writer-wise, and I had so many plans.

Then…

Within 2 weeks, my state was shut down due to the covid19 pandemic. I was home from work, scared of getting sick or making others sick, uncertain about the future. My college-aged daughter moved home to finish her bachelor’s degree from our dining room table, while my husband and I carved out work from home procedures. My parents entered a lockdown that continues even now as they await their turn for a modern miracle vaccine.

Over the next few months, I completely re-invented my day job (public school speech-language pathology) to a digital/virtual platform. Even for the seven weeks I was in-person at school last fall, the job was completely changed: all digital activities, plexiglas barriers, trying to listen for speech productions through face masks, physically distancing students, and cleaning between each session.

I’ve self-isolated due to possible covid19 exposure for a total of eight weeks, was formally quarantined for two. These days, I sequester myself at home except for rare ventures out into the world—activities carefully assessed on a risk/reward continuum. During this winter’s third, more deadly wave of covid19, I have a medical waiver to work from home until I am vaccinated. I cleared out drawer space in my bureau to keep cloth face masks. Curbside pickup for groceries has become the norm rather than the exception. I voted absentee in two elections.

To say I miss going to restaurants, live music venues, or movies sounds shallow, given what so many have lost due to the pandemic. It would be more considerate, and more accurate, to say that what I actually miss are my connections with people: chatting at a coffee shop with friends, giving my students a high five, people watching at restaurants, seeing the familiar strangers when I run errands, out of town vacations.

Hugging my parents.

This introvert, who craved silence and time alone to recharge, has seen the pendulum swing to the other side, and now craves the smiles and laughter of friends and family up close and personal—while realizing that balancing the two is still key. After all happy mediums are called “happy” for a reason.

2020 was not a disaster—it would be a dishonest exaggeration to call it one. As a friend told me this weekend, “we are all upright and making it through.” And though the year was a harsh instructor, I did learn (or re-learn) several things.

One of the most important was a resurgence of gratitude: what it does for your soul, how it helps you cope with change and with loss. Another was flexibility—as an overanxious planner, it was absolutely necessary to let go of the illusion I had control over my schedule, over my life. It was a non-negotiable. I had to relearn to face each day anew, almost as a child would.

Finally, I had to turn the holy acts of forgiveness and love—ones that I’ve tried all my life to extend to others—inward. I have put my priorities through the painful process of triage. I have accomplished what I can, and I have had to let the rest go off into nothingness or into an uncertain future. And forgive myself the lapse.

And when I look back at my ideas and plans from January of that fateful year 2020, though there are some accomplishments that have yet to come to fruition and some opportunities that have been lost, there were unexpected gains too.

The books I re-released? They, along with Elizabeth: Obstinate, Headstrong Girl, an anthology I contributed to, ended up on some reviewers’ Favorites of 2020 lists. I released the audiobook for 1932 and am currently working with the fabulous Elizabeth Grace on the audiobook for Undeceived. I continued slow progress with my new writing project—a step into the unknown as far as setting and story.

I embraced new procedures and new ideas on how to do speech-language pathology, and learned more about my day job than I have in probably fifteen or twenty years.

I made the time to focus on my health, developing several strategies to stay sufficiently hydrated, better rested, more physically active, and marginally sane during what is most likely the biggest crisis of my lifetime so far.

Most of all, I endured. And that, my friends—for all of us—was our biggest accomplishment of 2020.