Lexx who?

 

So you might all be wondering why I called this meeting. I admit, it was the last thing I expected to do today. After all, I have been persona non grata in the blogger-verse for at least 4 years now. I guess I kind of forgot how. Also, the last time I used this blog I had the distinct impression that I was shouting into an already too loud void. Now it seems that the age of the blog is pretty much over. TikTok has killed the proverbial "radio star." But one thing a blog can do for me that a TikTok video cannot is give me room to tell you where I've been the last few years. 

So I'm a bad little indie author. Trust me, I've beat myself up about it over and over again. To the point where I've literally been paralyzed to do anything about it. Have you ever had the sensation that you have so many things to do that you just can't do anything? Yeah, that's where I've been. I have tons of books to write and even more tons of promo to do, but I just haven't been able to make myself do it. But there is a reason. 

Back in October of 2019, my father fell down. He'd been having some mobility issues, but he was one of those guys that just pushed through pain and refused to see a doctor about something so trivial as back and leg pain. My sisters and I had been worried for years that he was going to fall. We tried to get him to at least use one of those Life Alert things, if not a cane, but he was adamant that he not be seen as an "old man." He went to the ER and they gave him a muscle relaxer and a steroid, thinking he'd injured his shoulder, as he'd told them that he couldn't move his arm, and sent him home. 

A month later, he fell again and that time, he couldn't get up. My husband had gone over to check on
him and found him in the floor of his bedroom, unable to get to his cell phone that he'd insisted was all he needed. This time when he went to the hospital, he couldn't move his right leg or his arm or his fingers. Nor could he feel much of anything below his waist. He sat in the hospital for over a month, refusing to have an MRI. Once he finally agreed to an MRI, they found that he had two profoundly damaged nerves. Bulging discs had been pressing on his spinal cord for so long untreated that the nerves in his neck and lower back were almost severed. We found out later that his doctor had tried to schedule an MRI for him FIVE YEARS BEFORE THIS to find out why his neck was so sore all the time. They scheduled two surgeries within days of each other to try and repair the damage, but the doctors said there was no guarantee that nerves that had been asleep for so long would ever wake up. 

After the surgeries, my father who had always been the strongest and most well-adjusted person I knew, grew depressed and completely uncooperative. We got a glimmer of hope when they sent him to what was reported to be the best rehabilitation center in our area where he would receive extensive physical therapy that would get him on his feet again and back to his life. After two weeks, the doctor came in and told us that his injuries were so severe that his only hope was months of intense physical therapy at a veterans' hospital in another state. It would be expensive and our insurance wasn't going to pay a dime for it. Oh, and by the way, he was likely going to need an motorized wheelchair for the foreseeable future. Now, this is my father who wouldn't even use a cane and they were telling him that he was going to need a wheelchair and a private nurse to help him dress, eat, and go to the bathroom for maybe the rest of his life? And that there was no way his insurance was going to pay for it? Well, you can imagine his reaction. It was at that point that I believe my father lost the will to live. 

From there it was a downhill spiral into insurance companies making decisions for us, each one more horrible than the last. My father, who I loved probably more than any other human, was forced into a nursing facility because myself nor my siblings were qualified to care for him. He needed round the clock skilled nursing care that we just couldn't provide in his home. 

Then March 2020 hit and COVID shut everything down. They wouldn't let us or any of his friends in to see him at the care facility. The only way that he could communicate with us was through the Amazon Echo we'd bought for him, as he didn't have good use of his fingers to dial his cell phone. My father was an extremely social person and not being able to see anyone just made a bad situation worse. 

Ultimately, my father got a UTI that turned into sepsis and he passed away in September of 2020. By the time the care facility told us what was going on, he'd already slipped into a coma from which he would never awaken. 

Then, if that weren't enough, my sweet little wiener dog, Murphy, passed away last Spring. A small grief in comparison I guess, but still painful. 

Now, why did I tell you guys that loooong sad story? Because ever since the day my father fell, I've had a serious "why bother" attitude about writing, marketing... pretty much everything. The thing that I had always used to comfort myself was now offering me absolutely no relief. Whether its been a weird form of depression, a symptom of grief, or an overwhelmed brain-- or a combination of all those things-- my motivation has come to a screeching halt. I've managed to finish two things that were mostly done at that point, but nothing else. I've stopped and started a dozen projects, but nothing has clicked. 500 words in a sitting is a struggle. 

I had all these plans before Daddy passed away. I had started a channel on YouTube where I was doing my makeup and reviewing books. I joined TikTok and started learning how to make videos. I wanted to start a podcast with my sister, Lucy Blue. Now, all those plans have fallen by the wayside because I just can't get the motivation to do it. I need to write, but I just can't. I want to film a video, but I start to do it and lose interest. And then I feel so guilty. I see convention invitations and applications, but I feel like a fraud for going because for the last two years, I don't think I qualified as a writer.

But now it's 2022. I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm coming out of the dark a little bit. The other day I wrote almost 1000 words. It took all day, but I did it. In November, my husband and I welcomed our new puppy, George Bailey, into our home. So maybe I'm starting to heal. Then today, I had this crazy idea that maybe if I put all this down on paper (well, digital paper), that maybe it would help me put the rest of  this grief to bed and I could finally get back to being the writer I've been aspiring to be. Maybe I'll get to rebrand myself and put out something new. Maybe I can get excited about it all over again. 

Anyway, thanks for sticking with this post for this long. Maybe no one will ever read it, but this one's really more for me than it is for you anyway. 

For what it's worth, I'll be seeing you soon. I hope someone will be glad to see me.