So… what a year, eh?

It’s a bit surreal to think that this time last year I was focused on last-minute plans for a holiday in Australia, and trying to remember to finish everything on my to-do list before leaving the office for three weeks. I did not expect to come home from “vacation” having not ever stepped foot in Australia — and taking my father home in my carry-on.

Mum and I thought we’d be able to work through the sudden upheaval of our lives this year. That we’d be able to focus on figuring out how to smash two homes (plus storage that sat unused for decades) into one, to get used to a new rhythm of life. Mum thought she’d get a job.

She didn’t expect to get cancer.

The first few months of covid lockdown are a bit blurry, since the time was spent at home, anyway, taking care of her post surgery, and then taking her to her treatments. She’s in remission now, and we’re thankful, but we’re also…

…tired.

So tired.

The exhaustion never stops. Every time we think we’re getting a break, something seems to come along and say, “No, not this time.”

All we really want to do is have some time to rest. You would think working from home so much this year that I would have more time on my hands. But funny how that’s not as logical as you’d think.

I realize that a large part is that we still haven’t had full time to process. We’ve been running to run crises to the next, like an endless video game, surviving each stage only to run into a new monster.

I want to get my life back under some modicum of routine and control. I need it for my own sanity.

But I also need to process, to sort out all the thoughts and things that I pretend don’t exist, to ignore the depression and insomnia in a desperate effort to remind myself that, all things considered, we are doing okay.

And we are. Doing okay. All things considered.

But I need to believe it. To feel it. To live it.

I want to be well. But I need to know I’m truly okay.

And I need to do that by journaling again. Life seems so much simpler when you can see it in black and white.