Happy Endings

Another holiday finished for a year. What a month it was, too. If you've read this blog long, you know that November through February is a difficult time. In the last few years, it hasn't been terrible, but this year, that mess just blew up in my face.

Starting November 12th, 2025, I began working on a new novel. That wasn't the plan. I have a story I've been working on for a long time and suddenly wanted to write the backstory of those characters to see if it would help me. What happened is confusing and surprising to me.  

As of today, I'm at 35,991 words. That's 2249 words a day, and there were a couple of days I didn't write at all. For non-writers, that's a lot of words.

What was confusing was the emotional turmoil I experienced for the first five days. I cried every day. Every time I wrote and after stopping for any reason. I was just wrecked. It took five days to figure out why. 

My husband died 17 yrs ago this coming January 29th. It was the greatest trauma I've ever experienced. While writing the new story, around the third day, I realized that many of the character traits of the main character reminded me of my husband when we first married. The way he treated the female love interest, the attitudes, and his actions were all my husband. Even the initial meeting of the characters was a reflection of meeting my husband. With that realization, any control I had disappeared. And from that point on, there were moments I had to stop writing at all. I even fell apart in front of my son. 

I don't actually know what would have happened if I had continued without talking to a friend. They gave me the freedom to talk and to let me cry. I felt like a fool and was embarrassed, but it gave me a way to find some control, albeit shaky at best. 

Now, sixteen days in, the story is still flowing like water. I don't know whether anyone will ever read it. I don't care. Though the experience was and is traumatic, the beautiful memory of being loved and cherished is mine to keep. Jerry was the only person who ever wanted me. Maybe we find that only once. I would not like to believe that, but I do. I don't know what he saw in me. I doubt there are many men who can see that deep. 

I still have to get through finishing this story. Then I have to do an edit or two. Every time I go back to check something or read a passage, it breaks me again. How do you survive that?

I don't care. Just this once, I'll finish the story. There will be a happy ending. Something I never got. And maybe that's why this story came to me. Everyone deserves that much.

The Hell I See and Hear

It is February 5 and I'm officially over the worst of the holidays. All that remains is Valentine's Day, and that doesn't really matter, anyway. Jerry usually forgot such things. It isn't the day, rather it is the images and atmosphere that are troubling. But so are normal days.

This morning, as I was on my way home from dropping Sarah off at school, I was thinking about something related to a story element. It was unrelated to anything I am working on so I can't tell you why I thought about it. I suspect, in hindsight, that I was just messing around in my head. I should never do that. I know better. 

As I cruised along at 35 mph, I suddenly had a horrific flashback. Really, I don't have them often anymore but I still get them occasionally. I could see Jerry in the bathroom, in the middle of the night, when I got up to see about him. He was in the dark and said he was all right. He wasn't, but I didn't know. Then, remember waking up to him thrashing around on the bed, his wedding ring hitting the headboard railing and making that horrible sound. I saw myself jumping out of bed, running around the bed, calling him and then the room goes horribly quiet. By the time I got the light on and saw him I knew. But 10 years later I still try to wake him. I pat his cheek, call him, scream for help. 

It is all so vivid but I'm sitting in my car, driving down Virginia Street at 7:30 a.m. in 2019. It isn't January 29, 2009 at 3 a.m. in the middle of the ice storm of the century. I keep driving and I shout, over and over. "STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP" When that fails to stop the scenes, I pray for it to stop. Miraculously, it does as I pull into my street. 

My firm opinion is that hell is reliving all the horrible things you've seen, done, and thought in your entire life. My brain doesn't let go of trauma so I fervently hope I've served my time. I'm trying to be faithful so that something better is waiting and the hell I see and hear won't follow me.

Someone once told me it gets better. They lied. I don't relive it as often.