I have no idea what’s just happened with this posting stuff. We’re going to call this another attempt at getting ahead in blogging. Of learning what it’s about. It’s been a long time since I actually sat down and tried to write in a journal or create an archive of things that have happened in my life. 

Yesterday, my mother said I needed to be writing everything down in a journal because Covid 19 will be the 1918-1919 flu of our time. She’s right about that in many respects and I may write it all down at some point. Who knew fiction would turn into fact and we’d all be scrambling to live our lives in a time when something we can’t see could kill us?

That’s not supposed to be happening in our lifetimes. Sure, flu can kill, but it’s only the weak and elderly, right? Small children and the sick? Not anymore. Maybe never again. Covid 19 is revealing its secrets as time passes and we’re learning about the horrible effects it will have, long after we’ve shed the last virus cell from our bodies. Have you heard of MIS-C?

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a terrifying result of having been infected with Covid 19 and as its name suggests can be found in children and adolescents. It is life-threatening if left untreated. Then there’s the news that the disease is causing heart and lung damage, damage to the cardiovascular system, which on a sidenote makes me wonder about past flu viruses and the impact they have on the cardiovascular system.

I have Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), a disease that means my blood doesn’t flow very well, especially to my hands and feet. Since the first time my toes turned purple and stayed that way, leaving me in utter agony for quite a long time, I’ve learned that it’s not just a disease that latches on to the elderly to make their lives even harder. People in their 20s and 30s get it, and when I looked back in my medical records, I was surprised to find it was actually diagnosed in my 30s. I’m no scientist, but I do wonder because now people are developing Covid toes and other circulatory problems.

We obliterated so many diseases in the last few generations, we’ve created vaccines that have saved lives, and yet, here we are. I believe that’s mainly because people wanted to ignore the fact that we live in a world where we’re surrounded by nature, even in ventilated, climate-controlled environments. We removed ourselves from nature, but nature didn’t remove itself from us.

I write romance novels and horror novels, but that isn’t all of who I am. I also write research papers that I never publish, mainly because I don’t think anyone would be interested so I don’t make them spiffy and awesome, I just write what I need to know to satisfy my curiosity. I also search out news about viruses and emerging illnesses.

I am a student of history, it’s what I majored in during my university days, and the one thing that fascinated me most, even more than my adoration of geology and plate tectonics, was the rise and fall of plagues. It was the enemy we couldn’t fight, the enemy we could not see. I learned that no matter what battles we take part in amongst ourselves, who we declare our enemy, there is a “great leveler” and it is not violence or the threat of violence, it is nature.

Which brings me to the second person that told me I need to blog. She’s a good friend, one I absolutely adore, and she wants the best for me. I asked her what I should write about. Anything. That’s not very helpful, I thought with amusement.

The one thing that is on all our minds right now is Covid. When will it go away? When will life get back to normal? Should a romance writer be writing about such a depressing topic? Maybe I should, when that topic creates problems, fears for us all, until we can’t escape the truth of it.

I don’t want to write about my writing process, it’s strange and everyone else writes about it. I don’t want to tell other people how to write either. If someone asks me about publishing, editing, anything else, I can tell them, but I don’t want to assume I’m an authority on anything. I know what I know and that is all I know, right?

Life doesn’t always give us happy endings. And no, I don’t mean those kind of happy endings. I mean the kind we can live. Sometimes, life is brutal, it’s hard, and then it gets worse. And many people are in that situation right now. Knowing you aren’t alone isn’t very helpful, but it can be helpful when you talk about it, try to find solutions to the problems together, and are able to say…I’m drowning. Sometimes, just knowing someone heard you makes a difference and I’m here to say…I hear you.

This is me, right now, trying to find a new path in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore. This post may not make a lot of sense to anyone, but it does to me. It’s as chaotic as my thoughts are at the moment. It’s a real expression of something that you cannot see and for now it’s what I need to say. So, have a good day and yes, Mom, if you read this, I put so in a sentence. She hates when I do that. But, we’re back to reality and Covid 19, so (ha, I did it again), here I am. This is me, right now, living in the time of Covid 19.