I really have been dreading writing lately. It always felt like it could be my last time writing anything so then you put insane pressure on yourself to write something important, or at least something worth being remembered by. Of course I am VERY eloquent in my head, very smart, very everything you would want to be known by and for–but ultimately I am a klutz of a person who has met too many people and probably been forgotten by even more. Woe is me, right? Not really, some people are better being forgotten and forgotten by.

I know I’ve mentioned the ENTIRE point we left Colorado is because I needed health insurance and Don had finished his contact in May, the same month I was told my valve was going south and needed a redo. I mean, yeah, this surgeon’s been telling me a long time I needed the redo, but I am stubborn and I’ve done enough of that, and really, he had been telling me that long enough it seemed a little crazy every time to entertain the idea I might die again. So the most recent guy–the guy we moved towards, the rockstar surgeon I found through another cardiologist who asked his colleagues who they would like to go to had they any choice and they named this guy. The most recent guy gave me an echo last November because Colorado refused to send the records. I had one recently so expected to hear the results this past Tuesday. I spent a good deal of time kind of doing the thing I always tell people NOT to do, I suffered through literally every scenario. I spent my emotional capital on thinking I was going to be dead soon, if not definitely, possibly. From the you get surgery this weekend to it’s too late, we don’t think we can help you now to the middle point which is a replacement valve AND pacemaker–I went through it all. I didn’t really expect to hear, yes you have SEVERE aortic stenosis, but we don’t usually operate on people until they are more moderately symptomatic and I am not even there at this point exactly. Sure, I’m tired in the afternoons but who isn’t? I still walk all over with the dog and I am still tiring him out-I am not out of breath, I don’t have blue lips, swollen ankles really anything. No, I can’t hear the incessant click that was there anymore. Sometimes I might have a slight pain, sure, but nothing that I wouldn’t expect at this age. The point is, now I have 6 more months of life left to live. If I have to live my life in 6 month increments from here on out, I can and will do that. I now have a checklist of sorts we’ll see on. Seeing Europe once more is on the list.

I still wonder what would have happened had we moved to Sweden. Sweden would have been fine and better and put me at such close proximity to Everywhere, Europe, that it would have been stupid to stay. Maybe I would have caught Covid, maybe. But best to have him get his dream while he could attain it with his talents in that realm.

So I have been trying to figure out why we moved HERE of all places, given I literally know nobody and I’m probably a little too old to meet people. Plus, WTF is wrong with people that MOST of them don’t even want to talk to anyone. I get the Covid thing, clearly I have been writing about it long enough, but right now you would think the human element of connection would be starved enough more people want to be cooperative. Most of the people here are assholes. Maybe this is now a universal thing, or maybe we live around too many people who can live without the help of other people, which is why I need more urban areas to thrive. Or big small towns. And I mean big in a more metaphorical sense because I want to go somewhere and start more connective things. I want to do a Christmas Fair in Carlyle. I want to set up some art shows in a beach town.

I want to figure out a way to do something more in-person in terms of inspiring connection and communication. But…It still doesn’t explain Virginia.