Testing Out a Life I Didn’t Want to Live

Horoscopes are fun. With all the other inexplicable, sometimes supernatural, things that happen to me on a regular basis, finding out my horoscope is right doesn’t even faze me anymore. Right or wrong, it doesn’t affect my belief in anything. Sometimes things align. I can’t explain it.

Last year, my friend sent me a link to a video explaining my Chinese horoscope for 2022. Hugely creative year, just burning forward with speed and passion. Not worrying about worldly details. And, looking back, it was 100% correct. There was a freedom, an unrestrained joy in doing what I wanted and getting it done. It was a good year.

This year’s Chinese horoscope was…not great. Apparently, the main theme of 2023 is that I’m what they call a “Crisis Manager” and hoo boy is that accurate so far. I’ll be a problem-solver, and good at it because I have access to resources, which is nice, but I don’t want to be a Crisis Manager! I have things I want to do! I’m glad I can handle whatever problems come my way, but I don’t want the problems to come my way in the first place.

The year began with me recovering from surgery, which took six weeks. Then it was time to prepare for a cruise we didn’t want to take but couldn’t get a refund for because we paid for it in 2019 and the deadline for a refund was several years ago. I was too stressed out about the entire thing to enjoy it at all. My birthday was a few weeks later, and my parents came to visit and it was a whirlwind of a week. Then my spouse had surgery in early April and I’ve had to take on all his house duties and responsibilities on top of my own, plus act as his caregiver 24/7, plus deal with the many crises that have arisen in these few short weeks.

All this is to say, I haven’t made any progress on my books. I did at least get to write, since I took a multi-week horror writing class. But as for the books I’m trying to sell: nada. I mean, I got a few rejections, but I’m not putting that in the “progress” column. Obviously, I’ll do what I can the next few weeks, but I also leave for New Zealand next month, and then we’re into June with so few things accomplished.

Maybe survival is the accomplishment.