I’m nine weeks FIVE weeks (wow it feels like longer than that) post-op and starting to feel like a real, live human being again. I’ve still got a huge brace strapped to my legs at all times (that’s a lie, I take it off when I’m not standing or walking) but I’m pretty much pain-free. I’ve graduated from sitting in bed all day to sitting in a chair all day. Progress!

How have I been spending my time?

• Reading and doing a deep analysis on a fairly silly fantasy book series from the 1980s (The Death Gate Cycle, for those who are curious - no doubt I’ll be posting about it at some point).

• Building a massive base in Subnautica that extends to all biomes on the map (which I will probably never finish).

• Trying to finish the goals I had for Cities: Skylines before the sequel launches this fall (then giving up because I got bored).

• Watching no more than three episodes each of Golden Girls or The Good Place before switching to Stranger Things season one, which I’ve already watched a billion times.

• Working on two different crochet blankets and somehow not making progress on either of them (not even enough progress that it was worth taking pictures and posting about it)

• Deep-diving into the world of after-40 skin care, not a thing I traditionally care about.

I've also been working, the tiniest bit. Every so often I have a day where I feel like working on the ol' novel. I’m not trying to force them. Everything, even the silly things I do to pass the time, feels difficult and slow.

August is always a low point in the year for me. That’s kind of a bummer because it’s my birthday month. But it’s just, like, dead time. It’s hot and dry and boring. The good part of summer is over - the vacations and the summer camps - and school won’t start for another month. (This is, of course, in the eternal childhood that exists inside my head, when school started after Labor Day. In this reality, my son starts back to school next week.) Autumn is so close on the calendar, but still tantalizingly far away. And even though Starbucks breaks out the pumpkin spice earlier every year, actual fall weather takes longer and longer to arrive.

Couple that with the boredom of being house-bound (I’m not allowed to drive until I have enough control over the muscles of my right leg that I can stomp on a break pedal at a moment’s notice); the imminent departure of my daughter back to her college, turning us back into a household of three; the lingering grief over my sister’s death, which still hits me out of the blue; the sadness of missing a visit of my cousins to Portland, which looked so fun; and the guilt not seeing my parents for so long - add that all up and you’ve got yourself about the worst August possible. How could I possibly work?

Writing makes the world go away. Some writers can use it to escape unpleasant things, but I’m not one of those. I’m the kind that needs everything around me to be absolutely safe and stable and comfortable, so that I can risk turning my back for a while - like an animal that needs to find a safe and hidden place before it can sleep. I need to know that there will be no major eruptions while I’m checked out.

I’m probably being too hard on myself. August passes, after all. And even though September will be just as hot and dry, I will be able to pretend, to recapture that new-school-year energy, once Labor Day has come and gone. Motivation and joy are bound to return at some point; they always have.

In the meantime, that Subnautica base isn’t going to build itself.