December 31, 2019: It has been raining hard and heavy for what seems like weeks now. It's cold, the type of cold that feels colder than if it were frosty or snowing. The heavy wet of a PNW winter. The kind of rain that brings floods and mudslides. My son texted me that he wanted to call me yesterday. My heart immediately started to beat faster. He's on a road trip with his sweetie in California, and I was afraid that they had broken up and that he'd be devastated. Instead, I heard his somewhat shaky voice telling me that they'd been in a car crash. Everyone was OK, he assured me. It was mostly a fender bender. But they were shook up. It had happened the evening before and today they were calling their families to let them know. He is not an overly demonstrative kid, physically or verbally, but he told me twice during that call that he loves me.
They were in Bakersfield and going to spend another night there while the car got repaired. Today he's been texting me photos of sunny California mountain passes. He let me know they might soon be out of cell range.
January 1, 2020: A bit of sun coming into the house over my shoulder as I type makes me squint and smile. I haven't seen my shadow for days. I want to write more in 2020, to spend more time with my first love. I have things I've written that I want to send out into the world, and things I've written that need revising and, I hope, more things to write. I miss blogging, though. I miss that sense of writing to a friend that comes with this medium. So here I am, starting over, closer to 60 than 50, no longer able to identify myself as a single mom in the same way I used to, no longer sure about much of anything except my parents are old now and will likely not live to see the end of the decade. I'd better make it count.
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