Another successful NaNoWriMo! Despite the 12,000 word lead I developed in the middle of the month, life got in the way and I only squeaked by in the final few days. I’d had grand plans to try for 75,000 words and get a complete first draft down, but this was too lofty a goal to achieve it seems.

Part of the problem was that my cousin’s husband died in a helicopter crash the day after I got to my parents’ house. I never met him—my cousin was more than twenty years older than me and moved all over the country with her husband’s military career. It is hard to watch your family suffer though. It is challenging to grieve someone you never met, or at least support others in their grief. The experience was just sad with a twist of alienating. I spent the last half of the month thinking about darker stories and listening to a lot of music. I worked myself into a less than ideal place, and I feel like I am only now coming out of that unfortunate haze.

I am writing to you, as I so often do, from an airport. I took an extended Thanksgiving holiday in Washington with my family, and am flying home for some time with Zaq before we both go back up for Christmas. I’m starting to resent the word “home.” It means everything now. The home I came from, the home I’m building. I don’t feel as at home in My Parents House as I do in our house down in Santa Clara, but I’m so used to calling my childhood house home.

I’m trying to catch up on all my social media stuff which I let lapse horribly in November (I’m a little worried that all my favorite book bloggers will think I don’t like them anymore since I haven’t been commenting, or even reading often!) I’m also trying to figure out how to be happier. I have absolutely everything I could ask for, let alone everything I need to be happy (which is of course, a much, much smaller subset of things, which mostly consist of Not Having a Terminal Disease)

I’m looking forward to getting a bicycle and starting to explore Santa Clara now that I’m moving down. Exercise and an attractive environment are lovely, mood-boosting things. I need to worry less about my book, too. All my worries deserve a different post though.

All in all, I’m a happy camper and glad to be returning to the land of the living (if you can call the depths of social media ‘the land of the living’.)