When I started this blog in 2021-ish, I meant it to be a writing practice that I secretly hoped would eventually give me enough disciple, ideas, and experience, to allow me to write a book. Someday. As life got in the way, social obligations resumed, work took over, I started to write every few months, then maybe twice a year. Regardless, the ideas for the blog are stored in unfinished posts. “You, Me, and We,” “The Season of Pruning,” “The Precious Intimacy of Small Things,” “I’ll Miss You One Day,” and so on and so forth. No blog posts, and no where near writing a book – for now.
Unexpectedly, I did actually lose the site entirely for a couple of weeks. Apparently, there are a series of requirements to renew websites, and I may, or may not, have missed a step. Or all of them. Simple serendipities were no more.
The site became something I neglected, and the guilt of the neglect led me to try to tell myself I didn’t care very much if it existed or not. I learned very quickly that I do care. A lot.
Isn’t that true of life?
Sometimes, to lose something, is to learn how much it actually matters.
As someone who leans melancholic and has a penchant for pondering the passage of time, “The Tail End” (found here: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html) really spoke to me in a deep and quite melancholic way. I think I came across this post in 2015 or 2016, and it has affected me in a way that no other post has. The author breaks down our life, assuming we live to 90 years old, in events, rather than time spent. The author cites the number of baseball games, dinners with family, card games with friends, swims in the ocean, books read, and so on, and describes why we are actually living out the tail end of our life.
What does any of this have to do with anything? Well, in addition to (almost) losing my site, Scruffles was diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease, a disorder related to overproduction of cortisol. Of course, this meant I angsted over reading 100’s of doggie studies, drove my vet crazy, and ultimately, panicked since Dr. Google told me that Scruffles life expectancy is likely shortened. (And here, I thought I’d never have to send him away to college….) We are at the tail end.
All of us have lost friends, lovers, family members, pets, acquaintances, so on and so forth. I think back to relationships that have ended and often wonder if knowing that this was the last supper (wine included, not made from water), or the last text, or the last call would have made any difference in the way I would have responded. Would I have wanted that? Would it have changed anything? Which of my current relationships with family, friends, colleagues, pets are in their tail end, and I don’t even know?
The threat of loss, or the loss of someone or something dear to me, often serves as a fulcrum moment. Have I learned any lessons in my 38 years on this Earth? I write so much about gratitude and presence, and yet, in my scattered ways almost cost me my “site baby.” I wonder in what other ways I have “paid” for my absence of presence, attention, or prioritization of time.
My site’s “serendipitous interlude” cured me of my ambivalence about it, and the “It’s become a graveyard of ideas, no one reads it anyway, doesn’t matter if it’s around anymore” quickly turned into “It’s mine, I made it, I don’t want to lose my little soul project!”
Interludes, in the glimmering and bleak cacophony of life, the never ending march of time, seem to incite anticipation of the next act, and serve as a harbinger. Life is a tapestry of precious and ephemeral moments, and we may never know when it’s the last one.
I am happy to be back.
XOXO,
Kathy ❤
Simple Serendipities 