What have I been up to in the last 12ish months since I updated this blog?
I was healing.
It was complicated.
While I was recovering, it was not lost on me how much my own life mirrored the book I was writing. I’ve been drafting and editing Book 2 of the Time Wrecker Trilogy. In Book 1, Every Last Minute, Will and Mara must decide whether to allow the gunman to go back and undo his terrible crime, changing the trajectory of all their lives. In Book 2 (no spoilers!) the main characters again have to choose their path for healing. They have decisions to make and soul-searching to do. This time, changing their past is no longer an option.
Isn’t that how it is for all of us in the real world? We know we can’t change the past and that plays a major role in our healing. We have to move forward because there is no other direction.
But what if there was? It took well over a year before I could say, with complete honesty, that I was glad I had this most recent surgery. If I had been offered the chance to go back and undo it all—the most recent surgery, the one before, the one before that, or just eliminate the issue entirely—I can guarantee I would have taken it. I would have risked it all.
Thank goodness I didn’t have that option.
Chronic pain no longer runs my life. And now, healing no longer runs my life, either. I have more energy. I can focus better. I knew that I had turned a corner when I was able to focus enough to read a book. And I knew that I was back to myself when I was able to open up my laptop and write.
Maybe this is the blessing in disguise for my journey through life-imitating-art. As I read through Book 2: Any Second Chance, one chapter at a time, I’m paying attention to my characters’ journey through healing in a whole new way. The premise of the Time Wrecker Trilogy is science fiction, but the characters are true to life. Their thoughts are messy. Their hearts are hurting. Their journey has ups and downs.
And the healing is so, so worth it.
