Goodbye (to the me I used to be)

So, here I am.

Thinking about how quickly summer passed and how swiftly winter is approaching.

The last time I blogged, I'd just had a book released.

About a week after that, I had a run in with a bug. He left me with this (can you even see it?):

Which (over the course of a couple of weeks) turned into this bit of loveliness:

It's been a Lupie couple of months since then. I've had a lot of appointments and blood tests, and I've found myself waking up in the morning wondering where the me I used to be went.

I look in the mirror and I see someone I don't know. She's this oddly disjointed version of the person I was. Thinner and sallow-looking, haggard and worn. At times, I feel like a shadow of myself, and I miss the person who could jump out of bed and race through the day, who could stay up late into the night writing and wake up in the morning refreshed. I miss the person who didn't get tired out from conversations, who didn't spend half of her day wondering if she had time to take a nap. The person who didn't spend the first fifteen minutes of every morning hobbling around on stiff feet and painful ankles.

I miss her, but I don't want her back.

Don't get me wrong. I want my health. I crave that more than just about anything. I want to wake up one morning and feel great. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm holding out hope. My primary doctor and I had a nice long chat about how insidious lupus is and how difficult to treat. It effects everyone in different ways and until there is a cure, all the doctors can really hope to do is keep the immune system under control and prevent destruction of healthy organs and tissue.

"I'm waiting," she said. "For the cure."

So, am I.

But, even if a cure were to happen tomorrow, I will have been changed by this disease.

And, while I mourn who I was, I can't be sorry for who I've become.

I find myself much more gentle as I go about this thing called living. Mostly,  I have realized that my journey does not have to be a mad dash to the finish line. It can be a slow waltz at midnight, a rambling stroll at dusk. It can be standing in the shelter of an old sweet gum tree and finding a luna moth there.

The world is filled with so many wondrous things.

And, I have no choice but to walk slowly and see them.

I can't be sorry about that.

I think as you read my newer books you will see what I have seen - the velveteen sheen of twilight roses, the soft golden glow of dandelions at dawn, and the gently sloping road that leads us all toward home.

This month, my Apple Valley Novella was released as part of a Fern Michaels anthology. Next month, the sixth book in my Mission:Rescue series will be released.

I am so blessed to continue to do what I love. As much as I despise Lupus for what it has taken from me, I must acknowledge what it has given: a clear sense of time and mortality, a pristine view of the miraculous hidden in the stillness of a foggy fall morning, and a deep desire to share what I have seen in the only way I can. I hope that when you read my books, you will hear the spring rain pattering on the windows, you will smell chocolate and wood-burning fires, you will see through my eyes how the world could be if we loved a little more and griped a little less.

Peace to you on your journey. Wherever it may lead!

God made my life complete

    when I placed all the pieces before him.

When I got my act together,

    he gave me a fresh start.

Now I’m alert to God’s ways;

    I don’t take God for granted.

Every day I review the ways he works;

    I try not to miss a trick.

I feel put back together,

    and I’m watching my step.

God rewrote the text of my life

    when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

Psalm 18:20-24