Life Goes On

Every once in a while – I’m sure you’ve all experienced it – life decides to kick you, just to see how you react. And there are times when life decides to repeat the experiment (ad nauseum) for an extended period of time. It’s a real bummer, and the longer it goes on, the bummier it gets. (I know, ‘bummier’ is not a real word. Blame the creative artiste within me. I think it gets the thought across.)

Well, for the past 8-9 months, that’s what this household has been going through; one of the bummiest rough patches I think I’ve been through that didn’t involve people dying. Lots of illness in the house, some of which we are still working our way through, a treasure trove of doctor’s appointments to schedule and then get to. Sometimes as many as 3 appointments in one day. A car accident that killed one of our cars, 2 air conditioners going out (one in our remaining car) and computer equipment dying.

There’s an old saying I’m familiar with, about insanity being to repeat the same action, expecting a different outcome. And it occurs to me that in a way, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been getting up every morning, doing what I had to do, and expecting things to get better.

Maybe insanity wins, because I’m beginning to believe things might be getting better. I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I’ve now had 2 weeks where I did not call the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment for one of us. No urgent care or emergency room visits. Just working our way through a number of appointments that I set up when I was ‘doing what I had to do’.

It’s kind of been the same in my endeavors to market our books. For a lot of those same months, I worked diligently at marketing, but nothing seemed to make any difference. This past couple of weeks, I started looking at a different angle on my marketing. It involved laying out a bit of money, but hey, it takes money to grow money, right? (At least that’s what the rich people say.) But about a week ago, it occurred to me that I could do the exact same thing by making use of the outlets I already have established. Without putting out any large sum of money. So the last few days, I’ve been designing new business cards and coupons to hand out at the next science fiction convention I go to. Which happens to be in September. Wish me luck, okay?

Life can be a bummer for a while. But at the same time, life goes on. One has to be ready for the bummerness to go away, which it eventually will. Then you can reach up for the goodness, take a deep breath, and move on in relief.