I wish I could tell all of you I've been doing great things during this absence. The truth is, I've been trying not to let me emotions drift over to y'all. I have shut out friends, family, and my book nerd family. Why? I will try and keep this as light as possible, but things are about to get a little dark.
After my husband's return home from Afghanistan, the mental and emotional toll his transition took on both of us was not a good time. This was not our first, second, third, or fourth time apart, but the transition back to "normal" was the worst. I began working 16 hour days and the only thing I did at home was sleep. This was intentional. For a while I dug myself into a pretty deep depression that I hid from everyone . . . including my husband. I won't go into detail, but just know that everything is good on the homefront now. I just needed a few mental slaps to the back of the head to wake up. That, and one of my very best friends announcing she was bringing another tiny human into the world. I can't be Emo Auntie Maria. There are books and weird things I have to introduce to the aforementioned tiny human and I can't do that while crying in my depression hidey hole.
Most of you know I work in the mental health field, mainly with our military. Sometimes the job takes its toll on me. Sometimes my patients remind me that I'm doing something good, something worthwhile. Most of them unknowingly sent me a life preserver when I was drowning in eyeball-deep self-pity. Not to mention I have amazing co-workers that remind me there is life outside of work. There is someone who will never read this that made a huge impact on my attitude and my outlook. You are missed every single day, C. I wish you would have known just how valuable your life was to those who knew you even a short time.
Then there's what I like to call "The Book Thing". Yep, the whole ordeal with the schmublisher (thank you T.A. Brock for introducing me to this word) really made me want to Hulk Smash a Buick and cry about it over . What I've decided to do is continue with self-publishing. Yep, that means grammatical errors and all. I don't have an official release date for Lowlife now. I'm re-editing since the schmublisher put their bad vibe cooties all over it. Who knows? Maybe I'll just publish the entire thing here in segments. Meh. Probably not. Maybe. Regardless, Lowlife is coming soon. I just don't have a date yet.
