The Hour of Lead

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

– Emily Dickinson

That about sums up the last several years for me.

I apparently started the first part of this post in 2021, about a year after entirely breaking down in late 2020, breaking up with one of my partners, and giving up on basically every creative pursuit that matters to me. I pretty much shut down everything except essential life support in order to get through an extremely turbulent time. It cost a lot, and I wish I’d made different choices.

It’s over, now. I’m incredibly blessed to find that some of the people who cared about me then, still care about me now, including the partner who I thought I had lost.

I’m waking this blog up, and I’ll be picking up my fiction writing again as I get back in practice.