Why I’m Thankful for ERs and Cellphones

I have a little writing update. But first, here’s a little recap of my Thanksgiving Break:

My Thanksgiving has been a bit rocky, to say the least. On Wednesday, a very close family friend went into the ER and my mom stayed with her while I hauled all our Thanksgiving food and plates into an Uber and rode up to my uncle in New Jersey by myself. Let’s say it was an unfortunate reminder of my mom’s trip to the ER this summer when I had to play point person and actually realized for the first time that at some point in the future, I’ll be the one taking care of my mom, not the other way around. It wasn’t something I ever expected to deal with so early, but I was oddly calm about it all (publicly, anyway).

But things picked up on Thursday because my mom came up to New Jersey, and we assumed everything was fine with our friend. It wasn’t, but she wasn’t alone, and we were getting updates throughout the day. And on Friday, we were set to come home, get our dog back, and host said friend in our guest room.

That didn’t happen because I started feeling chest pain (had been off-and-on for the past few months, but it wouldn’t go away all day on Friday), and took my own trip to the ER (same one my mom had been in this summer) and spent 4 hours waiting and taking tests, and then waiting for results. Luckily, it’s nothing dangerous. But these three incidents (although I was saying this before my own trip) have made me so consciously grateful for the existence of ERs (even if they do take forever) and cell phones, which allowed me in all cases to stay in touch with the people I needed to.

So, what does this have to do with writing? Well, it explains my lack of (substantial) writing 11/22-11/24. Today, I’m hoping to get some writing in, but I think I may have to admit that NaNoWriMo will be unwinnable this year. Which is a kind of tough pill to swallow since I started out so ahead, then I didn’t have my computer for 5 days while it was fixed, and all this Thanksgiving medical drama. But, even when I don’t win, NaNoWriMo has been so helpful in getting me to write Unmoored that I’m also thankful for the kick in the butt it’s given me this month.