Jesus, I set this up a year ago, posted a few pictures, and then just disappeared again. Where did the year go?

Well, obviously, it got eaten up by my regular life. I keep thinking I’m almost done with the busy part of my life now that one kid is off to college and the other is a junior in high school. But no. I’m not there yet.

Clearly.

I suppose the fact that I was sick for so long has something to do with it too. And not cool-interesting-illness kind of sick, not like back in my college days when it took them forever to figure out that I had pernicious anemia. Nope… this time it was just a cold, that morphed into the flu, that morphed into bronchitis, and then it turned out that I had developed hay fever at the age of 50, for the love of God, so by the time I was done taking all the medicine they prescribed for me and I was still feeling like shit, I went back to the doctor and said, in a nutshell: WTF???? And the doctor was all: well, do you have allergies? And when I said no, he said, well, we’re seeing hay fever in people this year who’ve never had it before. Allergy season is particularly bad this year and started very early. It’s probably allergies.

So, I’ve been congested since March. Like, how is that even possible? Part of me didn’t believe this new doctor I go to now, when he said I have allergies, although I did keep taking my Claritin and even finally gave in and started using the dreaded hateful Flonase on top of that. And even with those things, I’ve spent the summer consistently congested, and on days when the ozone alerts are active (which has been a lot! a lot more than I ever remember at least!) I was (and am) still congested. But then I went to the eye doctor for a regular checkup and lo and behold — he could see that I have hay fever by looking at my conjunctiva, or whatever the hell it was he called it.

“I see you have allergies,” he said to me. “How are you managing?”

In my head, I was all: yes, apparently I have hay fever. For the first time in 50 goddamn years on the planet. Also: I guess my new doctor isn’t the quack I thought he was. 

Out loud I said, “It’s not too bad. I take Flonase and Claritin every day.”

He then waxed poetical for a few minutes about the wonders of Flonase. He, apparently, has had allergies all his life. And Flonase is what finally saved him.

I hate Flonase. I hate spraying anything in my nose. But I’m learning to live with it. Because what else can I do? If I don’t take it, I’m worse than when I do take it. So, every day, I spray a fine mist into each nostril, try not to flinch too much, and wonder if I did it right. I’m getting better at it, I suppose.

So, for more than half of my 50th year, I’ve been battling colds, flu, bronchitis, and hay fever. It slowed me down more than I care to admit I suppose. Whenever I had free time, between work, finishing up homeschooling my youngest, launching my oldest into full time college, trying to keep up with the dishes and laundry, blogging was really the furthest thing from my mind. Mostly, I’d just sit on a sofa, resting, watching mindless television, scrolling through social media feeds.

The first frost should come soon. Hopefully, I’ll get some relief then. At least I’ll get some skiing in.

And if I really make an effort, I’ll blog more too.