Lucy ran out of the empty room into the passage and found the other three.
"It's all right," she repeated, "I've come back."
"What on earth are you talking about, Lucy?" asked Susan.
"Why?" said Lucy in amazement, "haven't you all been wondering where I was?"
"So you've been hiding, have you?" said Peter. "Poor old Lu, hiding and nobody noticed! You'll have to hide longer than that if you want people to start looking for you."
"But I've been away for hours and hours," said Lucy.
The others all stared at one another.
"Batty!" said Edumund tapping his head. "Quite batty."
"What do you mean, Lu?" asked Peter.
"What I said," answered Lucy. "It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I've been away for hours and hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened." ~The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Chapter 3
I feel like Lucy. I feel like I've been gone for hours and hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened since I spent the summer on the couch in a Vicodin haze praying that a small surgery would eventually turn out all right.
I've begun teaching a new school year, for one thing.
And listened to a message from my husband during a small pause on Institute Day to say that he was in the ER with our son. It's strange how one car accident can have a domino effect on stress, on finding out layer after layer of things that need to be resolved.
My son is okay, and that of course, is the main thing. But, he has no car. We have court and insurance and lawyers and lots of residual to take care of.
I've had 90+ degree days with no interruption in which I'm teaching over the whir of three fans as our elementary buildings have no air conditioner. It's a strange thing in the 21st century, in a suburb of Chicago, to teach over endless white noise. I didn't quite realize the racket until the children had gone, and I turned them off to go home.
Needless to say, I haven't been blogging. Or, commenting. I've been trying to manage each new day with grace, and truthfully, it was a relief to leave the computer mostly unplugged.
I sat with my stack of books long listed for the Man Booker Prize and tried to read as many as my concentration would allow. But, did you ever notice how novels that are listed for prizes often contain life's hardest moments? It felt like no issue was left unturned, from poverty to abandonment, divorce to death, everything heavy and hurtful has been included in these books.
It was good to read Tana French's The Likeness for something light.
Now I'm ready to come back. I'm ready to visit you again. See what you've been up to. Comment on posts you've written about life, the books you've read. I'm ready to return from the wardrobe in which I've been hidden to rejoin the rest of you.
I hope you've been fine.