Picking up directly from last week’s post, had I not experienced a couple of episodes of feeling crappy the month prior, the appointment with my doctor and the blood test that led to being admitted to hospital wouldn’t have happened. In that scenario, it is very likely I wouldn’t be alive today to write my story.
"Heart Failure."
As I came to learn, these two words are an umbrella term for many different ailments that impact the heart’s ability to function properly. Now, these words are just as much part of my identity as others that make me, me.
Hearing those words for the first time took place early in the day on September 8, 2023, after a night in the emergency room.
Once upon a time in the autumn of 2005, I was in Toronto presenting at my first conference and decided that while I was out East a weekend trip to New York City was in order. A new musical had recently opened on Broadway that told the story of the friendship between Glinda The Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, and I was so excited to see it I could have melted.
Let’s talk Hogwarts Legacy, officially one week in from its release date. No, not about the internet discourse around the problematic background to the video game (although some fascinating conversations by very smart people are happening online!), but of the deeper forced reckoning that Harry Potter’s continued pop culture relevance may have sparked in other young adults like myself.
And just like that, here we are – 2023. This is the first time I’ve sat down with the intent to write a post since Halloween. By the time I wrote that post in Banff, I was already running on fumes. By the last months of 2022, I could feel myself heading towards burnout and it really impacted some of the things that make me who I am including my creativity and both my optimism and positivity.