Once upon a time there was an author, a writer, a blogger, a woman.
She loved her community of readers and writers, but one day she disappeared.
No warning, no word, not even a trace.
Hello!
I’m back! I’m clawing my way out of the fog of life and all the things that can bog a person down.
Last year at this time I was frantically packing and preparing our house for its new owners and contemplating the biggest move I’ve ever made (and I’ve moved quite a few times). It was no small thing to say goodbye to family, friends, and a life built over more than a decade. It was the place my children had been raised and the only world they really knew.
January’s chilly days and icy roads of the Inland Northwest were the last straw for my trucker husband, and between that and other things, we moved our future plans forward a few years, making the tough decision to sell our house in Washington and trek across the country to lands unknown . . . to us.
That first month of 2022 was weeks of almost frenetic organization, cleaning, packing, donating and selling. We listed our house and accepted an offer within three days, then spent February doing more of the same. We took a trip to OR to visit our oldest at college before we left her behind to drag her siblings along icy roads as a snow storm hemmed us in through every state. March saw us signing the papers and saying that final goodbye to the only home three of my four children really remembered.
A four-day trip by car and moving truck took us a little more than six days. The weather was bitterly cold in Montana and Wyoming, the roads were sheets of ice in South Dakota. We had a brief reprieve until Missouri and were snowed in at West Memphis, desperate to find a hotel room in a city booked up because no one could travel in that weather.
By the time we arrived at our yet-to-be-seen-in-person rental house we were exhausted and yet relieved. The kids and I experienced the bite of humidity at low temperatures for the first week here. My husband just smiled and reminisced of growing up in the Midwest.
By this point I was so wrapped up in just trying to learn the lay of the land that I had no energy for anything else but my family and their care. It took months for me to situate the kids in school, learn the ins and outs of the education system here, and find all the best places to shop for groceries and living needs. Then there was the care of our rental house and property to see to along with switching over our vehicles, licenses, and insurance. Life was crazy, that’s for sure.
We didn’t want to stay renters, but we didn’t have a choice when first moving for various reasons, so once we were better established and my husband had been on the job for a few months, we began a home-buying search. The first six months of life in our new state were devoted to finding our solid footing and sinking our toes into the sandy soil (and hopefully not getting too bit up by nasty little ants!).
I had a few false starts on thinking I was ready to get back into writing and blogging life as I’d known it before, but it’s taken me a year to wrap my head around all this change. I know others have done this faster and better, but I’m trying not to feel like a failure. This life is so strange we live here on Earth. It’s fleeting and temporary, yet some days feel like an eternity. I’m slowly seeing my way back to all the things I treasure in this temporal life, and being here on my blog and with my blogging friends is one of those. I hope you can forgive me for my long absence and help me crawl out of the wasting mist.
So, March
will see me following along behind Gary and A. E. over at BlogBattle to see all the wonderful things you’ve all been doing over there. Help me think of some ways I can tell those special leaders thank you for carrying the torch without a word from me. I am so very grateful for their diligence and commitment to the community of writers over there! And if you haven’t seen what they’ve planned for the year, definitely head over to BlogBattle and enjoy the writing challenges with us.
Another thought
I’m having: to get back into my own writing and books. I’m thinking I’ll read The Treasonous a chapter at a time live on Instagram during the month of April. Is that something you’d tune in to and support me through? I’d be grateful for it, but just knowing you’re here today to read about my life in miniature is a huge deal and I’m already so grateful!
Rachael Ritchey 
Please leave a comment, question, or idea! I’d love to chat!