Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay
2025 has kinda done a number on the McGuire household.
We had such dreams and aspirations like so many others who look to the new year as a new start on things. Not that things were bad or anything in 2024, but more of that feeling of getting off to a good start right out of the gate. Maybe get back to the gym. Maybe figure out some better work-life balance.
Maybe… maybe…maybe…
On January 1, Courtney starting to get a pain in her side. She’d actually had a similar pain about a month earlier and thought it might be a kidney stone. The doctors gave her something for the pain and if it was an infection – it would knock it out. One month later, on the way back from Virginia, after an 8 hour drive had turned into a 10+ hour drive due to I-85 being shut down in South Carolina, she looks at me and says
“We need to go to the Emergency Room, I’m in really bad pain.”
Turns out it was kidney stone.
One she would have to deal with for basically the next 3 weeks as she had doctor visits, trying to deal with the pain when the medicines wore off.
One of our friends is a nurse and he said that on the pain scale it is basically heart attack, gunshot, and then only slightly below that is kidney stone. From watching my wife during January, I believe it.
After the surgery, there was some pain as they weren’t able to get the full stone, so the remnants still had to clear. But it seemed that the worst was behind us. We decided to say that Feb. 1 would actually be the start of 2025. We were going to get that reset and get started on the new year properly!
February was my turn. I somehow had 5 projects due in 4 weeks, which meant a ton of days where I went from work, got home, ate dinner, maybe watched one tv show, and then back to work until after midnight.
Writing related activities were put on hold. Pretty much anything other than work was put on hold.
The light at the end of the tunnel was literally February 28 at 6 PM. That would be the last day of work before we went on a Cruise. It was a perfect break from the grind, and after that week we would reset and 2025 would start when we got home.
And that was the plan, except on the way back from the Cruise I started to feel under the weather and by the time we were home I had the Flu. Which knocked me on my butt for about 3 or 4 days.
Then as I was feeling better, Courtney started getting sick.
Fine! Whatever! 2025 will start over on St. Patricks Day. We don’t drink, but 2025 was trying to get us to start.
Tuesday, March 18 I get a flat on the way home from work. Ontop of that, I realize that my donut spare is low on air. AAA takes 3+ hours to get someone to me so Courtney ends up coming to get me, we get air in the tire, and get the thing changed… not getting home until after 10 PM.
2025 – you magnificent bastard. You keep getting us like an April Fools Day that will never end.
So, do I dare say it? 2025 is going to start… NOW!
Question Mark?
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John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.
He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!
Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.
His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com
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