{"id":4440,"date":"2026-06-18T16:03:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=4440"},"modified":"2026-06-18T16:03:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:03:19","slug":"finding-the-positives-in-a-downbeat-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2026\/06\/18\/finding-the-positives-in-a-downbeat-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the positives in a downbeat year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last weekend, Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix<\/a>. It was his first race win since joining Ferrari in 2025. He\u2019s told the media he had to remember who he was and what he was capable of. He needed time to figure that out after a disastrous season last year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been struggling a bit of late. The year 2026 has not been entirely kind to me so far. In the span of 99 days, four people in my life died. Two of them were from cancer. I\u2019ve learned of three others with Stage IV cancers, who are likely not to make it. One is a former classmate of Paul\u2019s in England. It made me think of Paul\u2019s best friend, Matthew, who passed from brain cancer when we were all 36-years-old.<\/p>\n

The one year anniversary of my mother\u2019s passing arrived April 2. I made another trip to the ER a few days later, after five hours straight of vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes at the same time. I was curled on the bathroom floor most of the morning, not wanting to move more than a few inches from the toilet, but also, I couldn\u2019t stand. At the ER, a nurse had to help me walk into the building.<\/p>\n

Twenty-seven tests later, they couldn\u2019t find anything. I had a CT scan a few weeks later. My innards are all A-OK. My doctor, my therapist, and I are all drawing the same conclusion. It\u2019s the trauma. There\u2019s a wonderful book called \u201cWhy Zebras Don\u2019t Get Ulcers<\/a>,\u201d by Robert Sapolsky, which includes details what happens to the gut during chronic stress and trauma.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a cumulative effect. I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowl Syndrome when I was 8-years-old. It was called a spastic colon back then and I often default to that definition. It\u2019s gotten worse the older I get. With some meds, we are hopeful, these horrible incidents are behind me. I certainly can\u2019t afford multiple $5,817.87 trips to the ER. No, I\u2019m not comforted that it\u2019s only $471.23 after insurance picked up the rest of the bill.<\/p>\n

My yearly eye checkup didn\u2019t go well either. It is a case of \u201cyou can do everything right and still not win.\u201d My diabetes is well-managed. It has been for at least 15 years. Still, there is swelling in my good eye. Yeah, my good eye, damn it. On July 21, I will see a specialist and will likely need an injection to bring the swelling down.<\/p>\n

My bad eye<\/a>? Well, I was told when I was 8-years-old, I\u2019d be blind in that eye by the time I was 20. I\u2019ll be 56 in 17 days. I can still see. I\u2019m prepared for that eye. Not my good eye. As I was told the news and went over the pictures and scans, I thought it was my bad eye. When the doctor said, \u201cno, Irene. That\u2019s your left eye,\u201d well, it wasn\u2019t pretty. I cried and cussed in the doctor\u2019s office. I apologized. She said it was okay because she \u201cwould be pissed, too.\u201d It somehow made me feel better that my eye doctor cusses, too. Plus, she told me I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. You can\u2019t stop the march of diabetes, I guess.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I\u2019ve been a bit bummed. It\u2019s been difficult to write. I sometimes sit and stare at the wall for hours. It\u2019s more shit added to my trauma pile I need to manage. Still, it\u2019s been difficult to do much of anything. I\u2019m exhausted all the time. There are so many things I want to do, but when my battery sits at a near-permanent 3%, it\u2019s hard to get shit done.<\/p>\n

Then, 2026 started to change. I got a little more sleep. I\u2019m still sleep-deprived, but less than before. Over the past few weeks new opportunities have started to fall into place.<\/p>\n

First, I\u2019ve cut back even more on my reading of the news. The words that come out of the mouth of the \u201corange one\u201d are the same abuse words I heard growing up. This time, I\u2019m an adult and I can walk away from it.<\/p>\n

Good news on the podcasting front is how, somewhere along the way, we picked up a few listeners because our paltry earnings have doubled. We can now buy a candy bar a month if that was our thing. I don\u2019t look at metrics, so I don\u2019t know where we were boosted. I hated that stuff when I worked at the Star-Herald. I write what I think is a good story, not some SEO bullshit to get clicks.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I met with a man about collaborating on a book. I don\u2019t want to jinx it, so that\u2019s all I\u2019ll say except there will be payment this time and I asked for what I believe is a reasonable and acceptable writing and photography fee.<\/p>\n

Today, I met with folks at the National Park Service. They would like me to write a book about the geology and the fossils of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and the Scotts Bluff National Monument. This is really cool because people think the fossils at Agate are dinosaurs. They\u2019re mammals. I get to help clearing it up.<\/p>\n

I was recommended for both of these writing projects. You have no idea how much that pumps up a deflated ego when you think no one cares about your writing or what you do.<\/p>\n

Like Lewis Hamilton, when things started getting really rough and each week brought bad news and setbacks, I started to forget who I was.<\/p>\n

There are two manila envelopes stuffed full of writing awards at the local, state, regional, and national level in my home office. There are also two third place trophies from Nebraska Press Women sitting on a shelf with other mementos from my life. I wrote a coffee table book celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Scotts Bluff National Monument. I write something several times a week. I write by hand in my journal almost every day. Someone in the future might take my journals and write a book. Then, I\u2019ll have helped someone else from beyond the grave. How fucking cool would that be?<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m a decent writer. I\u2019m a little shaky on the poetry, though I have a few awards for those as well. So, I guess I\u2019m an okay-ish poet.<\/p>\n

My photography has also won a few awards. Several years ago, when the zoo made new signage for the animals, they used my photographs and gave me credit.<\/p>\n

I needed to remember who I was. I forgot all that for a little while. So, I sat down and started pounding on the keyboard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to get bogged down in the bad stuff. The important thing is how you climb back up and know you have accomplished a lot for someone who shouldn\u2019t even be here, and know no one can ever take your achievements away.<\/p>\n

You remember who you are<\/a> and continue to progress from there. The rest should fall into place as you go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix. It was his first race win since joining Ferrari in 2025. He\u2019s told the media he had to remember who he was and what he was capable of. He needed time to figure that out after a disastrous season last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[238,377,405],"class_list":["post-4440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-mental-health","tag-trauma","tag-writing"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4442,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440\/revisions\/4442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}