I am currently over 17,000 words into my Camp NaNoWriMo goal.

I’m down to needing about 310 words of poetry every day to reach my writing goal by July 31. Based on my average word count, I’m not only on track, but early; if I continue to write at above my word count minimum, I will reach 20,000 words of poetry by July 26.

As you can see by the counter to the right, there’s only a few days left until I start my third residency and my second year of grad school. I still can’t really believe that I’m here. I still can’t really believe the amazing things that have happened and are happening in my life. Not for nothing, but this year (and last year) have been HARD. This year has not been easy; while things have been going well, there have been heavy trials since January. Losing people I considered family is not something that trauma can prepare you for. It’s an especially deep kind of loss because it means the breakdown of friendships you thought would be with you for a lifetime. Regardless of why, regardless of how much healthier and happier I am now, the loss is still a loss.

I also started to fall in love. In February I started going out with a guy a met online and the connection we had was the kind you can’t really prepare for. I was surprised by the sudden chemistry, the rush of it all, and how quickly we really clicked. It really did feel like a snapping into place. We saw each other from halfway through February til almost the end of March. Six weeks, almost to the day. Covid-19 was hitting really strong and he freaked out, which was understandable. Said that he’d been avoiding a lot of personal issues and that I had been a distraction from them, which made sense considering that he wanted me to spend the night basically every night and we weren’t even a couple. But fuck, did it hurt to hear that I was nothing more than a distraction.

And he might have been serious about getting to know me, but that doesn’t make the outcome any better. He still used me. I was falling in love and he was avoiding his personal problems. Which hurt all the more because he was the second guy to dump me due to unresolved personal problems. This was made even more upsetting when in April he said he was lonely and asked if I’d be willing to be friends with benefits.

Because that’s totally something you say to the woman who was in love with you only a few weeks before.

Then I had a few months of online and virtual dating that, honestly, sucked ass. Lots of chatting that lead nowhere. Which was fine, looking back on it, because I wasn’t going out and meeting anyone anyway, although several people certainly tried to change my mind. Lots of being ghosted. Lots of disappointment. Lots of crying myself to sleep because it felt like it was me, as it usually does when you’re online dating. Some stuff happened in other areas of my life that I can’t talk about that were seriously fucked up.

Then, one seemingly innocuous connection on OkCupid lead to three virtual dates that went really well, which lead to our first in person date (I spent the night at his place), which lead to us being a couple. My first boyfriend in….twelve years. The seriously fucked up things were resolved. My writing and reading continued. I continue to send my work out for publication. I’ve even sent my poetry to some pretty big writing contests across the country. And today one of my all time favorite Oregon writers asked me if I had considered being a professor: “You totally should. Just saying,” was her statement and I now I am full of butterflies.

The point in all this? Sometimes I have wins in my writing and sometimes I have losses. It’s exactly like life. Things happen for myriad reasons and we can’t control them, but we can control what we do with the things we face. To be straight forward: every goddamn thing that happens to us is poetry. All we have to do is access it – the poetry – and put it on the page. We’re conduits. It’s beauty and life and love and loss and grief and everything. Notice the little things as well as the big ones. Use the wins and the struggles and everything in between as content.

Make your life into art.