So. Remember that time I fell off my bike and damn near lost an eye?

Yeah, me, too. Believe me, I remember… well, I don’t remember most of it happening. The parts that I do remember are seared on my brain, still easily pulled from my beat-up memory. The parts that I don’t remember are, I’m told by the concussion specialist, lost forever. Black holes where I know something ought to be.

Occasionally, I reach for those black holes, but there’s nothing there. It’s like that moment in the Luray Caverns when they turn out the lights and there’s nothing… but this is even more absolute than that because at least while you’re in the unlit cavern, you are aware of your heart beating, your breath. You are aware of you.

These black holes are truly nothingness.

And it only took almost two years, but I can finally describe what I see out of my damaged eye, when I close the good one: the wallpaper pattern doesn’t match up. There’s a skip, a jump, an outline of a figure that’s not perfect. Go look at badly hung wallpaper and you’ll see what I mean.

Thankfully, that goes away when I open my good eye. Life is seamless again, as it should be. As I took for granted before this all began. And maybe that was the point of it all: to see the world differently, because — for better or worse — I certainly do.

Two years… it’s a long time. But I’m here, I’m working, I’ve got this down to a science and any of my clients will tell you that if anything, I’m more sharp-eyed than ever. That’s the most important part, I think. What I have to offer my clients has only gotten better. And yes, I continue to be able to take on new projects, written by new authors. Or new projects written by clients who drifted away after my accident, for whatever reason.

Let me help you make the best book possible. But let’s start tomorrow. Some anniversaries… they need to be observed quietly, introspectively. This is one of them.

So where have I been?

Busy. Lots of clients cleaning off their plates and wanting to launch books prior to the end of 2016. Which means that as we get further into December, my queue is strangely empty. C’mon and fill that right on up, will you? ‘

And, of course, we can’t end the year without more surgery, right? The cataract needs to come out so the original surgeon can keep an eye on the damage behind it, and so the concussion specialist can determine if the migraines that continue to plague me are related to the TBI or if they are related to my attempts to see through a cataract the size of Texas.

This one scares me, in a way that nothing up to this point has. I’m having a hard time being my usual optimistic self about it.

That’s because it’s up to my eye. Either the filaments that hold my cataract-filled lens are in place or they’re not. And if the cataract surgeon saw signs that they’re not, he’s not talking. But my original surgeon will be standing by, just in case.

Because this can go THAT badly. Another retina tear. The lens falling into the back of my eye. More vision loss. Another gas bubble and no driving for 8-10 weeks.

Or… it can go absolutely swimmingly, be a fifteen-minute procedure, and no driving for 24 hours and then a slow return to my crazy life.

My response to this isn’t merely to be scared out of my wits, terrified like nothing else has ever terrified me. Nope. It’s a restlessness, a need to put it behind me, to get out of the holding pattern of the injured, and move forward. Explore new things. Embrace new hobbies and people. To be outside more, despite the weather.

There are some pieces of this already in place, but they are personal and don’t affect work (yet), so we’re not going to talk about them. On the radar is fixing the temperature problem in my office, so I don’t freeze in here all winter and sweat all summer. But that’s on the radar, and only worth mentioning because I’m sure there will be disruption to my day-to-day process when this gets going. Because one can’t work in one’s office when it turns into a construction zone.

Feel free to distract me over the next not-quite-two-weeks. I keep trying to soothe myself by saying we’ll know the results of the surgery in less than two weeks, but… it’s not helping that much. Better to bury myself in a manuscript and lose myself in work.

Fill up my queue, folks. Right now, I need you maybe more than you need me. And if you’re writing, you need me. Believe me. I’ve been reading a lot more lately and… I’m kinda sorry I have been. People need me.

Fill up my queue.