"So how are you doing, Cass?"
"I learned how to use a chainsaw!"
I've had a friend in for the past two weeks: he was isolated in Bellingham and losing his shit, so now he is in my guest room until close to the end of July. Aside from him, I am podded with friends from the ciderhouse: among other things, we went camping off an old chunk of the Oregon trail inaccessible without 4wd and large amounts of fortitude and skill.
Sometime before this, someone I loaned my truck to crashed it. My ciderhouse pod (or, perhaps, "quaranteam") has done significant repairs to it. It's not quite back to 100%, but certainly better than it was with the front end crunched in. The theme of this year appears to be "close-range failure of relationships and how you cope." Which certainly won't be the first time, or the last time. Life will have rather grim jokes when it will.
The thing about having lots of room for personal growth is that sometimes, the relationships you had when you were less healthy, more traumatized, more frightened of the world, don't work when you heal and grow into yourself. And then sometimes, you come back seven years later, and passing friendships have become close, concrete people you can go to for body burial, truck repair, and the good times, too.
And of course, all of this is happening as a microcosm a life lived in a COVID-19 pandemic year. It's a year of revolution and justice, combined with thousands dying.
Praise the gods, pass the ammunition, keep the home fires burning. It's been half a year, and we've half a year more to go.