Home > Posts > "Weekly" Check-In: Happy New Year

First of all, happy 2025! I can’t believe it’s already been half a decade since the year of masks and working from home and half the world getting obsessed with sourdough starters. Maybe it’s just me—and maybe it’s just part of growing up—but time has seemed to have quadrupled in speed since then. Then again, I’ve kept busy. In that timespan, I graduated from college, got married, had a baby, moved four times(!!!!) and started my PhD program. Hopefully, the whirlwind stage of life is finally over, we can settle into a routine, and time will start flowing at a normal speed again—but more likely, things’ll be crazy in the next five years in ways I can’t predict. C’est la vie.

Speaking of life being crazy in ways I can’t predict, my gallbladder recently decided it was too good for this sinful earth, and I’m going to have to have it removed. The prospect of losing an organ is a strange one. I can’t say I ever gave my gallbladder much thought before it landed me in the ER with level 9 pain—but it’s been here this whole time. It formed in the womb with the rest of me. It’s been silently doing its job (and, apparently, an unauthorized side gig constructing gallstones) for my entire life, longer than I can remember. But now that it’s given up on me—or I’ve given up on it, or there has been a mutual exchange of givings-up—we’ll be separated.

If you’re going to lose an organ, the gallbladder is the one you want to lose. It’s pretty inessential compared to the heart and lungs and even its next-door neighbor, the pancreas. After the doctor stitches me back up, I’ll wake up from the anesthesia, heal for a week or two, and then go on living my life the way I’ve always done it, hardly worse for wear.

But in a small way—so small I probably won’t remember to think about it—I’ll never be whole again.

It’s a weak consolation, but the surgeon I’m consulting with specializes in robotic surgery, so it’s possible that I’ll have my gallbladder removed by a robot. It’s supposed to involve a single small incision and slightly better healing time than standard laparoscopic surgery. The future is now, indeed!

In other news, school’s started up again. I don’t have much to say about my classes, other than that I’m excited about the course material and particularly enthusiastic about a creative project I’ve been assigned in one class. Since I’m not an MFA student, I hardly get creative assignments anymore, so this is a real treat for me.

As for my personal projects: I don’t have anything to post yet, but I’m making really good progress on Elegy in B Minor and should be able to post the first chapter within the month (though knowing me, that’ll be a completely inaccurate timeline).

So, that’s what’s going on with me. I hope that you, dear reader, have a lovely year. I’ll post another update next week…or, you know, whenever.