Dear Readers,

I hope this missive finds you well. Today, March 2nd, marks thirteen years of marriage to my wife Elizabeth. It has not always been smooth sailing. When we got married, I was on top of the world with my dream job, the respect of my colleagues, and the whole world at my fingertips. How quickly that all came crashing down a few years later. Left with serious physical injuries, and a never ending cascade of serious health complications related to them, the past several years have been taxing on us. I haven’t always been the best husband, as my job, and then the aftermath, made me kind of distant at times. I tended to bottle everything up inside. For a while, after I got hurt, I was so miserable that I took it out on everyone around me. My wife has stuck by me as I slowly came to terms with what happened, and plenty of others wouldn’t have done that. I know how lucky I am to have her and I also know that I don’t deserve her.

In other good news, Spring Training has started! After the utterly abysmal season the Red Sox had in 2020, the only direction for them to go is up. Right? Since I am still working from home, I have given myself a Spring Training goal. I plan to listen to every Red Sox game this month on WEEI, courtesy of my SiriusXM app. I know a lot of people don’t much care for Spring Training games, but I’ve been a fan of minor league baseball every since I was a kid going to watch the Beaumont Golden Gators play, and Spring Training games are essentially minor league games. Still, it is great to have baseball again, no matter if it is March or October. After all those months last year with no sports and no distractions, I don’t think I’ll ever take it for granted again.

I have nothing new to report on the publishing front as Molly’s Song slowly makes its way towards publication. As soon as I know anything more, I’ll let you know. I found out last week that I was nominated for Faculty Member of the Year at my college, an honor I am entirely unsuited for, but it is nice to be considered. Friday of this week will mark two weeks since I got my second Rona shot and at that point, I can consider myself “fully vaccinated.” Nothing will change for me though. I won’t be leaving the house any more than I normally am and when I do, I’ll use double masks like I have been doing for almost a year now. Pretty soon, we’ll hit the one year anniversary of this blog series. When I wrote the first one and caused it “Journal of a Pandemic Year,” I didn’t actually think that it would really be year, but here we are nonetheless…

So until next time, friends, take care of yourselves, and each other.

L.H.