A year ago I began this adventure… I loaded up a few things I care about into my VW and started driving to Denver. If Google Location History is accurate, about this time exactly I was rumbling across the Oregon Desert and getting ready for the potatoes to not eat me.

It’s been a strange year. My health is better than it has been in months, maybe over a year. I have a great job, amazing cow-orkers (Matt has built one hell of a team out here!), a stable place to live, and plenty to keep my occupied. On the downside, I’ve lost about a fifth of my right foot, I need to walk with a cane most days to stay stable, and my blood sugar levels have been “controlled”, but still hover around 200 (which is double what it should be). I have a BiPAP machine to help me sleep, although admittedly I’m still getting used to the infernal thing.

I miss Oregon. I miss friends in Portland, Eugene, and Bend. I miss driving to (and through) the Gorge. I REALLY am missing the coast lately, as one of my favorite things to do on hot days was disappear somewhere out that way. I miss Grocery Outlet (we don’t have them here in Colorado), and I’m sick of driving to Colorado Springs just to get my Bros brews.

But life is good again, if sometimes a little “weird” (which for me means the stuff that “normal” people do every day, like make a car payment and worry about how the rent is getting paid).

I still have money glitches every once and a while. Lots of medical bills and hospital stays the past year. But as long as this cable company keeps me employed things are ok.

I may not always show it (after all, my patron saint is Grumpy Cat), but I’m really appreciative of the life I have today and I wonder how I survived the past two years after my heart attack. There were days I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive: between the dizzy spells, the heart palpitations, and the lack of any kind of money to eat it was a lot to endure.

But I am alive. I am doing well. I am even thriving here…