I had a weird occurrence last night. My husband called it “weird by Cutter standards” which is honestly saying something.

I took one oxycodone pill around 8:45 PM, then was in bed by 9, probably asleep by 9:30.

I woke up around 11. I was too warm, sweating through the sheets. My heart rate had jumped up to 98 beats per minutes.

Took me a few moments to figure out the weirdness.

My knee didn’t hurt. I had no pain.

There was minor pain when I pressed along the top of the scar. And I couldn’t bend my knee as far as I would have wanted to.

But there was NO PAIN. None.

It made me realize just how much pain I’ve been in the last couple of days. I’m mostly just taking aspirin and Tylenol, with only a single oxycodone at night.

I haven’t been writing the last couple of days, and I realized that partly I couldn’t write because I was being so distracted by the pain.

It was surreal, lying there and not having any pain. I thanked my body for providing me with this preview of what it’s going to be like in a month or so, and fell back to sleep much faster than I normally would.

This morning, the pain is there, but it’s back to the stretchy pain, not so much hurting or aching.

We had a Life Roll last weekend and I abused my poor knee a bunch. It’s taken me two days to recover and kind of get back to where I’d been before the weekend.

This coming weekend, I’m going to Orycon. I need to remember that it’s going to take me (AT LEAST) two full days to recover, and to be gentle with myself in the meanwhile.

Dean Wesley Smith just posted his 70@70 project – publishing 70 titles during his 70th year.

Me? I’ll be 60 in a few weeks. Not sure that I’ll manage a 60@60 project…my brain just isn’t back yet. But I will try to do something special for 2022.

I was looking at project planners recently – thinking about getting back into the groove of things. However, just thinking about starting something like that for November or December left me tired and depressed, not energized and excited. It was a good sign that I’m not ready yet. I’m going to honor that, and instead of push, keep with my simple To Do list with no dates attached, just absolute priorities and enough time to finish things ahead of schedule.

So what about you? Have you started looking ahead? Making plans? Or is it too much, or too soon?