So, actually, his inauguration was January 20, 2009, which is a couple of months short of two years ago. Still, it's closer to two years than it is to one. I asked Dwayne how this happened. How in the world I lost a year of my life. Because to me, it really, truly feels like it's only coming up on the one-year anniversary. He said, "Well. You have been preoccupied with Freefall for all of Obama's presidency."
And, yes. That is true. My offer of representation was on January 6th, I accepted the offer on January 12th, Obama's inauguration was January 20th, and my book sold in May. The truth is, aside from trips I've taken, I don't have many specific memories of May 2009 to October 2010. Or maybe it's more like, the things I remember feel like they happened within a few months of each other instead of a year and a half.
It's very strange. The book has been out for about six weeks now, and I feel like I've slowly been coming out of this fog. I still think about Freefall every day, but I think about other things (like my current manuscript) even more now. And that's good news. I suspect that I'll always look back on the year that I was age 32 as my missing year; I don't remember WHAT I was doing, but I was so insanely busy and stressed that I was clearly doing a lot of it.
(I'm blaming the book because to think that this is what life is going to be like for me moving forward is too alarming to contemplate at this time!)