Less depression though, so that's good.

"Have you been writing?"

Oh, I wish.

It turns out reentering the real world after the past year takes the creative energy away almost as much as 2020 did. Less depression though, so that's good. The energy goes toward the logistics of restarting the things that were paused, and the reevaluating of what should come back at all.

The good thing though is that audiobooks are accessible to my brain now. During 2020 that part had turned off too. The passive listening, the seeing the movie in my mind, the traveling to other worlds and other times allows my hands to focus on the task at hand: the dishes or the laundry or the moving things from one room to another. In another recess of my brain I can even mentally chew on a question or a problem while escaping in the audiobook. The friendly competition of how many books I can get through and the excitement of sharing my current read with my husband or a friend is motivating and challenging. For 2021 I'm sitting at almost 40 books read or listened to. (In contrast, for 2020 the number was two.)

So many great, and a few not-so-great books to ruminate upon and share here with you eventually, reader.

What has come back for you as life slowly returns to normal?