Time flies—faster with each year…

I graduated from high school almost fifty-four years ago. Like many Boomers, I keep in touch with some of my high school friends through Facebook, yet even Boomers seem to be using that platform less and less these day.  Some of my closer friends from high school I’ve stayed in touch with beyond Facebook—periodic visits, letters, emails, a rare phone call. 

I’ve one friend who I was especially close with during my senior year of high school. He was part of our journalism group. When Don and I had our restaurant,  this friend would stop by for dinner when he was in town visiting his dad. Later, when Don and I were in real estate, we’d meet for dinner or lunch when he was in Havasu and would exchange an occasional message through Facebook.

But then time does what time does, and the years slipped away and we lost touch. It had been about ten years since we talked, and he didn’t seem to be using Facebook anymore.  I eventually made an assertive effort to reconnect. Finally, I located his new email address, sent him a long email, and he returned in kind, catching me up on his life over the last decade.

I intended to write him back, but a few weeks later our life was turned upside down when the care facility  mom had been living at was abruptly closed by the state, and she was moved to another facility in Oregon City. With my attention focused on Mom, I didn’t get around to writing that letter.

Time slipped by, and I would periodically think of my friend, reminding myself I needed to write back. Each time I thought about writing my brain seemed to be telling me it had been about five months since I’d receive his email.

I sat down the other day to write that email, and before doing so, pulled up the email he had sent me, planning to respond to it. When I did, I realized, it had been far more than six months since I had heard from him—it  had been a little over two years…two years.

That’s the thing about time when you reach my age. That conveyer belt of life starts going faster and faster the longer we live, until finally it’s going so fast you know you might fall off at any moment. 

I did write that letter. While I was initially shocked it had been two years since I received his email, I wasn’t particularly surprised. One reason, I have been giving life a great deal of thought over the last few months. Part of it was turning seventy-one in November, and part of it was dealing with recent losses; while understanding I was entering the last leg in my journey.

My last Haunting Danielle book came out the end of November, and I fully intended to take the next few months off from writing, while knowing I would be starting my next Haunting Danielle book in March 2026.  But that writing hiatus didn’t quite happen.

On December 5^th, 2025, I started writing a new book. This one wasn’t fiction, but an autobiography of sorts, while speaking primarily to aspiring authors. Since our daughter’s family wouldn’t be coming up for Christmas, and we’d be spending a quiet Christmas with just our son and daughter-in-law, it wasn’t like I had an extensive Christmas to-do list.

I wrote every day, and when done, I sent it off to an author friend, asking if I should publish the book. She read the book, told me I should publish it, and then made some constructive criticisms. I took her criticisms to heart, did some re-writing, and sent it off to another group of beta readers.

I don’t have a publishing date set yet. When it comes back from the beta readers, there will be more rewriting, editing, and then it will go off to the editor before publishing.  But I won’t be working on the project again until after The Ghost and Family Secrets is released at the end of May.

But I do have a title and a cover I wanted to share. My photograph used in the cover (above) of Write On: An Author’s Journey, was taken the summer between my junior and senior year of college, during a road trip my sister, Lynn, and I took up to Oregon.  The next summer, days after graduating from California State University of Fullerton, with a BA in Communications, I married Don. We celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in June of this year.