So June is officially over now, and it’s time to hold myself accountable for the goal I set for the month: to write, for at least a little bit, every single day. Did I meet this goal? The answer: I did not. Ouch. But I only fell short by one single day, and the day I didn’t write was the day—last Thursday—that I had a wild (and scary) allergic reaction to some medication I was taking and was basically incapacitated for the better part of the day. Amalie had a doctor’s appointment that morning, and by the time she got up from her first nap, I was already beginning to feel lousy.

I spent most of the afternoon in bed, and I did seriously consider turning my computer on and writing, goddammit, just so I wouldn’t end up missing a day—but I was really, really sick, like trying to decide whether I should ask Damien to take me to Urgent Care sick. Ultimately, I decided to say never mind to the goal. I just couldn’t bring myself to risk making myself feel worse just so I could get that little tick in that day’s box on my goal log sheet.

But something kind of interesting happened: late into the night, after, I think, my fever had started to break and I was beginning to believe I might make it through alive after all, I found myself lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling and composing a very short story in my head. I didn’t get up to write it down, didn’t trust that I was better enough to risk it, so the exact sentences elude me now, but I remember the story had to do with the annual Paw-Paw Festival they hold here every year and a couple of people who hadn’t seen each other in a long time attending the festival together. It was a very subdued sort of story, and I was very happy with it—you know, as a draft. Of course, it’s gone now, but that’s not important.

What’s important is that I was able to get myself into such a habit of writing every day that even when I was sick, even when I made the conscious decision not to get up and write, my mind kicked itself into writing mode anyway. There’s also a strange sort of pleasure in having composed a story in my head, then having lost it. I feel like that story was just for me. My mind was giving it to me to keep me entertained as I lay there, awake and restless, and for that, I thank it.