"Whoops. The Plague."

It's weird.

After a couple of years of trying to figure out the future, I seem to be settling into some long-term projects. The garden I envision is probably years in the making, maybe decades. The "Epic" fantasy I'm daydreaming about, ditto.

I'm settling into the notion of continuing the stores, just as they are. No moving or expansion. No buying a building. Just continuing on continuing on. My guess is, I'll probably always own a bookstore of some kind, though I could imagine selling the store and moving into a smaller space and making the whole workspace simpler.

Anyway, the last two or three years were somehow unsettling. Why?

Because, by god, I had options.

That was new. I had choices, I could go in more than one direction.

At the same general time period, I was watching loved ones fall victim to fate. Which had me wondering -- should I be trying to fit more -- activity, vacations, spending money -- into my life now?

After all the dust has settled, I think I've decided to keep doing what I was doing, but be willing to take on long-term projects. To try to fit some of that "living" into a framework of my current life, instead of trying to change everything.

Mostly, that entails taking time off from work, and trying to fit in some longer vacations.

I can't know the future. But I can start trying to shape the future, while being aware that all my plans could by waylaid by fate at anytime.

But you can't wait around for that to happen.

I'm reading a history of the Fourth Crusade. (The one where the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, a fellow Christian city). And watching a documentary on Netflix about the English Kings.

So this is maybe a reach, trying to relate it to my life. But, basically, it was interesting all the big plans these medieval characters had, all the ambition. And how often they were knocked off young by disease and war and accidents and...short and brutal lives, but they just kept living them as if they weren't going to be knocked off.

"I'm going to be King of England! ... Whoops. Dysentery...."

Because, you know, what else can you do?