It’s been almost exactly a month since my last post. In some ways, it feels like a decade and in others I feel like I blinked my eyes and the weeks passed.

My dog Pawley passed away this month and I ache for her in a way I can’t quite explain. I’m still spending most of my time on my parents’ farm (caring for my mom who cannot walk without crutches right now), and at night, after I’ve cleaned up our dinner, I go outside and stretch out in the grass to look up as the stars start to appear. That’s the time of day I allow myself to think about Pawley.

I also sold my house this month. Or, at least, it went under contract. The real estate market felt like the perfect time to sell a home, and so I did some deep cleaning and a few paint touch-ups, and crossed my fingers. 36 hours later I had a contract and started apartment shopping so I won’t be homeless while the new house is being built.

Speaking of which, the new house is making progress. Not fast enough for me—I’m ready to get to the fun stage when I can actually see the view from my bedroom or pick a paint color for the kitchen. But I’m trying to enjoy this moment of really thrilling things like choosing exterior door handle colors and mildly panicking over erosion in the landscaping.

So, that’s been my month. (Well, that and the rest of my normal life.) Nothing really feels normal this year, but there’s something oddly comforting for me about feeling busy with things outside of work. It feels like “the before times” when things were happening outside of my computer screen.

And there’s something so gratifying about creating something new right now—a house, a different life—in a year when the old version feels like putting on a pair of jeans that don’t quite fit right anymore.

And so that’s how I’ll think of September 2020—the month I started to create the next iteration of my life.