The last year and a half felt a little like an endurance race without the trail. Mentally I knew how to hold on and keep going, but physically, between the masks and atrial fibrillation—a common affliction of lifelong athletes (and a lot of other people) but which felt like my loneliest problem—I felt constrained. Not free. Stuck.

As it happened, just around the time the country was preparing to open up again, in late May I went through a cardiac ablation at the hands of some amazing doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital. I have gotten a lovely medical tuneup. I now feel like a new woman. I have been handed back energy for the next, oh, three decades at least.

And so I’m looking at maps again and planning to hitch up some inclines. Eventually.

Meanwhile, our daughter got married in Las Vegas. She has a wonderful wife now. And we have a new daughter-in-law. Then our other daughter announced that she and her boyfriend will be getting married. Our family is expanding. Everything has moved from endurance to hope!

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