'“Middlemarch” suggests that it is always too late to be what you might have been—but it also shows that, virtually without exception, the unrealized life is worth living.'
This reminded me of the axiom or saying I put at the top of this blog: I must not reproach myself for my unlived life. It's not my fault he's dead. I did all I could to keep him alive. Had the cancer epidemic not reached the Admiral I would have carried on going to conferences, giving papers, traveling, making acquaintances and friends. None or (to use the term as Mary Crawford says she uses "never") very little, hardly anything at all of that will happen now. I will spend the next 20 years alone.
Will my unrealized life be worth living? well I don't want to go into cold obstruction (mud, earth) and rot. If I can manage to cope with the new PC I'm having installed I can pretend to be writing a book, maybe write one and even send it to someone -- with the full expectation it will be rejected as I have learned the way to get an essay published in a collection is to know someone putting it together in the first place. There are no blind submissions.
So why carry on? for the sake of remaining sane while alive?
Miss Drake