i'm not sure what i should be feeling.

my grandmother is in the hospital again. she had/has cancer. it's the thyroid. they did surgery a while ago to remove it, and they knew they weren't going to get it all. then they did iodine treatments, and she stopped eating. then she was pretty much o.k. until she went to her check up, and they said that it wasn't gone.
she didn't want to go through chemo, we all knew that, but the iodine wasn't so bad i guess. so she had a second surgery scheduled for last friday (the 9th), and they said she did really well, and they got all of it, and they were going to resume the iodine soon. they said she was doing so well that they were just going to put her in her room instead of the i.c.u.
so my mom called me today to let me know that she had coded. my aunt called her to let her know. so, suck.
(a fantastic song just started playing on my pandora!)
i can't say i'm really... sad, it just seems like a shame. i can't say we were ever really close, another shame. i can't say how i feel, maybe i'm waiting to hear one way or the other. people die all the time. she believes in God with a big "g", and she's at peace with her lord (or whatever it is that gets you in heaven), so she's prepared. i mean, at the first diagnosis she was ready for death. not in a morbid sense, just in a realistic way. who knows, maybe i'm just being realistic too. we'll see.

Hello 2009?

Well, recently I have wondered the validity of "new years resolutions", and even the significance of the new year in general. I suppose for me, it's just an easy date to remember. Nothing more. It also troubles me that an entire planet uses the same event to measure time. I know there's a Jewish calendar, and the Mayan calendar, but widely, across the planet, it is the year 2009. Not to mention the several years we've lost as records-keepers were quite inaccurate centuries ago. It's not 2009, it hasn't been 2009 years since... was it Christ's death, or birth? When are we even measuring from?

Yet it is a good time to remind oneself that goals are a good thing. Fuck "resolutions". I feel this term is for the unimaginative. I was inspired by my dear friend Elfie to re-visit my goals I'd previously invented for myself, perhaps three years ago. It reminded me that there is more to life than the unfinished business here at my house. I am reminded that there are other facets to me, that I've forgotten about. Places I want to travel, things I want to see, and, well, I've never forgotten that I want to move from this shit-hole of a town.

Elfie reminded me just how crucial goals can be. Especially for the soft-of-mind. I've become very forgetful in my mothering-days. It's like a drug that takes away the peaks, like when I was in labor. At the end of the day, no matter how annoyed I was, or upset things made me, I will undoubtably say I had a good day. I don't know if it is my programming, or just that I have a blissful amnesia of the days torments. So the memory gets altered, Olivia goes to bed, and my day feels like it's really starting around 7pm. I get alone time, I get to spend time with Ezra, I get to watch a movie, check my email, do the little tasks around the house I wanted to do, but Olivia would destroy (she's a little... haphazard).

I like having substance, rules, goals, due dates, an end product. I like to be able to look at my accomplishments. I also like the fact that I am that artsy chick I always thought was cool when I was growing up. I like that my shirts have home-made stencil art on them, that I can show up to a party with a hat I made (mostly from scratch), and that people compliment my work. I like that I am that chick, finally. And my husband is freaking making guitars in our kitchen! I love that level of creativity.