so it is.

My grandma died this weekend. Saturday night, at about 10:15. A few hours after I left the nursing home. I wish I had stayed. My dad was there, by himself, when his mom died, and somehow that feels wrong to me. But the thing about living in the nursing home that my grandma was always afraid of was dying alone. That was the one thing that she really, really didn't want and so I am glad my dad was there. He spent Thursday night there on a sofa, and my uncle spent Friday night, and Dad was going to spend Saturday night.

I miss her already, in a way that I'll never miss my grandfather. I had very different relationships with them. My grandma's family was her whole world. Her kids meant everything to her, and in her eyes they were pretty much perfect. Approaching that, she adored her grandchildren, and that includes me. It sounds conceited to say that she used to light up when my brother and/or I would visit her, but it isn't. It's just that her family was so precious to her that visiting members made her whole day. I don't think anyone is ever going to love me as unconditionally and think of me so highly as my grandmother did. She waitressed until she was well into her seventies, and she used to keep all of the change from her tips and take turns giving it to me, my brother, and my cousin. I think the container full usually came to around $15, which seems like a small fortune when you're six.

She was the kind of grandmother that I wish everyone could have. We used to spend a lot of time in the summer out at the lake. She was a terrific gardener - she had one of the greenest thumbs of anyone I've known. I never used to eat fruit, hardly ever, but I liked her raspberries. I have an afghan that she crocheted for me years ago, and I loved it so much when I was little that I used the colors in it as the color scheme for my bedroom when we first built our house. She taught me to crochet, and I wasn't bad at it, but I haven't even tried it in so long that I know I've forgotten how now. She was a great cook, too, and she never failed to cook too much. She didn't care for leftovers though, so there was seldom any chance of leaving the table until she'd coaxed you into having a second, or even third, helping of just about anything.

Her cookie jar, at least in my memory, was never empty. Usually it was full of either molasses cookies or chocolate chip. I used to lie to my parents in the summer and tell them I was going up to the house to go to the bathroom when really I was going into the empty kitchen to sneak a few more cookies.

I really think she's in a better place now. She was tired, and she didn't like living in the nursing home, although she loved most of the people who worked there.

Church was hard on Sunday. It was therapeutic, but then everyone's condolences came after the service, and it was hard to hear them without bawling all over the place. I continue to cry in random spurts, but they seem to be getting a little shorter, which is good. I haven't done much sleeping either. But it will come eventually.

The funeral is Thursday evening. Any thoughts and prayers for my family, especially my dad and aunts and uncles, are so much appreciated. It has been hard enough losing two grandparents in three months; I cannot imagine losing both parents in that time frame.

quick update.

I am very glad to be finished with j-term. I'm not technically finished, as I still have a 3-page paper due, but I'm done going to class, anyway, which is something. I'm ready for spring term to start. I need to be busier. I need to not have enough time to even lay awake at night and think. I'm a workaholic at the age of 21. Sad. Although, in the name of saving my sanity, I am dropping my senior seminar, so I'll only have 14 credits instead of 18. I really like the idea of the topic that is going to be offered in Moorhead's class next fall so it should be interesting - hard-boiled detective fiction as senior sem. what fun!

I'm headed home for the weekend. The good news is, I'll get to see Ashley and I will get to see JOE!!! Who is now home. How I have missed that boy! The bad news is, by all accounts, my grandma is dying. I know I couldn't expect her to live forever; she is, after all, 93. But she is the only real grandparent I have left, and now it sounds as though I'm losing her 3 months after losing my grandfather. I think it's selfish of me to be so sad. She's had a long full good life and she is tired. But oh how I love her. So many happy little-girl memories of mine center around that woman and the lake and her cookies and raspberries and her gardens and her love. I cried for a long time last night. So. I am going home to say goodbye, presumably. We've been worried before and she has come back, but my parents don't seem to think that is going to happen this time around.

I am tired of going to funerals. I think I have had enough this year.

issues.

I have so many of them. I've been feeling...tense, to say the least, lately.
Firstly, it's just been rough being back at Hamline. Do I love Hamline, and do I love my friends here beyond everything else on this earth? yes. But that doesn't make it totally easy being back, either. As I said in my last post, there's plenty of things I miss. I know I'll go back to England someday, and probably someday in the not-very-distant future, but I wish I could just go back whenever I wanted.
Then there's the little pressure-builders: filling out my intent to graduate form, trying to figure out how I'm going to cram a religion minor into the next three semesters, changing advisors again, worrying about a summer job and an internship, struggling to understand the readings for my feminist philosophy class, etc. I know that none of these are life-and-death issues, especially not right now, but already the idea of being a senior and graduating is starting to frighten me. I make jokes all the time about being an impoverished English major and how I'll never find a job and always be poor, but it's honestly something I fear. I WANT to work in publishing, I really do, and I don't really have any idea how I am going to accomplish that. I guess it's one more thing to add to the list to talk to my advisor about.
And then there's another, much bigger, much more profound issue that I cannot get off of my mind lately. It's absolutely not something I can discuss in any amount of real detail, partly because it's just too personal and partly because I don't want to talk about it, because I want it to have never happened and because I hate even thinking about it. And talking about it seems like it would make it even more real and bring even more of it back and I just don't want that at all. It's something I really thought I had dealt with and that I thought I was finished with, and I haven't even thought about it that much recently, but owing to certain events of last Friday night and some of the topics we've been discussing in my J-term, it's returned to my mind in full force and it's eating away at me, slowly gnawing. It's put me in this bizarre mood where I keep just feeling hurt and alone and sad for no real reason that exists anymore. It's something I've only ever told two people about in my entire life, and it happened a long time ago, so long ago that it seems absolutely absurd that it should be taking such a predominant place in my mind recently. But I can't seem to get rid of it.
Wow. How's that for being a downer?
Sometimes I think I think far too much.

adjusting.

I am slowly starting to get used to being home again. Sort of, anyway.

J-term is in swing - my first paper is due this Monday and I have, as of now, no idea what I'm going to write about. I have to do a 3-page analysis of one of the articles we've read for class and I'm really not sure what to say. I never know what to say. This is one of my great problems in life. I can never think of what I truly want to say until it's too late. Also, although my Feminist Philosophy class is very interesting and I really am enjoying it so far, it is an oral-intensive class and I can't think of anything worthwhile or even remotely intelligent to say in class. I occasionally think of things later, but by then it is obviously too late. I hate that.

There are things about England I really miss. I miss the accents, I miss my morning coffee with the coolest barista ever, I miss the cobblestone streets and the row houses and the tea and the university library. I do not miss the stupid ducks and geese, or the rather plain dull buildings on campus. I kind of miss the schizophrenic weather, and I miss a few of the people, and I miss the radio stations and I miss walking by ponies on my way to class every day. And it isn't even so much these things I miss as the altogether feeling of being there - I miss more than the sum of these parts.

It is, however, good to be home though. Last night I was out with Mel at the Triple Rock, which was good times and good music and then we saw Malin for a bit, which was really needed, and she leaves for Sweden soon which makes me sad even though I know she'll have a wonderful time. I shall miss her much.

And Thursday night, Mal and Tommy and I went thrfiting and I came back with books. 3 from Goodwill, 3 from Half Price Books. When I am going to find time to read these, along with the 3 books I ordered from the public library and in addition to my J-term reading, is totally beyond me, but I'll find a way. I always do. There is nothing I love so much as being able to talk, really talk, about books and feel that another person understands just what I mean, which makes Tommy awesome. And if you are reading, Tommy, yes, I mean you. And then we went for ice cream at Grand Ole Creamery and I ordered the most disgustingly, deliciously sweet sticky sundae and relished every bite. Yum.

Also I had lunch with Ken on Thursday, which was fun except for the part where I was an idiot and forgot my wallet so that he wound up paying. Oh well. I'll fix that next time by paying myself.

People just keep paying for me. I had lunch with Ashley today, too, which was wonderful and so much fun and she insisted on paying, the ridiculous girl. It's amazing how sometimes I don't realize how incredibly much I miss people until I see them. It was the same last weekend when I saw Mary and Jake and Petey.

I still have so many people I want to see! There is never enough time. And I hate having class in the afternoon because it means I never accomplish ANYTHING in the mornings. I know I should get up and do stuff, but I just never actually do.

I'm settling into my new place (Mal's old room) pretty nicely. It's really a nice house, and the room is tiny but it's cozy and soon I'll be too busy to do anything in that room other than sleep (and even that's questionable at times) so it's just fine. The people I'm living with seem really really nice, although one of them is a bit reclusive perhaps, and rent and location are great.

I'm looking forward to spring semester. I take a kind of sick pleasure in being so busy that some days I really DON'T have time to eat or sleep much. Why is that? I am insane.

On that note, time for bed. I think I got to sleep sometime around 4 am yesterday, and now I am tired.

This has been said before by many and may seem insignificant, but it is so true. I love you all.

Good night.