recap!

funny how i only ever have to recap when i've been an awrful awrful blogger... funny how you only have to stay up late doing homework if you procrastinated... funny how pie tastes SOO amazing (just had to throw that one in there).

ok... so we all know i graduated. with high hopes and lovely intentions. and we all know i'm in college now. with high hopes, lovely intentions, and permanently sore legs from ballet class with the amazing Miss Micki, the worlds most graceful gypsy.

the myyyyystery is... what happened between those two times?

well here tis.

June: i went to harmony hill... at which i studied for a math test (which i passed, with suprisingly flying algebra score colors... humm humm such a big flag for such a stupid subject) ... hung out with the world's coolest 5 year old, Kate L., (who informed me when i asked if she wanted to sit on the ground with me that "no, i don't want to make my dress old.") was the witness to 20 minutes of Davis, Gabor, and John jumping up into the air and clicking their heels (um hallo, it = AMAZING). then if i'm remembering this right i slept for the rest of the month. no never mind, i studied for that math test. and then nailed it. whaat.

July: ugh. with a happy heart, a train ticket, a new dress, a she and him ticket, and the thought that i hadn't been all that sick, it was just exhaustion giving me a fever and cough, i packed my bags and flew to birmingham, hung out with the bestest : Mary-John... and then drove on to Georgia, to stay a week or two with the best second family a girl could ask for. WHALL not so soon, life gets in the way. well, really, sometimes life sees that you're walking one direction and intentionally plays that awkward "which side are we gonna walk on" game for weeks and weeks, completely halting your known existence!!

a few days in to the visit i was so sick that i physically couldn't leave the couch without getting exhausted and so out of breath it would take me 10 minutes to recover. few things dampen the spirits more than not being able to get oneself a tissue during a particularly emotional masterpiece theatre movie. at this point i realised what wonderful wonderful people the Fulmers are even more than i had ever ever known. i can't count the number of cups of Anne's famous homeade ginger tea, the long comfortable conversations with Gabe, Chris's soul-enlightening readings from "Emma"... and ohhh whall words don't describe. them Fulmers is like human-shaped-non-gross-bowls-of-chicken-noodle-soup. ...? anyway. i wound up almost dying, yeep, getting rushed to the Atlanta hospital in what one nurse called "the nick of time" in a colloquialistic fever, and my doctor described as "5 hours before too late." chills down the spine.

so. for a week there i was in ICU isolation room, on full oxygen, not allowed to eat, room temperature kept at freezing levels because i was running brain-damage kinds of fever (which, by the way, doesn't make you feel hot. it makes you feel freezing cold cause your environment feels like ice), watching "telemundo" and selections from the odd hospital library. oh yes. and more horrors i won't describe because i don't like thinking about them. think IVs going bad and making me faint from pain... waking up every morning at 4 am when the xray techs and blood collection people came in (no, not vampires... that's not a real thing. c'est ne pas l'existe.) with my back to a window i didn't even know was there until the 4th day, after a few hours of sleep, still unable to take a natural breath, still in the same weird smelling mask, still in a white room full of machines that beep with the whiny melodramatic tones assumed by anything that keeps you alive. it's like the machines know that without them you'd be gone, and every second they feel they have to beep, to remind you... "still here! still being cooler than you! still being the reason for you! ha ha!! i win. i'm better than humans."

maybe thats crazy. anyway. i got out. i lived. food is the best thing in the world, especially when you lose 10 lbs. because of not being allowed to eat it for a really really long time. i have vivid memories of everything i ate in the hospital. what stands out most are the cookies Rachel Mundy and co. brought me. tasty tasty. and pink. and made by 3 little girls who wanted me to get better. hoorah.

what doesn't stand out that i wish did stand out better is a very foggy memory that Hayden has since told me is quite real... wherein he came to my isolation room and said hallo. ?? memory is a bit foggy there but i seem to remember wondering if he was wearing shoes.

anyway i wanted to thank everyone here for all the emails and texts i got after everyone figured out where i had gotten off to ... and for the oddness on facebook ... friends are the best. i hate sounding cheesy... but cheesy is good sometimes. especially when in context of a pizza. or a pear pie. or friends keeping your soul from dying.

and then when i got home from the hospital i went to the Grace Chapel meeting and got to sing in a dear friend's beautiful wedding. oh and i got a pretty vintage dress.

and then college started. and my life stopped being like it's ever been before.
and that brings us to today. =)