the trip no one wants to take

So Life can sure take you on some interesting trips when you aren’t expecting it, at all. I’m not talking about good trips, the kind you take on Spring Break with your friends or fun ones with your sister and mom (my favorite). This is the bad kind. The kind you want to wake up and remember only as a dream. Nightmare actually. My winter break was the worst ever. Wait what break? I think I had four days off before I returned to my home to find rescue vehicles, police vehicles, and fire trucks outside my house. I followed one of the police officers home. Once it turned on my road I just knew. It’s so surreal knowing something like that, when everything plays out in slow motion. Entering I found my mom, and sisters crying. Dad wasn’t breathing. Then soon I wasn’t. I recovered. He didn’t. The month from Hell followed this night of fear and pain.

His heart was saved they told us after what seemed like an eternity. Then we waited. Waited and waited for him to wake up. That night we slept at the hospital. And the next. And the next. Up to eight days. Why didn’t he wake up? A coma. These are the words you only hear on medical TV shows. A coma? Isn’t that the thing that happens in movies like While You Were Sleeping and Just Like Heaven?

His brain was the problem now. The stent fixed the heart, but all the CPR from those who loved him and those who didn’t even know him couldn’t get the necessary blood to his brain.

Thirty days. Thirty days in this state and I lost the man I never knew. Thirty days in Hell only to fall into a whole new sense of the word.

How do you survive? Not sure. I’m still trying to figure that one out. Sometimes I can go for a few days. Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes you just need to break down, to completely melt. Curl up in a ball and just listen to the rhythm of your sobs. Eventually it will soothe you. Soothe you until someone asks the dreaded question to everyone who’s not ok: “Are you okay?” Then it’s back to the sobs.

I did come back to school. A wise decision? Who knows. Functioning is not an option sometimes, but I just try to get through it. Try to wake up. Try to get up. Try to eat. Try to go to class and listen. Try to do homework. Try to read. Try to sleep. I guess that’s all I can do for now. That’s it.

Where does the time go?

I know that teachers and other advice-givers always say that one of the biggest things about college is time management. I really wish they taught a course on it. I guess I'm not horrible, I just feel like I can't fit everything in. I'm so thankful that i'm not a drinker and I don't go to parties. I don't understand how people can find time to do that and still function. I'm a little stressed between the clubs I'm in and all the school work.

Reading- I feel like this term pretty much defines my life right now. That's all I do (not by choice). All my assignments seem to be readings, either out of a textbook or separate book. It's killin me, I never knew there would be so much reading to do as a bio major. Thank heavens i'm not an english major! It's not that I don't like reading persay, but I'd much rather sit down with a calculator and figure some stuff out, or learn the parts of the body. Oh well, what can ya do right?

the glaring first entry

Perhaps it would have been a good idea to begin my blogging adventure while i was feeling inspired or even typing on a different program and copying it over. This is not the case and this white page is rather intimidating. However, i believe inspiration can come from many different sources, but since i'm new at this, what source to pull from is difficult to determine.
I'll start with my day.
Scratch that... a little about me.
I'm a freshman at Le Moyne college and unlike many of my classmates, i'm coming to find, the religious affiliaton did affect my decision to come here among other things. My younger sister intends on joining me here next year. I have 3 sisters, two older half ones and then my "twin" as we are commonly called. Kelsey, my younger sister and i are 16 months apart and don't really look all that much alike despite getting asked if we are twins all the time.
This morning began with her. Such a sweetheart of a sister, we always get along and our fights are about as common as a comet. I wake up to find an egg in the nest (breakfast food, look it up if you don't know what it is; they're excellent) and a glass of milk next to my bed. i love milk i drink more milk than you are suppose to drink water! I went home for the weekend to surprise her at her soccer game.
She went to work and my mom left work early to spend some time with me. My mom and i get along so well. Our relationship is just like that of the Gilmore Girls except my mom isn't quite that young, which i respect. Gilmore Girls by the way is pretty much the best show ever and you should watch it. So we went kayaking for 2.5 hours today just taking our time and talking, it was great. The weather was just the way i like it. Chilly, yet still sunny. The leaves are just starting to change on the river. I always have a sense of freedom when i'm out on the water. There is something in the smell of the air and watching the wind come over the surface of the water until it comes and embraces your face, letting you breathe just a little easier, more free. Of course the water itself is so inviting, yet too cold at this time to "accidently" slip off the kayak. Our adventures always include wonderful wildlife as well. Today contained dozens of turtles, some kingfishers and blue herons, as well as a muskrat.
Now back up at school sitting in my stuffy dorm room (with the best roomate ever) makes me long to be out on the water again. Tomorrow will be filled up with textbooks, scratching of pens on paper, more reading, and going out of my mind trying to memorize things that my brain has no capacity for (or so it feels like). Until then,
Erica