Art...

Totally just needing a break from life... I've started doing some "art". I hesitate to call it art as I'm no artist. I read a blog of an actual artist, who said she preferred to call herself a "maker"... and I like it (the blog is Knickertwist's... and she's awesome!). She and another blogger (Fancilicious Fairylands) inspired me to try some stuff on my own... I imagined this to be a "shrine" to our garden fairies that will hopefully bring with them many butterflies this year (remember the butterfly garden??? Yeah... I didn't really either... it's currently buried in weeds in my backyard)...

And I started working on a few dwellings for our indoor fairies too... a "forest" house and a "beach shack"... because every fairy needs a good beach shack!

And, to be totally honest... I've just been needing the escape... because that decade has passed since I last had to face the inevitable pacemaker surgeries... and Friday I find out when the next will be. Three months ago I had 3-8 months of battery power left... and here we are.

It's been hard to face doing this again... having the replacement surgery. I've really been avoiding the whole topic... hence the art and escapism, I guess. But the truth is, it's time. I don't want to be too melodramatic about it... the replacement surgery isn't bad... outpatient... I get to sleep in my own bed. It's really that it reminds me of 20 years ago... getting that first pacemaker... and all of the hell that was. One day I was a college student just getting through finals... and the next day I was a patient in cardiac intensive care... people worried for my very life... and me not sure what to make of it. I look back on that time as steeped in fear, my own and other people's... a profound powerlessness... and constant uncertainty. Those are the feelings that come back to me when I walk into a room to be prepped for surgery... even though that's not what's happening in this moment.

So here's a test... can I be in this moment, where the surgery doesn't seem so hard to face... where it's an outpatient procedure that will only take a week or so of recovery... where I have my family and my kids... and no one fears for my life. Can I take this space into the hospital... when they take my clothes and all of my stuff from me... when they lay me on a gurney... give me the IV... and smile as they give me the anesthesia? I don't know... but if ya'll will think good thoughts for me when it happens, I'd much appreciate it... I'll let you know when it's going to be...