As the year goes by...

I am now half of the way through with my intern year, and I'm not sad that its going by fast although the road ahead doesn't exactly look any less crazy. I finally feel a bit settled and thankful for many experiences and people that have come into my life so far.  I am trying to start this year with a non-negative attitude.  I know I can't be just happy all the time, that's both impossible and ridiculous but I'll seek to stay away from the dark side.  I don't consider this a New Years resolution however, I just consider it a result of me being tired of how I felt and having a few days to regroup.  

I went to my in laws for Christmas.  It was a surprise - we didn't want to tell them just in case something came up at the last minute.  We drove 14 hours to get there!!!  But the drive was great for me, I got a guaranteed 28 hours alone with my husband - pretty much impossible otherwise - and I got too be outside.  Outside of the confines of the hospital and outside of the boredom of this little town that we live in.  I needed this.  Our destination was warm and sunny and even though this is a newer addition to my family I got to be taken care of in a way only a mother can take care of you. We drove back a day before I had to be back to work to start a painful few days of nearly constant call over the New Years holiday.  And on that day before going back I got my Christmas gift . . . a day at the spa.  My husband had gotten me exactly what I wanted Christmas - calm.  It was such a thoughtful gift and it did the job, his thoughtfulness alone makes me want to hang on to the feeling.

Lastly, on our drive back from celebrating Christmas with my husbands family we stopped in to see my grandmother - my fathers mother who I see less often just because she lives so far away.  She was currently in a nursing home - only briefly as she rehabbed after surgery.  She is wonderfully stubborn and refuses living anywhere but in her own house so this was a big compromise for her!  It was her 80th birthday the day we saw her and she looked great.  We talked about normal catching up stuff and then got to the topic of her surgery, she had just had her colon removed.  She looked at me more proudly than I can ever remember as I examined her incision and a small portion of it that hadn't healed.  I reassured her that she didn't have to stop living her life just because of the surgery.  I never felt happier to know exactly what I know.  I never felt more driven to keep going.  I now have something real to work towards, something that matters . . . I want to live up to the vision of me I saw through her eyes.