stabLe_hips

 This weekend was tough - we were back to having tantrums and saying mean things when we don't get our own way.   And I'm not going to talk about it or relive it - what I'm going to do is talk about how it feels when your husband changes personality and you still love them but you are in love with a version that doesn't exist anymore and it's not their fault but it's still plenty upsetting and you've already lost so much that when they threaten to leave or put themselves in a home to somehow teach you a lesson.. You have an out of body experience wondering if you say "ok" and walk away if it would be okay.  No more verbal abuse, no more living with someone who cannot love you back, no more cleaning up body fluids and manually moving them until you break ribs, and a finite, linear line to your grief. But no, you love this person - in love with an older version that seems to no longer exist - but the love remains, intact, differently, and there.  Alw...

 Outside of caregiving, I'm a busy wife and mum and puppy foster who works in learning at a major big box company that has stores in Canada and headquarters in the USA.  This year has been challenging for me, as I see us becoming more and more American (due to a change in leadership hierarchy and structure).  Let me explain. My team is great - and I'm currently on an accommodation that allows me to work 30 hours for my mental health - and I have a stepped down role, but it's still interesting and gives me the flexibility I need as I caregive to Bob.  That's all great. But our American overlords?  Yikes.  It was bad enough that our founders support Trump - old rich white Republicans that are daft as a duck.  It also sucked that many of my coworkers got dragged back into the office - commuting hours to sit in grey cubes to be on video calls in the name of culture because the same old rich white republicans think you can't manage viritually. But then the ...

It's the liturgical season of Epiphany.  I can take the Christmas decorations down, now.  Not that I couldn't before, but I like to have them up until today, for whatever reason. It's interesting to me that while I do not attend church, have an active hate-on for church as an institution, and refuse to let any of my money go to such institutions - that I know exactly when Epiphany is, did advent (albeit a gratitude project guided by coffee) and follow the liturgical seasons somewhere in my brain.  I like the traditions and comfort of old-timey religion just without the colonization, racism, and misogyny.    Oh, and without the evangelical clown show. I want to be comfortable inside of a church - an old-timey church with wood and echoes and hymn numbers up on the wall instead of a gymnasium rigged wtih a light show and pathetic 30 year olds rocking out to worship music like a failed bon jovi tribute band.  I want to find somewhere inclusive - where no one is...

 I went out for 40 minutes last night to do some errands before this morning - I had to drop crap off at Value Village, get gas, and get cash for the cleaner today.  When I left my house, the dogs were all sleeping - when I returned, the puppy was dragging around my most recent crochet project, had yarn beneath Bob's wheelchair wheels, and had taken a huge rage shit (Bob's words, not mine) in Bob's room. I often wonder why I bother. Apparently, it was a big enough insult that hu-mum was not on site, let alone the spare human trying to tell her what to do.  He threw a water bottle at her to distract her from my crochet work, and then tried to get her outside.  She turned left (into his room) instead of right (through my office outside) and pooped on his floor.  It was actually probably more work for her to poop there than outside, so a little part of me is like "yes, girl.. you show him".  The other part of me, the part that had to clean it up, is profoundly...

 Feelings are like visitors, I read.  Welcome them in and let them go. Well, isn't that sweet? This morning I tried to share my feelings with my husband, who was not receptive.  Combative and defensive is what faced me, when I tried to share my anxiety and frustration.  How I needed some of this behaviour to stop.  Instead, I was met with threats - he won't see my parents, he will only answer yes or no for the rest of our marriage - when what I was really hoping for looks more like patience and interest.   I know everything is harder for him.  I know that sometimes my feelings are bigger than his.  I know that he's a do then feel person and i'm a feel then do person.  I just wish he did.

 "Chris, the puppy's barking." I know.  I can hear her, too.  But I'm helping the PSW get you in your commode chair, then setting up your wheelchair, then bringing up towels, then grabbing my book so I can let her in and stay with her because she's not only barking, love, she's throwing up sticks and needs some supervision. But you can't say that, you have to say, "thanks" or it will be a fight. Like how ten minutes ago we were looking at your expansive to do list - after a night of racing thoughts because you likely have a UTI but the paramedic tested your catheter balloon's saline fluid instead of your urine - commenting how clear it was - indeed.  The list contains everything from "call Nancy" - your son's grandmother on his mother's side - to "discuss $10,000 with Chris" - a reference to your desire to give your mother $10,000.  We haven't discussed this, I hear, even though we have, we just don't agree...