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wRiting it aLL down

 I often think, "i should write about that", and then don't.

I often get told, "that's really funny, you should write a book", but I don't.

I know this is cathartic, and documents what I've been through and am going through - but it's hard in the thick of it to sit down and measure my thoughts and feelings and somehow communicate them in a post.  But I'll try.

This week has been hard.  A return from an amazing trip with a friend - we traveled, saw mountains, lakes, and more mountains and lakes.  We slept well and often, we drank excellent coffee, and we laughed.  I did not think about bowel routines and lifts and making sure anyone but me was taken care of.  It's a small thing, but it was a glorious thing.  The return home smacked me in the face - "can you put me on the toilet?" was the greeting, instead of "welcome home" or "how was your trip?"  I was reminded, so simply and easily, that I am a caregiver and not a wife - and that I have not fully processed this transition.

And it wasn't just getting home from a trip where i could be a person on my own - it was a friend passing as I was away and quickly having to arrange care for bob and the dogs so I could drive five hours each way, and stay overnight, to attend the funeral.  An emotional, gut-wrenching funeral that caused me to question my beliefs and faith - and then two days in HR meetings where I was asked about the funeral, and forced to have fun - and wanting to cry every time I thought about where I was and what I was doing and who was missing.

And finally processing only to find out that another friend had passed.  A friend from childhood - we drifted apart due to our parents and moves - spiritual abuse and being pawns in parents' feuds - only to find out she was gone.  More entanglements in faith, and family, more questions about this life and what its purpose is.

And with all of this, a husband/client who refuses to be patient, who cannot recognize someone else's hard time - who yelled at me and then sat in my office chatting to friends like he wasn't being emotionally unavailable to the person who needed him most.  It was too much of a connection for me - him telling me he didn't care if we solved a problem and then leaving, and my parents having done the same thing over and over and over in my childhood and adulthood.

I love you, he says, as he was put into bed last night.  It was not the time to lecture about words vs actions - and how he judges himself by his intent.  It was a time to go to bed, sooth myself like I did so often as a younger person, and maybe be glad that the harshness of childhood prepared me well for this life.

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