This blog is alive and well at My Midden at http://www.mymidden.com.
I hope I see you there.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Marathon to Hell
The end of this shitty, exhausting marathon will be worse than the running. I always knew that, but as it looms closer, it is even more frightening.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Dream
I had this dream. K & I were walking home together from a late meeting. I was so tired that I couldn't imagine doing anything but falling asleep. Then K told me we needed to give a lift home to a frail old lady. I fell asleep right there, walking, and hit my head as I fell. I woke up in a strange dream bed, disoriented and alone, crying for my wife. Then I really work up.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Priorities and Worth.
Three months? It seems like years.
I stopped blogging because the volatility of the household made me afraid of unintended consequences. Now I'm less afraid. Things are less volatile. Anger has blown itself out for the moment.
I am now putting more of my energy, attention and time into caring than into any single other thing. I am happy with this path of love and integrity, and it isn't really a change in priorities for me. it is, however, a change in what my priorities mean in practice, and it starves time and energy from everything else. It is taking time for me to adjust to the implications of this for my relationship to myself, my family, my community and my career.
In my me-centered universe, I know that my changing ability to deliver for anyone other than K is really an Important Topic. People are losing sleep over my lack of delivery -- my lack of even showing up. Empires are crumbling. Right? Right?
Maybe not.
My sense of myself as indispensable needs some adjustment. I always tell people in professional settings that "everyone is indispensable, and yet no one is indispensable." And it applies to me, too.
Which leaves me with internal work to do. Those things that seem so important at work? Not that important, really. Not compared to what I'm doing for K. Someday, they might work their way up the importance food-chain again, but for now, I need to re-tune my internal monitor of self-worth, and that takes time.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Wise People Say
"You are going through a lot subconsciously that you don't realize you are going through," said a wise and experienced friend of mine, with whom I have shared many successful summits and cautious retreats. When I heard that, I nodded smugly and said to myself "sure, but I'll be mindful, and then I'll know what's going on inside." Which is BS. Whatever I do manage to glimpse, there is always more that I don't see. I didn't see my own misdirected anger, and my own need for control, and how they drove (and are presumably still driving) my reactions to this shitty disease marathon.
I suppose the lesson is that I should always remain open to the possibility that my reactions are being driven by some obscure process, and remain committed to responding thoughtfully rather than reacting "righteously." Like so many lofty goals, this will be impossible to perfect.
Another wise one said "you can't push and you can't pull, you can only walk beside." No control, just presence. Cancer as an extended, fucked up exercise in compassion and mindfulness. For a closeted type A problem solver, this is a slice of hell. I have trouble listening to the emotion and disconnecting from the content. I hate shit that can't be fixed.
All of which is to say that I can now look back a little on the past year and the past four months, and gain a slight (very slight) degree of perspective. And if that helps me be some of what K needs, I'll take it.
I suppose the lesson is that I should always remain open to the possibility that my reactions are being driven by some obscure process, and remain committed to responding thoughtfully rather than reacting "righteously." Like so many lofty goals, this will be impossible to perfect.
Another wise one said "you can't push and you can't pull, you can only walk beside." No control, just presence. Cancer as an extended, fucked up exercise in compassion and mindfulness. For a closeted type A problem solver, this is a slice of hell. I have trouble listening to the emotion and disconnecting from the content. I hate shit that can't be fixed.
All of which is to say that I can now look back a little on the past year and the past four months, and gain a slight (very slight) degree of perspective. And if that helps me be some of what K needs, I'll take it.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Morning Confession
Confession: I don't always go straight to work. On days when I don't have a 9 o'clock meeting, I go to my local green-branded coffee shop, where The Barista knows what I want and gets it for me with a smile. I watch people passing through on their way to and from work or the gym. I do what I want to do, within the limits of a cafe table, my MacBook Air and a decent wifi connection. I set my own priorities for a moment, and push the clock into the background. I act like there's no pressure.
This morning, I am seriously pondering not going to work at all. In my LA fantasy, I just drive to the mountains and breathe for a few minutes. Maybe I drive up to the snow line and feel the sharp breeze. We'll see. Don't rule it out. Life is precious.
UPDATE
I love the mountains, and that's where I spent my afternoon. Funny how a few trees and some snow can make me smile.
This morning, I am seriously pondering not going to work at all. In my LA fantasy, I just drive to the mountains and breathe for a few minutes. Maybe I drive up to the snow line and feel the sharp breeze. We'll see. Don't rule it out. Life is precious.
UPDATE
I love the mountains, and that's where I spent my afternoon. Funny how a few trees and some snow can make me smile.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Job Drift
I am struggling to remember that my role as carer does not make me a comprehensive mediator between my wife and the world.
There are some interfaces I need to handle, and some I can't, or shouldn't. I need to cut her meat in the restaurant, or set a pick for her in Costco, but that doesn't mean that I need to explain her behavior to friends or strangers, or try to protect her from her own impulses.
After so many years together, I feel a little joint ownership of K's opinions, plans and actions. I expect them to be familiar, even if they're uncomfortable. Cancer has changed that. The disease, the treatment, and the angst are pushing her to new, more-extreme places. And when she acts from those places, my comfort and my joint ownership are challenged. No, they're gone. My impulse is to apologize, to explain, to mediate, to do anything to get us out of an uncomfortable situation.
I am a conflict averse person. I am professionally tasked to interpret conflict and turn it into progress. Pain to progress.
Here, in Cancer, there is no progress. The roots of the pain are deep in intractable disease. The best I can do is be mindful and watch for caring opportunities. Not opportunities to avoid conflict, or to explain K away for other people, but the opportunity to provide true comfort. Easier said than done.
There are some interfaces I need to handle, and some I can't, or shouldn't. I need to cut her meat in the restaurant, or set a pick for her in Costco, but that doesn't mean that I need to explain her behavior to friends or strangers, or try to protect her from her own impulses.
After so many years together, I feel a little joint ownership of K's opinions, plans and actions. I expect them to be familiar, even if they're uncomfortable. Cancer has changed that. The disease, the treatment, and the angst are pushing her to new, more-extreme places. And when she acts from those places, my comfort and my joint ownership are challenged. No, they're gone. My impulse is to apologize, to explain, to mediate, to do anything to get us out of an uncomfortable situation.
I am a conflict averse person. I am professionally tasked to interpret conflict and turn it into progress. Pain to progress.
Here, in Cancer, there is no progress. The roots of the pain are deep in intractable disease. The best I can do is be mindful and watch for caring opportunities. Not opportunities to avoid conflict, or to explain K away for other people, but the opportunity to provide true comfort. Easier said than done.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Mr. In Between
When she's down, I need to be up. And when she's up, I want to be up. All this up is getting me down. I can't sustain the pace.
I write about this because it seems paradoxical that when her side effects are under control and her cancer is temporarily being quiet, I still feel like I should curl up in a ball and sleep for a week or two. She, on the other hand, is bouncing around and reveling in reduced pain and somewhat-less-imminent death. It may only be the metastatic-cancer-lady-with-1.5-lungs equivalent of bouncing around, but it is still not the same as a nap.
I feel bad that I can't match her, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. The sense of relief is eluding me. Upon reflection staying average is he great goal of the caring marathon. Not so low in the lows (spending), not so high in the highs (saving) -- playing the "long game." Still, when she wants to play, I have to crank up my excitement and just try to be happy, which is an effort. If I don't keep up, I can see that I am mystifying her and hurting her feelings.
I write about this because it seems paradoxical that when her side effects are under control and her cancer is temporarily being quiet, I still feel like I should curl up in a ball and sleep for a week or two. She, on the other hand, is bouncing around and reveling in reduced pain and somewhat-less-imminent death. It may only be the metastatic-cancer-lady-with-1.5-lungs equivalent of bouncing around, but it is still not the same as a nap.
I feel bad that I can't match her, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. The sense of relief is eluding me. Upon reflection staying average is he great goal of the caring marathon. Not so low in the lows (spending), not so high in the highs (saving) -- playing the "long game." Still, when she wants to play, I have to crank up my excitement and just try to be happy, which is an effort. If I don't keep up, I can see that I am mystifying her and hurting her feelings.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Lacuna
I think that my period of silence can be traced to a combination of intensely disturbing, if fleeting, episodes in the PSYWAR, rapid changes in my own moods and feelings, and a total absence of "me" time. Today I finally broke down and just wandered out of work for a couple of hours to experience idleness.
K has finished a 3rd round of Xeloda. Its side effects (HFS & nausea) are mounting, but it also seems to have given her back her lung capacity. At least it seems reasonable for me to believe that her revitalized breathing is due to some abatement of her mets caused by the X poison. The nice thing about X is that it can be easily titrated, and at least one paper relates that reducing the dose does not reduce the benefit. Long may it reign.
But more about me: rather than supporting me faithfully in my roles as carer, breadwinner, father, husband, son, brother and synagogue VP, my body is now rebelling. Prostatitis, hemorrhoids and backache have joined a tension headache that has been my own for decades. In some sense, this gives me a tiny taste of what it's like to be chronically ill, but any gains in my caring ability caused by this increased empathy are most likely cancelled out by loss of efficiency and general whininess. (You'll say "take care of yourself," and I am doing my best to exercise, eat and sleep, but there are limits to the benefits of even those magical tonics.)
One of my holiday visitors suggested that an effect of the PSYWAR (in which carer becomes enemy and is fiercely attacked) is for the carer to experience firsthand a degree of the disorientation and hopelessness experienced by the patient. It's another way of fine tuning empathy, if you can survive it. Fortunately the past two weeks have been free of this difficulty; carer and patient are working together as a team, struggling through the days.
And so I find myself bunking off work, doing yoga in the gym, soaking in the hot tub, and blogging in Starbucks. Feels good, actually.
K has finished a 3rd round of Xeloda. Its side effects (HFS & nausea) are mounting, but it also seems to have given her back her lung capacity. At least it seems reasonable for me to believe that her revitalized breathing is due to some abatement of her mets caused by the X poison. The nice thing about X is that it can be easily titrated, and at least one paper relates that reducing the dose does not reduce the benefit. Long may it reign.
But more about me: rather than supporting me faithfully in my roles as carer, breadwinner, father, husband, son, brother and synagogue VP, my body is now rebelling. Prostatitis, hemorrhoids and backache have joined a tension headache that has been my own for decades. In some sense, this gives me a tiny taste of what it's like to be chronically ill, but any gains in my caring ability caused by this increased empathy are most likely cancelled out by loss of efficiency and general whininess. (You'll say "take care of yourself," and I am doing my best to exercise, eat and sleep, but there are limits to the benefits of even those magical tonics.)
One of my holiday visitors suggested that an effect of the PSYWAR (in which carer becomes enemy and is fiercely attacked) is for the carer to experience firsthand a degree of the disorientation and hopelessness experienced by the patient. It's another way of fine tuning empathy, if you can survive it. Fortunately the past two weeks have been free of this difficulty; carer and patient are working together as a team, struggling through the days.
And so I find myself bunking off work, doing yoga in the gym, soaking in the hot tub, and blogging in Starbucks. Feels good, actually.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
The List
K is in pain, short of breath, and easily fatigued. Nevertheless, she has a 21st Century to-do list that only grows. Every entry is urgent, for obvious reasons. But is every entry important? That's in the eye of the beholder.
Due to her's limitations, The List progresses slowly, and it draws us all in. I help. E helps. Sometimes we can help but don't want to. Sometimes we want to but can't. We fall in and out of synch with The List's demands, just as we would in Normal Life. But this is not normal life, this is Cancer Life, and in Cancer Life, every success or (more often) failure carries an exaggerated emotional load: satisfaction, guilt, frustration, fear, regret.
Because The List feeds on our life force, E and I are constantly second guessing it's contents. Why this hinge oiling? Why that gift giving? Why is The List so precise in its expectations? Particularly, why does The List demand so much from Karen, when she has so little to give? Couldn't we just burn it?
I question The List silently, because I have learned that nothing good comes from challenging it. My own list is jealous of The List, and I am learning to manage that relationship. E is a teenager. All lists are anathema to his way of life. He knows that he should give in to The List, because this is Cancer Life, but sometimes he shows his frustration, which leads to recrimination, and presumably guilt.
The List and its consequences dominate our days, which is not entirely bad. Other interactions manage to sneak into the gaps, or ride along on the back List items. We watch an old movie together, snug on the couch, enjoying family time. No less enjoyable just because it is Listed. We sneak out for Sunday Starbucks breakfast, just me me K, because The List takes Sunday morning off. We watch Chelsea on TiVo because The List has already sucked all the energy out of her.
I admit it, I am a list-driven person myself. I am Getting Things Done with my 7 Habits whenever I can. I have come to understand how to purge the unimportant weeds from my list. I've learned to put resting and living on my list. I know that my list will always be growing. That's a fact of life. Of life.
I imagine that a different conscious or subconscious logic drives K's list. How could she die when there is so much shit on The List still needing to be done?
Long Live The List!
Due to her's limitations, The List progresses slowly, and it draws us all in. I help. E helps. Sometimes we can help but don't want to. Sometimes we want to but can't. We fall in and out of synch with The List's demands, just as we would in Normal Life. But this is not normal life, this is Cancer Life, and in Cancer Life, every success or (more often) failure carries an exaggerated emotional load: satisfaction, guilt, frustration, fear, regret.
Because The List feeds on our life force, E and I are constantly second guessing it's contents. Why this hinge oiling? Why that gift giving? Why is The List so precise in its expectations? Particularly, why does The List demand so much from Karen, when she has so little to give? Couldn't we just burn it?
I question The List silently, because I have learned that nothing good comes from challenging it. My own list is jealous of The List, and I am learning to manage that relationship. E is a teenager. All lists are anathema to his way of life. He knows that he should give in to The List, because this is Cancer Life, but sometimes he shows his frustration, which leads to recrimination, and presumably guilt.
The List and its consequences dominate our days, which is not entirely bad. Other interactions manage to sneak into the gaps, or ride along on the back List items. We watch an old movie together, snug on the couch, enjoying family time. No less enjoyable just because it is Listed. We sneak out for Sunday Starbucks breakfast, just me me K, because The List takes Sunday morning off. We watch Chelsea on TiVo because The List has already sucked all the energy out of her.
I admit it, I am a list-driven person myself. I am Getting Things Done with my 7 Habits whenever I can. I have come to understand how to purge the unimportant weeds from my list. I've learned to put resting and living on my list. I know that my list will always be growing. That's a fact of life. Of life.
I imagine that a different conscious or subconscious logic drives K's list. How could she die when there is so much shit on The List still needing to be done?
Long Live The List!
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Jeff's First Law
It's the law:
There's no limit to how fucked you can be.
This rule first came into sharp focus between Thanksgiving 2010 and Thanksgiving 2012. My wife's mother died and then I lost my job in the same week, people would say "at least it can't get any worse." Then the breast cancer diagnosis came in. Then my son got suspended from school. Then my dad died. Then my father in law died -- all in a period of basically two years.
Conclusion? There is no natural limit to the arrival rate of crises in a modern life. That's the "Full Catastrophe." Not something unexpected or cruel, just the statistical result of numerous unrelated, semi-random processes working independently.
From a 30 second Google search, it appears that the "full catastrophe" was first articulated by Zorba the Greek (now I need to watch the movie):
You see? Just normal life. Jon Kabat-Zinn picked up the term for the title of his book on mindfulness and stress reduction. When I can follow his suggestions, and get myself to accept the full catastrophe mindfully, not trying to fight it and push it away, I at least don't add (too much) to my own pain.
Whenever I hear someone say "you're due for some good luck now," I remember Law #1, and I remain mindful. I try not to get invested in the narrative of "it can't get any worse," because I know that's not true.
I had written much of this post before I got K's call yesterday that she had been in a car accident (no major injuries, except to the car and the flow of the day). So I just remembered the law, took a deep breath, re-routed my day and hung out with my wife in a coffee shop while waiting for a tow truck. Not so bad, really, this so-called catastrophe.
You may glean from my tone that K and I have moved on a long way in the past two weeks. That's what this journey is like. Just wait a few days. Things will change. But don't assume it will be for the better. Remember Law #1.
There's no limit to how fucked you can be.
This rule first came into sharp focus between Thanksgiving 2010 and Thanksgiving 2012. My wife's mother died and then I lost my job in the same week, people would say "at least it can't get any worse." Then the breast cancer diagnosis came in. Then my son got suspended from school. Then my dad died. Then my father in law died -- all in a period of basically two years.
Conclusion? There is no natural limit to the arrival rate of crises in a modern life. That's the "Full Catastrophe." Not something unexpected or cruel, just the statistical result of numerous unrelated, semi-random processes working independently.
From a 30 second Google search, it appears that the "full catastrophe" was first articulated by Zorba the Greek (now I need to watch the movie):
Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.
You see? Just normal life. Jon Kabat-Zinn picked up the term for the title of his book on mindfulness and stress reduction. When I can follow his suggestions, and get myself to accept the full catastrophe mindfully, not trying to fight it and push it away, I at least don't add (too much) to my own pain.
Whenever I hear someone say "you're due for some good luck now," I remember Law #1, and I remain mindful. I try not to get invested in the narrative of "it can't get any worse," because I know that's not true.
I had written much of this post before I got K's call yesterday that she had been in a car accident (no major injuries, except to the car and the flow of the day). So I just remembered the law, took a deep breath, re-routed my day and hung out with my wife in a coffee shop while waiting for a tow truck. Not so bad, really, this so-called catastrophe.
You may glean from my tone that K and I have moved on a long way in the past two weeks. That's what this journey is like. Just wait a few days. Things will change. But don't assume it will be for the better. Remember Law #1.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Little Boxes
I have a short morning commute (for which I am grateful) and a short Spottify playlist to go with it: Pete Seeger's version of Little Boxes, RHCP's Snow [Hey Oh!], and U2's It's a Beautiful Day. Not very creative, but we're not here to critique my DJing skills, we're here to talk about Little Boxes.
I initially chose it to comfort me in my chaotic life, because it makes "normal" sound so banal and unappealing. I may have a life of complexity, pain, love, and surprises; but it sure beats the ticky-tacky conveyor belt. On a strong day, I listen to Pete and embrace the weird and wonderful full catastrophe of my life.
At the moment, with my energy down and the catastrophe in full swing, the song struck a more wistful resonance. Wouldn't it be lovely to lie on a chaise longue waving languidly from the parade float of the 1950s American Dream? Sunny so-Cal and perfect pastel tract houses. Golf, martinis, summer camp and university. No cancer, no side effects, no teenagers, no college applications! That's so bad?
A strong folk song that supports me either way.
I initially chose it to comfort me in my chaotic life, because it makes "normal" sound so banal and unappealing. I may have a life of complexity, pain, love, and surprises; but it sure beats the ticky-tacky conveyor belt. On a strong day, I listen to Pete and embrace the weird and wonderful full catastrophe of my life.
At the moment, with my energy down and the catastrophe in full swing, the song struck a more wistful resonance. Wouldn't it be lovely to lie on a chaise longue waving languidly from the parade float of the 1950s American Dream? Sunny so-Cal and perfect pastel tract houses. Golf, martinis, summer camp and university. No cancer, no side effects, no teenagers, no college applications! That's so bad?
A strong folk song that supports me either way.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Squalls and PSYWAR
I remember an April day Karen and I spent on Dartmoor back in the late '80s. In the middle of that sunny spring morning, a dark squall blew in, with low clouds, hail and eventually snow. Just as quickly, the unbeatable British blue sky returned, and the sun beat down. Again and again the storms drove through, then blew themselves away, leaving a fresh-scrubbed blue world.
That's how the past 24 hours have been. Dark gusts of accusation and despair strung with intermittent deceptive domestic calm. I put down my umbrella and take off my raincoat just in time to get soaked in the next shower.
Cancer's Psychological Warfare continues.
That's how the past 24 hours have been. Dark gusts of accusation and despair strung with intermittent deceptive domestic calm. I put down my umbrella and take off my raincoat just in time to get soaked in the next shower.
Cancer's Psychological Warfare continues.
[Postscript: when the sun comes back out after a storm, it's hard to remember what all the fuss was about. Could it really have been a life and death struggle just a moment ago, or was it just a slightly embarrassing overreaction? As in the mountains, so in Cancer PSYWAR.]
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Not me. Not her.
I get hit by great gusts of anger from my wife. These days, It seems that the best I can hope for is a forced smile and an artificial "good morning." It's all down hill from there. Intellectually, I get it. Cancer sucks. Cancer hurts. It makes her angry. But cancer is not around to shoulder the blame in person. I am.
In the abstract, this transference of grief and anger to the closest person sounds manageable. Too bad I don't live in the abstract. Where I live, the love of my life lashes out at me--at my motivations, my actions, my commitment. My being is under attack from the most important other being in the world. This is not a role playing game where I stand in for Sucky Cancer and she takes pot shots at me. This is real. My defenses kick in. I strike back, making it worse. In the heat of the moment, I let my anger at Sucky Cancer focus on my wife.
Unless I can remember my mantra: "Not me. Not her."
These storms aren't her attacking me, they're not-her attacking not-me. Have I done anything that would merit this scale of attack? Not-me. Has she ever shown such venom towards me during all the ups and downs of our 30-year relationship? Not-her.
I'm not a dualist. I believe that the collection of organic chemicals opposite me is indeed my wife, but cancer, stress, drugs, and gamma knife are having their wicked ways with her. Although she desperately wants to be "normal," she is not 100% her old self. Who would be? It's relatively easy for me to conclude that she is "not-her."
It's a bit harder to remember and convince myself that the person under attack is "not-me." I search myself for faults that would justify my ending up estranged. I am not perfect. Presumably, Sucky Cancer is taking a toll on my personality, too. I am sure I have voiced painful, hurtful things that I would take back. I'm doing my best, but I'm human. Over the years, though, I've come to recognize in my life that some problems I'm involved in are intractable, and that's not my fault. Not me.
So when I feel myself under attack, like this morning when I learned that she will "never show me what's behind the mask," and "only ask you to do things when there are no other options," I work hard to remember:
"Not her, not me." Cold comfort is better than none.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Let's Get Started
My wife is dying of metastatic, triple-negative breast cancer. Barring unexpected shifts in the probabilities of life, she will predecease me, fairly soon. A crescendo of psychic pain accompanies this process, the white-hot, searing, level-1 core of pain that is my wife's knowledge of her impending death, and the lesser circles of agony that surround her and burn away at those who love her.
I'm in level 2. In my level, I attempt to abide by The Rule articulated in the Silk Ring Theory:
Dump out. Comfort in.
If only it were that easy. Having built a loving relationship for 30-plus years based on two-way, mutual comforting and dumping, switching it to a one-way street is just not natural for either of us. At this stage, she won't dump out, or let me comfort in, and I dare not dump in or expect comfort out. We are growing isolated from one another, as the disease inexorably drives us to two different destinations.
"It's a truism that metastatic cancer is worse on the carer than on the patient," she said to me last night after berating me for folding the towels wrong (or perhaps stacking them wrong. I'm still not sure). "It is a truism," she continued, "but you have no idea how hard this is for me, and if you did, you would take better care of me and do more for me." (Including never folding or stacking towels without detailed, step-by-step guidance.) This jab hurt my feelings so much that I proceeded to dump in, to engage a painful and fruitless argument.
Now that I have had time to reflect, I can agree definitively that I have no idea what it is like to have my own cells running amuck in my chest and my brain, laying designs on my liver and my heart. My body trying to kill me. No idea how it feels to know that 2020 is beyond my years, and--statistically--2016, too.
Perhaps she's right. If I did know, I would figure out how to provide my wife more comfort by never questioning her judgment and always turning to her for detailed guidance before trying to execute the most basic household helpers' tasks. I would figure out how to undo 30 years of mutual training and build a fresh relationship based on the One Way sign.
But I don't know. I have no idea.
I'm in level 2. In my level, I attempt to abide by The Rule articulated in the Silk Ring Theory:
Dump out. Comfort in.
If only it were that easy. Having built a loving relationship for 30-plus years based on two-way, mutual comforting and dumping, switching it to a one-way street is just not natural for either of us. At this stage, she won't dump out, or let me comfort in, and I dare not dump in or expect comfort out. We are growing isolated from one another, as the disease inexorably drives us to two different destinations.
"It's a truism that metastatic cancer is worse on the carer than on the patient," she said to me last night after berating me for folding the towels wrong (or perhaps stacking them wrong. I'm still not sure). "It is a truism," she continued, "but you have no idea how hard this is for me, and if you did, you would take better care of me and do more for me." (Including never folding or stacking towels without detailed, step-by-step guidance.) This jab hurt my feelings so much that I proceeded to dump in, to engage a painful and fruitless argument.
Now that I have had time to reflect, I can agree definitively that I have no idea what it is like to have my own cells running amuck in my chest and my brain, laying designs on my liver and my heart. My body trying to kill me. No idea how it feels to know that 2020 is beyond my years, and--statistically--2016, too.
Perhaps she's right. If I did know, I would figure out how to provide my wife more comfort by never questioning her judgment and always turning to her for detailed guidance before trying to execute the most basic household helpers' tasks. I would figure out how to undo 30 years of mutual training and build a fresh relationship based on the One Way sign.
But I don't know. I have no idea.
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