FROM MY LIFE

Contemplating How Life Has Changed

Sometimes taking life one day at a time forces you to stop and understand

A conversation with a colleague this past week, and a consequent remark from her, made me realized just how much our life has changed in the past two years.

My husband is not well

It’s been a while since I wrote about him, or have written anything about my coaching sessions — which are drawing to an end — or my mental health.

The latter may be because, despite everything, I actually feel good. It might be because I have changed the way I use my bullet journal, now using it as a place to write about my thoughts and feelings. I think it helps me to process difficult things.

But, as said, my husband is not well. On the fourteenth of March this year, it’s been two years since he had the stroke. Two years since they found those enlarged lymph nodes in his neck which lead to the cancer diagnosis.

He’s never been the same since March 2021.

Our life has not been the same.

Before March 2021

We were never social butterflies, but we had an interesting life and rather active life in the (take or leave) seven years before the stroke.

Dinner out with friends, frequently going to ‘our bar’ for drinks, late nights playing music, dates with like-minded people (I said we had an interesting life), intense intimate encounters between us, and before Covid, each going to the office, me 30 kilometers in one direction, and him double that in the other.

We traveled to London once a year, and here in the Netherlands, we frequently checked into a hotel, as the change of scenery fueled our fantasies, and we were free to make a noise, as we still had one kid living at home until December 2020.

Where my husband couldn’t be very active — he’s an amputee — he could go out for walks, whether to the river or to the shopping center, or when we were in a hotel, to explore the surroundings.

A different bedtime

Every Monday and Tuesday, I go to the office, and I am always there just after six in the morning. This way I avoid traffic both in the morning and afternoon, and I am home much earlier than when I started later.

A colleague asked me what time I go to bed if I am in the office that early. The answer was between 8.30 and 9.00 in the evening, and on the weekends, it might be half an hour later.

“So,” she said, “it’s so different from what it was before. Then you frequently stayed up late.”

You know, it’s strange how things work.

I knew this. Knew we’re going to bed much earlier than before. From the day my husband and I moved in together, we went to bed at the same time. I can’t imagine me staying downstairs while he goes to sleep. I never did, and can’t see why I should start now.

By eight in the evening, he’s exhausted, which is why we go to bed earlier. It’s a good thing I love my bed, and while he already snores next to me, I binge watch series and normally turn out my light by eleven (earlier when I have to go to the office the next day).

So many changes

Once I acknowledged to myself that this one thing has changed so much, the rest came flooding in.

We still have lunches and dinners out, but so much less than before. And, we frequently have to change our plans because my husband is not well.

Sexy dates? Nope. None of those anymore.

Intimate shenanigans between us? Nope.

Trips to London or even staying in a hotel in our own country? No, because he would have to be in the hotel 80% of the time because exploring is too exhausting, and that’s a waste of money.

The only thing we still do, but which we also do less, is go to ‘our bar’.

I still go out, but on my own, like my afternoons ‘doodling’ at my daughter’s, or my day trips to the zoo. And, later this year I have a trip planned to Edinburgh, without my husband.

The future, and something to think about

I know what you might think: my husband can go with me… in a wheelchair.

Yes, he can.

The thing is, he doesn’t (maybe didn’t) want to sit in a wheelchair. I didn’t understand when he said this a first time, until he explained. He’s been disabled since he was ten, and he always knew the day will come that he ended up not being able to walk anymore. In other words, sit in a wheelchair.

Naturally, he wants to postpone that for as long as possible to keep his independence.

I reasoned he knows it’s temporary if we go out for a day, but he’s afraid it might not be. He started using a cane several years ago, and he can’t walk without it anymore. That’s his fear: that it will be the same with a wheelchair.

Then we had a talk about Edinburgh, and he made a sort-of-joke that I’m going without him. I told him I want nothing more than be able to travel with him, to go out for a walk, to go to the zoo with him, but he can only walk for about an hour and then he’s kaput for two days.

I said there was one way for him to join me in all this, and I really would love if he agreed to it. I brought up the wheelchair again.

This time there wasn’t a flat-out ‘no’.

He said he didn’t want to burden me.

I promised him it won’t be a burden; it’s something I want to do. We went back and forth like that for some time, and then I said: “Promise me you will think about it. I really want to do this, really want to do things with you. Just think about it.”

Two weeks later, he admitted he would do me great pleasure to join me in a wheelchair, but it would do him no pleasure at all. I was angry, disappointed, but decided to just let it be. Just like he knows my wish about wanting to move, he now knows my wish about the wheelchair. I have to give him a chance to go through his own natural process and come to a decision which brings him peace.

Time will tell where this road will take us.

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