MENTAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH

I hate being alone…

I‘m not good at being without my husband

That’s what I tweeted far after midnight on Friday 30 July, my husband’s second night in hospital. I had tears in my eyes when I typed those words, but didn’t cry as much as I did the night before, or like I did on his sixth day in hospital.

The operation, and my pastimes

Before the operation we knew he would have to stay in the hospital for two nights. On the day after the operation they said he could go home, and then he couldn’t, because of a slight complication which needed him to be on a drip.

I slept badly that first night, and the same the second.

The day of the operation I took him to hospital, watched as they rolled him away for surgery and then went home. I was nervous all the time and even more so when they didn’t call roundabout noon, when the operation should have been over. They called an hour and a half later. I went to my daughter for a cuppa, then to the hospital to see my husband, and then back to my daughter for dinner. I was home at eight that evening and felt lonely and stuck with myself.

The next day, I had dinner at my daughter’s again, and was home at the same time as the evening before. And, feeling the same. My head was full. I couldn’t unwind. I had tea. It didn’t help. I had chocolate. It didn’t help. I watched Grey’s Anatomy. It didn’t help. I had a glass of wine. It didn’t help. I went to bed and couldn’t sleep.

An epiphany during sleepless hours

It was during those sleepless hours that I realized I might be (understatement alert) overstretching myself.

I am seeing a life coach and she’s helping me to get some insight into my own being. Many subjects come up, such as guilt and shame, but also being a highly sensitive person (HSP).

I have started reading about HSP, and some things have fallen into place, such as, but not limited to:

• Being sensitive to light, to the point where I mostly wear sunglasses on cloudy days;
• Loud noises frightening me, to the point where I want to flee and hide;
• Never tasting new foods, because I’m afraid I might be left with a bad taste in my mouth;
• Needing quiet time after a busy day.

That last point is one of the most important lessons I have learned in the past weeks. But, since I’m still learning, and it takes an effort to change one’s habits, I still tend to overstretch myself and realize too late I need the quiet time.

This epiphany in the middle of the night was an important one. I love my kids and grandkids to bits, but I need time for myself. Quiet time. And this doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t want sound around me, but more that I don’t want to feel obliged to have a conversation. My grandsons love having me there and constantly ask for my attention or fight about who’s going to sit next to me at the dinner table. It’s totally endearing, but with all emotions running through me, also exhausting.

So, for my husband’s third night in hospital, I opted to go to our regular hangout, where I sat when I started writing this. Yes, asked about my husband and I updated them, but I also had my quiet time with the buzz of voices around me and the music in the background.

We’re always together

One if my very real fears is my husband dying. I can’t imagine my life without him. Except for my appointments with a physiotherapist, the life coach and my beautician, we are together, always. I currently only work from home, and he’s not working, which means except for those personal appointments, we are together 24/7.

It goes further than only that. When we’re home, I sit at my computer, working on my site or email, while he watches television. He doesn’t mind me being busy, and I love him putting on series or movies which I sort of watch with one eye.

Once I move to the couch, he’s still in control of the remote, totally with my consent. Sometimes he will put on a series we’re watching together, or start a new movie we can watch. Other times he’s so into the movie he has been watching that I get my tablet and sit watching a series of my own, currently Grey’s Anatomy.

Throughout these scenarios, we will occasionally pause what we’re doing and talk. About anything really. The news. Family. Friends. Things that need to be done. Anything. I will make us some tea, or he will pour us a drink, depending on what day of the week it is, or what we fancy at the time.

Bottom line of all this is: we’re together and we’re content.

To top all of this, when a day is over and it’s time to go to bed, we go to bed together, mostly when he indicates it’s time. We tidy up, go upstairs, watch a bit of television, talk a bit, give each other a kiss and go to sleep.

I hate being alone

Being home alone, with my husband in hospital, I realized I don’t know how to be alone. I follow his lead, always, and I just don’t know what to do when he’s not here. What should I watch on television? Is it okay to have a glass of wine? Shall I eat a piece of chocolate? Is it time to go to bed yet?

Other thoughts come to mind too, the most important one that I have never been alone. Never.

I was a teenager when I fell pregnant and still lived with my parents. When I moved out, I had my daughter. When I got divorced for the first time, I had two children to care for. The second time, I still had my two children and my mom moved in with us. Now, our three kids are living their own lives, it means when he’s not here, it’s really only me.

And, I hate being alone.

Which brought my mind back to that one big fear: What if? What if he dies, and I’m left behind? Will I even be able to handle it?

Four more nights

It was on the fifth night I had to sleep alone that I felt the dark thoughts coming. I tried so hard to push them away, but the next day they were still there.

I cried.

A lot. Thoughts ran through my head. Is this what my life will be like when I am alone? Eating crisps and chocolates until my tummy aches? Going to bed at 8pm because I am so bored? Being so bored that I can’t write? Feeling lonely? Not wanting to call friends because I feel I should just ‘man up’?

On the sixth night going to bed alone, I told myself the same as the previous four nights: don’t expect anything tomorrow. He will come home when he’s better, when the complications are dealt with.

And I knew that, I really did, but it still just was so damn hard. Where on the third night I actively wanted the silence, by the fifth and sixth nights, the silence was deafening, even when the television or radio played.

Life lessons

I’m a positive person, and resilient, and I know I will find my way, but I hope I will never have to find out how to really live alone; that I will always have the love of my life with me. I don’t see myself hooking up with anyone, as I don’t believe this kind of love comes around twice in one lifetime, so I better have to learn how to be alone, how to fill my life with good habits, instead of the bad ones I followed on those first two nights he was in hospital.

Life is full of lessons, and life never throws more at us than we can handle. I believe that life is currently trying to teach me to trust myself, to be confident, and to know I can make it on my own if the time ever comes.

I don’t want to learn those lessons because of the implication it has… but sometimes life is bigger than us, and we just have to accept it knows what we need. Maybe life is being kind to me to help me learn these lessons now, with him at my side? So, he can lean on me, and I can lean on him while I learn them?

That’s another thing I believe, that we gain experience now, that will benefit us later in life.

For now, I just want to enjoy my life as it is, being together with my husband always, and following his lead. He is my rock, after all, the one that keeps me standing with both feet firmly on the ground. My love forever.

Also read this fictional story, which deals with my fear of losing my husband: