I want to go to the library. I want to get pumpkins. I want to go to the dollar store. We always run out of time. I take too long to get ready, Oliver is being 3, Neil is tired and needing time to just “be” after a never-ending week. A never-ending time of being needed. I feel guilty for needing so much from him, more than what is humanly possible to give. He does it somehow and it’s remarkable. He’s going to break soon, he’s been so stoic but he’s been letting me know lately (not vocally, but I see the exhaustion in his eyes). I feel so terrible because I just want/need/ask for a lot. All he gets all day both a work and home is want want want. He is just a man, he can only be spread so thin. I don’t like being dependent on Neil to go places with me, and I don’t like making him feel bad because we don’t. I don’t like needing him so much. There’s is difference between “need” of a loving partner to give you affection and emotional support, and needing a person to help you through day-to-day stuff.
He will fall asleep if he’s sitting comfortably at any given time. THREE years ago we were in Scotland visiting family, he was working and fell asleep suddenly sitting up in a chair. He was out. We joked that he had a narcoleptic moment because there was no warning, but it was his body saying “you’re tired.” It was exhaustion both physical and mental and he’s been running on fumes since.
He feels bad to say he’s tired to me sometimes because he knows that I have constant fatigue. But I have a drug to make me feel better, he doesn’t! It’s like he lives in the shadow of my MS afraid to complain that he’s tired. I know every husband isn’t like Neil, but he is my favourite person. I feel bad for everyone because they don’t have a Neil. It was in my wedding vows (before my body did anything funny) that he doted on me from the beginning, and that’s even more true now. I’m not great at expressing myself but I am eternally grateful for Neil’s existence and how he is who he is.
I’ve joked about it before, but it’s true that I don’t think I would be alive if he wasn’t here. Maybe it wouldn’t be that extreme, but we would be SO unhappy and would struggle greatly without him.
Falling Through Physio 