Counting my chickens

I’ve been very grateful in the last couple of days for the normal everyday existence that’s been possible while my partner has been well.

These are perhaps things that it would be easy to take for granted. And maybe, if he stays well, I might start doing that.

I’m going to list a couple of them here so when things have been good for a while I’ll remember how precious they are. And when things are bad I’ll remember what’s possible.


*I have a cold at the moment so yesterday my partner dressed our son, gave him breakfast, took him to daycare, picked him up and brought him home, ordered takeaway for dinner, and then went out to get me some medicine.

These things each taken on their own would be a big deal when he’s down. He might manage one thing maybe but there would be a lot of stress involved. There is no way in hell that he could have done this a couple of months ago.

*He called me a couple of times during the day to see how I was feeling.

When he’s down he really doesn’t have the capacity to think about how anyone else is feeling, and he can’t handle if I’m not feeling well. Most frustrating – he always has to be sicker than me. It can never be my turn to be looked after when he’s feeling low.

*He apologised for being a bit cranky about having to rush out at the end of the evening to buy medicine from the chemist.

When he’s down if something really needs doing (and there’s no guarantee that getting medicine for me will qualify) he’ll do it begrudgingly. There is no sense of generosity. Anything done this way is a bitter pill. I’d rather not have it.

If I think about it, I can see that the love is evident simply in the doing of the thing. The other stuff is like… struggling with a simile here… well, it’s like snot really. (Of course as I’m sitting here sniffing through a miserable summer cold this makes a lot of sense. Bear with me please.)

But it’s like all this stuff builds up around him when he’s down. It blocks his usual generosity, his ability to do things. It makes everything harder.

And as I sit here swearing at the roll of toilet paper that’s rubbing my nose raw because I don’t have any tissues, I realise that it’s just hard to do anything in this state and it really does help to whinge (or at any rate, nobody better try and stop me from doing it).

Anyway, he set off for the chemist in a cloud of grumbling and door slamming and scowls. But on his return I got an apology. Now that is the sweetest thing of all. He was just naturally tired and over it. It wasn’t depression. It was just a guy being tired at the end of a long day, losing his cool a bit, and then saying sorry to his girlfriend for taking it out on her.

Wow.

You know, it could be something in these cold and flu thingies, but things are feeling pretty good right now. (I think there’s Valerian in it, might explain something.)

What about you? Is there any of the normal everyday stuff that you’re really grateful for when it happens?

Flo