Everyone is going to get tired of me writing personal missives, but it's not every year that a couple makes 40 years together. We'll be there on the 24th of this month. Tomorrow. When I’m going to get everything done.
40 years is the blink of an eye, really. But it's kind of a big deal to me. I've never been married that long before. Hell, I've never been married but once. This man.
And we've had a good life together. Couple kids. A really hot car. A paid for house. Some fantastic vacations........Hoover Dam! (Inside joke...for some reason the 3 year old didn't like me reading the mileage signs while road tripping, and she'd scream, "NNNNnnnnoooooo!" every time I said, "Hoooooooooover Dam." Every 10 miles, I'd read, she'd scream. For 150 miles. The boys would tell us to stop it. And we would. Til the next sign.)
But that's not really what I wanted to go on about this morning.
It's Stoopid O'Clock here, but I've already been up and made some coffee.
Which (finally) brings me to my point. When we were first married, I mostly did the housework. Even today, Honey's never cleaned the bathroom, but he was pretty good about doing dishes if I cooked. Mostly, though, housework fell to me, because, I dunno, that's the way it Used To Be? And all my friends know that I'm a shit housekeeper; the house isn't a health hazard, but Mrs. Particular About The Tile Grout I am not. Also not sorry.
Then a few years ago, Honey got sick. Like really fucking He's Gonna Die Sick. I moved into the hospital with him. Me, a vicious little pit bull, just snarling by the side of his bed, making sure nobody hurt him more than necessary. Scared to death. Fear aggression. I never went home except to take a shower every couple days. Our son came over and mowed the yard for us. The bushes ran riot til one day, I took the hedge trimmers to them; 30 seconds into the attempt, nicked my leg. Decided the bushes would wait. Already one man down, I don't need no stinking stitches. No more.
Then when he came home, it was still Take Care Of Honey All The Time 24/7. And the man literally couldn't do anything when he came home. Just standing up was an extreme act of will, a feat five minutes into the making. I didn't care. Just. Keep breathing, okay? Please?
I was convinced he would die in the amount of time that it took me to throw laundry into the washer. Still fear aggressive. Yup.
And he kept breathing. Everything else in the house was my job. His was to keep that breathing thing going and to try to get well. He did his job magnificently; I bumbled through the day in a semi-psychotic rage over everything that had happened to him, the fucked up surgery, the sepsis, the wound dehisence, the wound vac, the food, the bathing, well, let's not go on. It rekindles the Rage. Anyone who's taken care of someone who needs help understands how much work that is. It's love, but you know, love is work, it doesn't just lay around and wait for you to take advantage of it; you want to keep that love, you have Stuff To Do. Love could leave in a heartbeat. Less.
I think it broke me a little bit. I sure feel like life hit us both really hard with a Mean Stick. Honey got mostly better. When he came home, he was told not to pick up anything heavier than a glass of water. By the next year, he could pick up heavier things than I could. His brain is broken, too, we're both kind of shipwrecked, but Honey is my hero. He's keeping us together now.
Know what I do around the house now? Not shit. Not one thing, aside from the bathroom and running the vacuum. Honey does it all, he cooks, he cleans, he puts things away. All of it. Somehow he understands that I literally cannot get my shit together enough to plan meals, to cook, to take care of the cats; full stop.
It's completely dark out when I decide I want coffee this morning and I creep out to the kitchen, quietly. The dishes are done; stacked neatly, the sink empty and clean, counters wiped down, my coffee spoon exactly where it always is in the drawer; I can find it in the dark while frantically shushing Big Orange, who wants attention Now. “SSsshhhhh,” I tell him, “You can’t wake up The Man for another 5 hours!” The trash has been taken out, the floor swept, everything. Better and cleaner than I ever did.
There isn't such a thing as "Tag You're It" in marriage. Either the two of you make it work, or you don't. Yeah, I held it together for us for a couple years. Barely. But Honey is doing all the work now. He doesn't say, "My turn," but I can feel him thinking it.
That's a good marriage. Only one broken person at a time. It's been 4 years since this horrible thing happened. We didn't break. We bent, together, holding tight to each other, riding the storm out.
I can almost see the sun now. It's a glorious morning.