From where I sit in the living room, in the recliner, I can see the box of toys in the corner that my grandson plays with when he comes over. I can see the grandmother clock that used to hang on the wall in my parents’ house. I can see the chair that I rocked Baby Girl in when she was young. I can see that the cowboy hat my dad wore to my wedding needs to be cleaned and that the TV console needs to be dusted. The dog is in the chair with me, at my right elbow, essentially in the way as dogs tend to be.
Baby Girl has a long list of things to do today and Tony does too. But I am under no illusion that everything will get done, certainly not to my personal standards. Men and twelve-year-olds are not great at keeping a house clean and orderly. But we trekked to Wally World this morning, a task my husband hates, and now I am in pain and tired. He groused slightly when I asked him to stop and see what time the UPS store opens today. He grudgingly went into Dunkin Donuts for me. On the whole, he has been a saint, but it is not easy to do your spouse’s bidding 24/7 and he is quick to let me know that “his time is coming.” He refers to when he, hopefully and eventually, gets his lower back finally fixed up. I can’t wait, I tell him. I have zero doubt that everything I am asking you for now will be handed back to me twelve-fold as all wives know how helpless men are when they are sick or in pain. Which I suppose could be considered fair, because I for one am not as patient a caregiver as he is. I will start out patient, but I will quickly get overstimulated and overwhelmed and I will become short and cranky. Because he’s not concerned with the state of the house, the laundry, or what anyone needs to eat, he has the ability to be a lot more easy going. Or just unbothered.
But I am bothered. I am used to “taking care of things.” I want to be up, handling stuff, getting things done and staying on top of the organized chaos. I need to be outside, not just because I have horses and a property to take care of, but because I have a “sunflower” nature. I require sunshine and fresh air to be happy. I require hard work and satisfaction of a job well done. I require the hum of bees and cicadas, the foghorn call of a male bullfrog, the sweet smell of fresh cut grass, the pounding of hooves and the melodic munching of hay. Summer is by far my favorite season, and while as I get older the incessant heat becomes harder to bear, I will still insist that a summer evening sipping wine on the porch is very hard to beat, blissful-wise.
I was out there last night because a new pony came in, and I wanted to meet it. It was Tony and Baby Girl who helped get her off the trailer, set up a stall for her and hose her down after her long journey. But she is sweet and let me carefully pet her nose. It was dusk, the sun was going down, and the temperature was bearable. It was the first time in weeks I had been outside at that time. Usually I am in bed, propped up by pillows, watching The Crown with a pain pill settling in my system. I couldn’t be out there long but I definitely enjoyed the moment.
From my chair here (Baby Girl has decided now is the time to be crafty and is sitting at the table instead of doing her chores) I can hear the birds chirping outside. Winter would have been a better time for this enforced vacation from life. I certainly would not have complained had I not been able to help with frozen water troughs, frozen ground and freezing temperatures. I could have been cocooned here with the fireplace roaring, and not felt like I was missing out at all. I might have felt a little more guilty, of course, because winter is hard with horses, but I wouldn’t have been as resentful. January and February would have been the perfect time.
Alas, we do not always get to choose. At least I will be (potentially) completely healed and ready to celebrate the holidays pain-free. One of my favorite things to do, besides shopping, is to drink wine while wrapping presents in front of a cheerful, twinkly Christmas tree. So I’m looking forward to that, and to a new season of life with less chronic pain in it. I never dreamed that at 51 I would have such a serious surgery, but I absolutely knew it was coming eventually. With the x-rays and MRI’s of my neck that I’ve seen over the years there was certainly no way to avoid it forever. And now I’ve gotten a huge thing off my plate, something that will make my quality of life so much better. There’s a huge amount of relief in that thought. That maybe, just maybe, things are looking up.
The dog has shifted to my left elbow, the husband is now napping on the couch and Baby Girl has disappeared to her room where she insists she is working on her chores. I doubt it. There’s not a lot I can do about any of it so I will continue to sit here and ponder life and wish I could at least look out the window. I think it’s about time for a pain pill and a Diet Coke.