Last night, in fact, not long after Adam came home from work, I asked him to take on the laying out of my medications. I decided that if I waited if I pussyfooted around arguing with myself, the result would probably be like many others. I wouldn’t do it. In the past, I have put off so many requests for assistance when they were clearly needed, that I know the pattern all too well. Hours spent trying to convince myself that my problem was a one off, even when it had happened several times in the past. Days trying to prove that I was up to it, that if I just concentrated totally, everything would be fine. Weeks of kidding myself, until it happens again and back to the beginning of an all too familiar circle. So almost as soon as he sat down on the settee, I asked him. I knew without a doubt that he would do it, that he didn’t really need me to explain why, as if I needed his help, he would give it. I, of course, still had to go through a discussion of what had happened the night before and to actually ask him if he would mind doing this for me. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you know inside, you still have to be firstly polite and secondly say the words, as without saying them, that final step hasn’t really been taken.

I was reasonably sure of what would happen, without any issues at all he set out my meds for me last night, while I watched over him explaining as he went why things were set up in my draw of drugs as they are. This morning also went as I expected, he was so far behind as he had taken too long in the shower or whatever, that he rushed out of the house without doing it. We will get there. I have already worked out the answer and it so simple that I wonder why I didn’t think of it last night. All we have to do is for him to sort out both my night time and the next morning at the same time, leaving my morning tablets sat in a medicine cup. As I don’t have any liquid meds in the morning, it is a really simple system and won’t have him remembering in a panic, once he gets to work. I am just waiting for either the phone to ring or for him when he gets home to apologize, something that’s not needed at all, but I know it will happen.

I suppose that it is inevitable that when you live with someone long enough, that not only do you know what they will do, but you also start to reflect each other. There is something within what I have just written, that on reading back suddenly made me realise that if we were to switch places, nothing would change. Life would actually be exactly as it is, we would still be reacting to each other as we do and our caring for each other would continue. Despite a list of reasons that have in the past and will in the future split other couples, we continue to just grow closer. I know there will be a million reasons for that, but one that stands out to me is that neither of us assumes when it involves the other and we always say sorry. Even though I can say with confidence what I believe will be Adams reaction or needs, as I am sure he can mine, we ask and we still say please and always thank each other. We also have a healthy respect for the fact that we can annoy the hell out of each other as well. No, we’re not perfect. But those four small things, somehow strike me as majorly important glue.

I actually remember reading those silly little cartoons series that were around in the 70’s called “Love is…..”. They were really simple, just a man and a woman, in Adam and Eve style, naked apart from fig leaves, but with a really cute aspect to them. There were two I remember, one was “Love is never having to say sorry” and the other was “Love is never having to say thank you”. Some might say they are right, in a way I get them, as when you are that close to each other, well the other will know, without the words being said. Just as I know even if Adam forgot to tell me several times a day that he loves me, I can see how other things might not need to be said, but saying them is our way of affirming exactly our feelings and the fact those feelings still exist just as they did the day we got married. I don’t believe that there is anything that doesn’t need to be said, choosing to do so just shows our total appreciation of the other and that even after 17 years together, we don’t take each other for granted.

I know that I don’t say thank you enough to him for all that he does, but that is actually down to him. Almost every time I do thank him for doing something I consider my job, he tells me that I don’t have to thank him. I know he doesn’t get it, but without saying thank you, there is a guilt that builds up, especially when I can see that he has had enough of lets say, cleaning the house for that day. Housework was always my job, but only because I was so fussy and as I remember him saying, I cleaned everything before the dust even settled. I know without a doubt it is a job he hates, but he does it and every now and then I still slip a thank you in and I still get told off. Being a couple when one of you is nothing more than a shape that fills a whole in the room, is hard. We don’t have what other couples have, we can’t go on holiday, or go out for the night and sex hasn’t been in our marriage for over 10 years. I could list and list all the things that we don’t have, but not one of them matters as we love each other and we never stop telling each other just how much. Neither of us is complete without the other and that is something that not even an army or illnesses can destroy. What we have will always be more than what we don’t.

The phone just rang, just as I knew it would and just as I knew he would be, he was worried that I hadn’t taken them. Every change that happens has it’s teething problems, but together we always find the answer, As long as we fix things together, solve the problems that our rather unconventional life throws at us together, then nothing can pull us apart. We’re not unique, I honestly believe that if you get through together the worst news that any couple can get, that one of you is either chronically ill or dying, or both, then you have what it takes to go on together and to survive anything life has left to throw at both of you. It just takes the ability to remember what brought you this far and will take you the rest of the way, the love you have for each other.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 14/07/13 – Walking the walk

I have so often wished that there was a machine that could record your every thought, so all I had to do was listen back to it in the morning and type my blog from my oh so perfect words, written in my mind as I went to sleep. I think since I was a child I told myself stories to help me fall asleep, back then and for most of my life they were the type of story that we all….