Where we left off….I cannot even remember, but guess who is coming home tomorrow? Big Daddy! LOL!
The amount of feelings I have all jumbled into one pit of nausea in my gut is insane. Nervous? Excited? Happy? Downright terrified? Check. I think not knowing is the worst part. Like, what if I’m working and he needs me? What if he gets tired and falls asleep while I have my back turned? What if he can’t get up and down the wheelchair ramp? Good God…what if he has another stroke, but I’m too late?
His cardiologist is waiting until after his skull flap is reinserted later this month before we address the hole in his heart that never closed when he was born. Considering his 2015 stroke, doctors knew about said hole and opted not to repair it at the time, which is beyond my belief, but who can see the future? How were they supposed to know that it would almost certainly cause a much larger stroke 10 years later?
The amount of regret and what-ifs plague my mind every damn day. I was on the verge of divorcing this man because … because why? Because he couldn’t take care of himself? Because his decision-making skills were almost non-existent by the time this second way came around? Because where he used to be the best little daddy I’d ever seen, he had decided to take the complete opposite parenting approach? No, I have to stop myself and remember that he didn’t know what he was doing, thinking, or feeling, and sure as shit didn’t know how to communicate all that stuff. His diabetes was out of control, and he didn’t give two shits to make any dietary changes or increase his exercise. He became someone I didn’t even know.
And now I’m supposed to take the past 10 years of pain, anxiety, complete misery, and shove it way down and forget all about it because… because he didn’t know any better. And because his doctors told us he made a 100% full recovery in 2015. Do you have any idea how hard it is to transition from what it was like just six months ago to what I’m supposed to feel and how I’m supposed to act now? Not just me either….our youngest has spent the past 10 years hating her father. For all of the car accidents and SHIT decisions he has made with and around the kids…he’ll never know how much of a blessing this is…how so very close he was to losing his family. It hurts my heart in every way.
I was talking to my aunt the other night and let her know that every time I think about what Derek and I had planned for the future…or for when the kids were out of the house… a vacation! [A vacation on a beach somewhere in the domestic tropics…we’ve always wanted it, never had it. Probably never will now.] [sigh] I just explained that when it’s quiet and late at night, when I’m alone, that’s when it’s the worst. That’s when I feel the weight of the world on my chest like the fat ass devil looking down at me, laughing his ass off. It’s weird how you think about things so differently. Like, our friends had a tragic event happen to them in 2016, and before this, I couldn’t imagine how our friend went through every day of his life without moving…walking…brushing his teeth. Even now, I tell Derek, “No, move your other leg, champ.” Not even realizing he’s patiently waiting for it to sink in and click in my small brain.
There’s my thoughts for the month. I’m sure in a week I’ll be singing a different tune, but for now, that’s all I’ve got. The job is good – love the people I work with. The kids are busy being teens, and Derek is coming home. What more could I possibly need?
The Real O.G.'s. 
Let me know your thoughts…