Only ever lecture me about problems for which you have a solution

I’ve been away for a while.

I’ve been busy caregiving for my disabled partner, who nearly died last March.

Over the past year, I haven’t gotten much sleep – she’s needed ’round-the-clock care, which means I’ve been up and awake each night, every 30 – 90 minutes. I think the longest I’ve slept at a stretch has been maybe 2.5 hours, when I was taking care of her.

Friends and other caregivers have come intermittently to provide respite. Getting a full 8 hours (plus) is magical. That happens between 1-3 times a week. 3 is rare. It’s if I’m lucky.

And people love to tell me all about how detrimental sleep deprivation is to your system. No shit. It’s classified as a war crime for prisoners of war. That’s pretty much what I’ve been – a prisoner of war, since a whole shitload of WWII trauma from her father is behind what caused this whole health crisis.

It’s going on a year, now, since this started. It’s old. I’m worn. And nobody better tell me about how much the body needs sleep – unless they can come to my fucking house and stay up all night with this woman, so I can sleep – and work full-time every day of the work week, which I do.

Anybody who comments here about how much I need sleep is getting their comment removed. I already fucking know it.

But you learn a whole lot, when you’re crushed into small pieces, shaken up, and coughed up again by life.

Here’s a short list of the first ten lessons that come to mind:

1. I’m a killer wound nurse. Her wounds on her feet are healing at record speed. The doctors can’t believe it.
2. Edema sucks. It also smells, when it weeps.
3. I haven’t lost my sense of smell to COVID, because I can tell when her edema is bad by the smell of it.
4. It’s possible to exist on six or seven 45-minute sleeps each night. It’s no fucking fun, but it can be done.
5. I hate my fucking job with a passion.
6. I hate a lot of shit with a passion.
7. What I hate doesn’t make any difference. It’s still there, and I still need to deal with it.
8. Rage and disgust are fantastic sources of energy. They never run out with me, and if I can direct them in the right way, I can get more shit done than you’d believe.
9. Nobody believes how much you can do in life, because most of them are too lazy or scared to push that hard.
10. David Goggins is right about a lot of things. And I’d give money to see him try living my life for a year. Would love to see how he handles pushing hard, going HARD, all day and all night, without any recovery time.

There are more – many more – lessons I’ve learned. Mainly, that this shit is not a “marathon” like some people say. It’s much, much more.