Care

I'm feeling lonely.

And feeling sorry for myself.

I've caught some minor plague from my daughter and it has me tired, and tired isn't a good idea when I'm already feeling sad.  Depressed.

One year is ending, one beginning, and I don't care.  It's just time, sliding away, sliding past, slippery and ungripable, both dragging me with it and leaving me behind.  I feel lost in it, swirling in its eddies then yanked into the rushing currents, and always breathless with the awareness of it all and wishing I could stop, or pause, and rest in stiller waters for a while.

I cannot recall the last time I felt the warmth of being taken care of.

This is what I'm feeling sorry for myself over.

I don't feel like I have been taken care of in a very long time.  Not that I need much of it, but sometimes, when my throat is sore and my nose stuffy, and I'm tired and feeling low...yeah...sometimes it'd be nice if someone made me soup.  Or sat next to me and stroked my hair and soothed me a little.

The last time I was sick, really sick, good and sick, I wound up in the hospital.  My mother was watching my children with the help of a friend, but my partner...well...he wasn't doing much.  When he finally came to visit, it was a very short visit, and I could tell he wanted to be elsewhere.  My less forgiving self thinks there was beer waiting for him, and he wanted that more than anything else in the world.

I spent three days in the ICU, largely alone.  Probably for the best, because I slept...but wouldn't it have been nice to fall asleep, to wake up, with someone there beside me, just a caring, loving presence?

I suppose.  Wouldn't know, though.  My dearest friend drove much farther to see me, and even claimed the clothing I'd worn into the ER to take home and wash for me.  That was amazing.  That left me feeling loved.

I've never had a partner who took up the slack when I was ill.  After that stay in the hospital, when I got home, I was supposed to rest.  That couldn't happen, not with two kids, some cats, a house, a partner, to take care of.  There's never rest, not here, not for me, and there's never that gentle warmth that comes from knowing that my partner, my lover, is there for me to lean on, to take care of me when I get where I can't do it and need help for a minute.

And I did say I am feeling sorry for myself.

I did some thinking, and I think it was more than 20 years ago that I was looked after - I was good and sick that time, fever hovering around 104 for days, no money for doctors or medicines, just me in my bed sleeping for hours on end. My mother came down from her place and watched over me for a couple of days.  She went shopping and made me hot toddies, and the fever broke and when I was well enough to get up and fend for myself she hugged me, kissed me, and went on home, her job well done.  No, wait...she drove me to the ER years later, when my appendix burst.  Sat there with me while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, waited until they surgery was done and I was awake, eventually went home, but came back the next day to sit with me and help me with some personal grooming that I couldn't manage on my own.  When I got home from that, it was life as usual...no resting, as ordered, because laundry and cooking and cleaning don't so themselves, and apparently I don't choose partners who think to do them when I'm laid up, and now I'm bitter as well as feeling sorry for myself,

Most of the time, I don't want to be taken care of.  Loved?  Yes, please!  Helped with chores, as an equal?  You bet!!!  I don't want to be kept or coddled, truly.  Just...I don't know...maybe it's that I still don't much feel cherished, worthy of the effort of paying attention.  Fuck, I don't feel worthy of a bowl of damned soup!

In the end, I will just have to keep taking care of myself.  Doesn't matter how sorry I feel for myself; a glass of water, a bite to eat, these things don't just up and get themselves for me.  As with many other instances in life, I will just plow through, carry on, and do for myself what the tiny voice in the back of my head wishes someone else would do for me, just this once.