Spring has fallen

2003-09-29 - 6:37 p.m.

Today as I was driving into Santa Rosa I was thinking about Holly because she lives there and my brain is somewhat random. Then a country love song that came on my radio got me thinking about her relationship with her boyfriend. They have every intention of getting married, so she says, but they have no desire to get married anytime soon. This doesn't really jive with my way of thinking. I think that if you're planning on getting married, why not just do it? Unless you're saving up for the fancy wedding of your dreams, but I don't think that is the case here. So of course thinking about marriage got me thinking about Stretch and thinking about where I would be if I hadn't broken up with him. Honestly, I don't often do the whole what-if routine. Hmm..that's not entirely true. I don't often do the what-if-that-hadn't-happened routine. Instead I do the what-if-this-will-happen. At any rate, today I was doing the what-if-that-hadn't-happened. I was thinking about where we would be if we were still together. I'm fairly sure that by this time we would've been engaged. If we were still together, would Stretch have wanted to do his residency up north? I don't know. I have a feeling he might not have, but I know I would have encouraged him to get out and do it while he can. Actually, I was surprised when he decided he wanted to do a residency. I always thought he would go straight into community pharmacy. I wondered if he was doing a residency just because I was and he wanted us to be educationally even. My initial reaction was that I didn't want him to do it. He was a year behind me in school so I figured I would do a year of residency and he would graduate and then we would both be out working and starting a real life. But then of course I thought about it and decided that doing a residency was a great idea. At any rate, I decided that just for the sake of playing what-if, he would be doing a residency in Portland even if we were still together. I think we would've waited to get married until after he was done with his residency. He always wanted to live near where he grew up in the Chico area. I probably would be living in an apartment in that area now, establishing a job at a nearby hospital. Living in that area was never my first choice. I was a little annoyed that Stretch never asked me where I would like to live. He always wanted to live near home, so that was that. I was a little annoyed, but I was ok with it, it's a nice enough area. So that's where we'd be. He'd be in Portland like he is now, and I'd be in the Chico area working. We'd be planning our wedding and I'd know the road between Chico and Portland really well. He would've passed the California board exam because I would've done my best to help him study and him passing would've been integral to our plans together so he would've been more inspired to do better. A year or two after our wedding we'd start having those kids. It's funny, I just tried to imagine myself pregnant and for the first time in my life I could. Usually the idea just seems incredibly ridiculous. Anyway, I was thinking about all this marriage stuff this morning. When Stretch and I were together, I was the one who wanted to rush things. I remember lying together one evening talking about our future and he told me he'd like to get married in a couple of years. I told him I didn't think we should wait so long. I remember the look on his face when I said that. It didn't last very long, but there was a fleeting look of shock or fright or something before he agreed with me. And that there is something I wonder about. If I hadn't decided to rush things along would we still be together? How could I have gone from thinking two years was too long to wait to get married to thinking that we just weren't right for each other in such a short period of time? All I can think is that I must've gotten cold feet. That and the fact that I hate talking about things in front of my parents. It made it very hard to have a relationship with someone while living with my parents. That's a dumb reason though. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe that is a reason not to rush into getting married even if you have every intention of eventually getting married. Maybe one member of the relationship is a complete idiot and might completely balk at marriage once things get too serious but may be ok with it if eased into it. I'm done with what-if-that-hadn't-happened for a while. Instead I'll think about what-if-this-will-happen. I still wonder about what would happen if Stretch and I were to get back together. Could it ever work? I'd like to think that it could. What I would give for another opportunity. But I'm not too stuck on that at the moment. I'm looking forward to getting out of my parents house. It's taking a lot longer than I expected. Sometimes I think of my parents house as warm thigh-high mud. When you're in it it's perfectly comfortable, but it's super hard to get away. Once you get loose, though, oh the freedom! Pretty soon I'll get loose. I'll move away and I'll start my own life. And hopefully I'll find someone new I'll want to share it with.

But anyway, would you like a Grampa update? He's still doing physically well. Much better than he should be doing according to all the books and videos that they gave us in the hospital. Mentally he does pretty well most of the time too, but he still has his moments. And they are pretty long moments. Now that we're home (oh yes, we brought him home from the hospital today), he's less confused about where he is, although not completely better. He has no problem knowing who he is or who we are. His biggest issue is with time. He took a nap this afternoon and when he woke up he was sure it was morning and no matter how many times we told him the time and that it was evening or how many other environmental clues there were, he just would not believe that it wasn't morning. When he woke up he came wandering out to the living room where I was reading a book. "Good afternoon, Grampa," I said (because I knew he might not be aware of the time, not because that's a phrase I use often). He gave me a funny look then said, "Boy, it's going to be hot today!" I said, "Well, it's already four o'clock in the afternoon so it probably won't be getting much hotter." He just gave me another funny look and wandered off again. Even when he's fine my grandfather wanders a lot. Trying to get him to sit still is impossible on a normal day. I've spent most of today trying to give him as much autonomy and space as possible without letting him hurt himself. For dinner we had a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. He had no difficulty showing us how to work his oven or telling us when the pizza was done but he sure couldn't understand why we were having pizza for breakfast. We finally got him to sit down and eat a bit but then he decided to get up and take his pills. I helped him get them all sorted out--which ones are new since the hospital and which ones he doesn't need to take anymore (he's pissed that he doesn't get to use that nitro anymore) and then I had to work very hard to convince him to take his night pills instead of his morning pills. Then the sun started to set. Grampa saw that it was getting darker and said, "Boy, is that fog rolling in or what?" It's like he doesn't really believe us when we tell him things--we're just trying to trick him. I left him reading through paperwork at the kitchen table and came here to sit on the couch and type on my laptop. Just a few minutes ago he came in and said puzzledly, "Is it my imagination or is it getting dark out?" "Yeah, Grampa, it's 7:30 p.m." "Oh! No wonder I'm so tired!" After that it wasn't too difficult to convince him to put his PJ's on and get ready for bed. A little disorientation after sleeping is normal, especially if you're sick. Heck, I can remember being really sick and sleeping all day and then getting up and wondering why my mom was cooking peas for breakfast. I'm sure most people have similar stories. But it shouldn't take three hours to get reoriented to the time. I worry, but I think this will get better soon.