Random Musings

Twice today, I was shown what it is to be vulnerable.

To share more than the surface stuff. There was a time I used this blog to share all kinds of things going on. It was my space to blurt and type-scream and laugh. But that changed, as life does, and now it’s a space I randomly return to in order to share a little news bit.

So I’m going to share a bit of truthful stuff. If you’re a longtime reader, thanks for sticking around. If you’re new…strap in.

I have a brain condition. I now stutter, lose time, lose words, have ticks that make me look like I’m frustrated with someone as my hands suddenly kick into the air. I have mini-seizures. I’m exhausted, not just tired. Most days I force myself to do stuff other than sleep, though on days like today, when I actually fell asleep on the loo, with my head resting on the sink, sleep wins. I worry, of course, about what kind of wife this makes me, too.

As you can imagine, I’ve been more than a little self-conscious.

I worry about my mom, who is in a red state. She has her own plethora of health issues, and as she becomes increasingly isolated and buried under medical bills, I’m extra aware that I can’t/won’t attempt entry into the States anytime soon (my surname is also Mexican). Given my exhaustion and barely-keeping-shit-togetherness, I don’t call her nearly as often as I should, and I’m afraid I have utterly failed in the daughter department.

There’s also my wife’s parents. Her dad has cancer, her mum has dementia. Last summer he suffered a total mental heath breakdown. He was broken after six years of watching his wife slip away. We noticed recently some physical changes in him that suggest his cancer is changing, even as her mum continues on the inescapable trajectory of her own cruel disease.

But my wife is the daughter I’m not.

She’s there. When it came to paperwork, to emergency services, to mental health respite, to all things financial, she was on it. Schedules, meetings, phone calls. Days out of the office and working at five a.m. so she could get something done before the day of choreographing care. She’s still doing it, too. She’ll field five different meetings this week in an effort to continue to support them.

It’s unsurprising she started having stomach trouble that left her in agony. The seaside break we took meant we could collapse, fall into silence and a lack of timings. And then she got Norovirus. A system pushed to its limits will always be open to malicious outsiders.

Our creativity suffered massively. Neither of us had the time or the energy to write, though she did far more than I did. I simply gave up trying.

But here we are in January. Her book is done. Mine is finally properly underway. That means we’ll both have at least one release this year, and given everything else, that’s a win. Plus, we’ve got a writing guide in the works, which is a bucket list thing I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. That will come out this year too.

We’re supporting each other. Laughing a lot. Sticking to date night. Drinking our morning tea together. Talking for a long time before we go to sleep. We’re doing our best, and that’s what life is, right? You do your best and enjoy all the moments you can suck into your soul.

I’m going to try to come back here more often and share the deeper stuff. I could do that in a journal, but I’m reminded that putting yourself out there, showing your cracks and struggles, reminds others they’re not alone. We share, and we care, and we remember our humanity.

So tell me: how are YOU?