Just enjoy him, redux

I wrote last time about how I should just enjoy what time I have with H. I wish that I did. Frankly, most of the time, I just see him as a burden now.

Now that his health is (relatively) good, we don't have a crisis to rally around, to define our time together. And what we have left after all the crises over the past 10 years is less than satisfactory for both of us. How could we both not be affected?

I think that we both struggle with how to be with one another given our roller coaster. Given where we are right now, if H were healthy enough, or thought that he would be for long enough in the future, I know that he would leave me. And that would be OK. In balance, if he hadn't got so sick, then we would not be where we are.

And while I wish that what has happened to us didn't affect us and our relationship so much…it does. How could it not?

On the occasions that we "click," it is delightful to experience the fondness, humor, and love that we have for one another. But those clicks don't happen much anymore.

And so, I find myself not being able to enjoy him very much anymore. It isn't that he's a bad person in any way (he's actually quite a sweetheart), it's just that the challenges with his health and what it's done to him and to me and to us have changed us and our relationship irrevocably.

Simply put, neither one of us is happy, neither one of us gets our needs meet, and neither one of us knows how to proceed from where we are.

Just enjoy him

As I've written here before, H's health has been up and down many times over the past few years. When he is very sick, the obvious focus is to get him well again. And when he is well, we both wonder how long until he gets sick again and we both try to recover from the last time he was sick.

When he became so sick a few years ago, when I started this blog, we all thought it was the end, but it wasn't. And last year, we thought so too. And so on, dating back some 10 years or so.

So, I was talking with my shrink about what do I do now that he is getting better again? How do you go from a crisis to it's OK again…how should I feel? H and I are both concerned that his VL will only stay low for awhile and then start to rise again…it's happened every time.

So, how do you go forward, knowing that this will likely happen again?

My shrink laughs and says, "What else can you do but love him and enjoy him? None of us knows when we're leaving this place. All we can do is love those we love and enjoy what time we have with them."

I remember when one of our pets was very sick with cancer. Now, the pet wasn't in pain (at least the vet didn't think so), so he sent us all home and told H and me: "Spend what time you can with him, just enjoy (your pet) while he is here with you. It will be time soon enough."

Focus on the moment and enjoy them while they're here. What else can we do?

Controlling us with fluoride

One of my local cities is talking of taxing or outright banning bottled water.

H tells me last night, "They're banning bottled water in (city name). You know, the Nazi's gave their prisoners fluoride so they could control them. That's why they're banning bottled water you know, they want us to drink tap water so that they can control us."

I say, "OK, so they want us to stop drinking bottled water so that they can control us with the fluoride in tap water?"

H laughs, "That sort of sounds like one of those conspiracy theories, doesn't it? But it's true, tho'."