There were times in my life I described myself as impulsive.
Those times are over. I suppose in the grand scheme of things that I have lost
over the last 18 years, losing my impulsivity wasn't too traumatizing, but when
I really think about the impact of this loss, on both myself and on the people
around me, it becomes just one more thing in a series of things that makes me
want to stick my head in a blender (I used to say that all the time when I was
teaching: "I'm sorry I cannot focus on your question kiddo, there is so
much background noise right now it feels as if my head is in a blender"
or, if the class was particularly annoying I might say, "guys, if you
cannot follow directions I am going to stick my head in a blender"). But
yes, at times the loss of my ability to be spur of the moment does indeed make
me want to stick my head in a blender.
Some cases in point: the weekends. The weekends are my time
to spend with Kelly. Depending on her work schedule, we spend about 2 1/2 days
together a week. However, also depending on her work schedule, she has three
days to get her own stuff done. (Someone recently referred to this notion of
"getting stuff done" as adulting,
doing things that no one particularly wants to do but that all adults need to
do – laundry, dishes, yard work, errands, etc.) in a normal relationship,
partners can adult whenever they
want: perhaps together, perhaps while the other partner is sleeping or
otherwise engaged, or maybe they do their adulting simultaneously and
separately. Regardless, when Kelly does her weekly adulting, which, because of
her schedule, needs to happen over the weekends, what does she do with me? Does
she do it while I am getting ready on Friday morning? Does she adult with me
and have to worry about locking down my chair in between errands? Does she
leave me attached to my computer in the comfortable chair in the corner of her
living room while she adults? All of those scenarios have happened and they all
have worked out perfectly well, but they all – every one of those scenarios –
require planning.
Ages ago, before Izzy became an aggressive dog, I took her
to the Baltimore dog park on afternoons after school. There, as she ran around
getting her energy out, I would chat with other dog park regulars. One
afternoon I was griping about having to go to the grocery store after the gym,
and one of my dog-owning friends remarked, "that sucks, so you have to get
your wheelchair out and put it together just go in for eggs and milk?" I
replied in the affirmative and was amused by her response, "man, that's
got to be even worse than carting a toddler around!" Although that
scenario is no longer relevant because I can neither drive myself to the
grocery store nor assemble (or use) a manual wheelchair, drawing an analogy
between my disease and an unruly toddler seems somewhat apropos. I am a
hindrance to adult with, and a
responsibility to adult without.
Just as you cannot leave the toddler at home unattended, I am a potential
hazard when left alone. I can assure you I will not "get into"
anything or stick my hand in the wood stove, but my proclivity to find myself
in a pickle is almost without limit. At the very least, I need reliable access
to my cell phone before conducting myself independently for more than 15
minutes.
Understandably having an in-depth plan for the weekend's
adulting, let alone a minute-by-minute schedule for Friday through Sunday, is
not always at the forefront of Kelly's mind at the conclusion of a 50-hour
workweek. And I do not feel like badgering my already badgered girlfriend, but
unfortunately, even without adulting, my life requires a lot of advanced
planning: how long should my caregiver stay on Friday afternoons? Will I need
my mom's help at any point or can she make plans? Do I need my college students
to work over the weekend? Should we have a college girl come to Kelly's house
on Friday or Saturday to help me with my nightly duties? If so, what time will
we be home from whatever it is we decide to do? What about my dog? Will we have
time to take her for a walk or play ball with her? What time should I be home
on Sunday?
And don't even get me started on the holidays when my
college girls are out-of-town for six weeks. Over the holidays I need to call
in reserve caregivers so I need to know what days I will be at Kelly's and what
days I will be at home needing someone to get me out of bed. This is a reality
I could do without, but it exists nonetheless. As a consequence, I am
micro-managerial to the extreme; a characteristic that I am well aware is
excessively annoying. When one creates a dating profile for an online dating
site, one will never list "micro-managerial" or
"controlling" under the adjectives
that describe me section.
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