Dearest Rachel –
Yesterday was a strange one, honey. Logan has headed downstate with his family, as his sister is wrapping up things at college – I forget if it’s her graduation proper, or her last turn on stage (I think she’s a theater major) – so the house is suddenly that much more quiet and empty. On top of that, that’s scratchy throat I had? Well, I could only deny reality for so long; by yesterday, it had blossomed into a fully-formed cold. No fever, though, so it’s not preventing me from being ambulatory; it just removes all motivation toward being so.
It also basically forbids me from visiting Dad, as he doesn’t need this added to everything he’s trying to claw his way back from (and while he always doesn’t seem to have the motivation to do so himself, his body seems to be unable to let go of life just yet, especially since his mind is still perfectly sharp. I suspect it’s still awaiting orders from the… ahem… head office). He did call me near the end of the day to hear how I was doing – and he actually sounded that much better, too. Apparently he got a better night’s sleep over Thursday night; I hope that held out for last night as well, as it really makes a difference.
For what it’s worth, I did okay last night as well, but that’s getting a little ahead of things. I’m hoping to be in decent shape for when I report to my assignment this afternoon, but in the meantime, I’m going to stay home from the morning study all the same. I’m usually in my best shape around midday; at least, that’s what I’m relying on.
With all that being said, yesterday saw Daniel and I together on our own. Granted, we had to get out of the house early (well, early for Daniel) to get to his appointment at the Social Security office, so as to get his card replaced. You and I have cards in the kist, but I couldn’t seem to find his, so he made this appointment a couple of weeks ago to get it replaced. With my nose running, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but we were out in a little less than an hour, so it wasn’t too bad; now, we just have to wait another week for it to show up in the mail, and then he can get that other form of I.D. updated, hopefully before we take off for our trip (not that we’ll need it then, but it would be nice to have the matter resolved by then).
From there, we just headed home. Daniel suggested stopping for something (since we were out), I asked him where he had in mind. He seemed to think I might like something too, but I pointed out that I’d already eaten at home, as I usually do, and he dropped the subject. I’d have been willing to get him a smoothie – I was already contemplating doing some shopping at the Costco en route home – but upon being told that I wasn’t planning on eating, he seemed to have lost the desire to do so himself. I wonder if he doesn’t see eating as more of a social thing than a matter of sustenance, which explains why he only has a single meal a day when left to his own devices; I wish I had that level of willpower.
The rest of the day was spent in the bedroom, each of us in our separate recliners on either side of the bed, watching various videos. Between my spending time at Dad’s bedside and him being with Logan during the evenings, we’d let certain channels build up content over the past couple of weeks that we had yet to watch for just such an occasion as this, so it was time to make the most of it, as we (or maybe it was just me) couldn’t do much else. At the same time, he got to his recliner first, and was on his phone waiting for me to join him, listening to one of his own podcasts and scrolling through his own news feed in the interim.
I sometimes wonder if the two of us are essentially babysitting each other on days like this. We have our own little things we’re fine with doing on our own, but at the same time, we’re okay with doing the things we do together when we’re together. It felt in that moment, he’d prefer to be doing his thing, but was willing to do our thing because I wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t going anywhere. For my part, I could easily do my thing, too, but if he was in the room, I’d just as soon do what we do together to keep him amused. It felt like neither of us was doing quite what we wanted to do, but would settle for this other thing that met the other of us halfway.
Which is not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable as such (head cold notwithstanding). Even once we had gone through the backlog from ‘our’ channels (as we were inevitably going to do), we wandered around through the algorithm, seeing if there might be a few other topics that would entertain up. It’s a much more bespoke take on just flipping through channels like we would back in the day, and therefore more likely to find something that would appeal – which it did, for the most part. But all the same, I can’t help but wonder if we wouldn’t have been happier for one of us, at some point, to dismiss the other so that each of us could do what we really wanted to do.
As it happened, I was the one to do that; after finding one of ‘Daniel’s’ channels in my feed and watching it (and I’m okay with it, although I can just as easily just listen to it with my eyes closed, as at this point it hurt to keep them open), I suggested that, if he wanted to continue watching more of that channel in the bedroom, he was free to, but he opted to head out while I shut down for the night instead. Which is probably just as well; I needed the sleep, and if I could have stayed asleep longer that I have, I probably still could have benefited from it.
Hopefully, I’ll be up and running soon; I’m going to need to, whether I can or not. To that end, if you can keep an eye on me and wish me well, honey, I’d appreciate it. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 