So recently, my life has been kind of a crap sandwich. My mom isn't doing well, and needs to get into an assisted living facility. I struggle daily to take care of her.
My brother, upon learning that mom is now too much for me to care for, tried to act like I had failed, and told me he'd take her. Which, to his surprise, was fine with me! Then he backed down to taking her for two weeks. Yesterday, he told me he couldn't come down and get her because his car is in the shop. I am really really glad that I didn't let his lies change my reality, and I toured eight places over the weekend and am down to deciding between two great facilities.
Then add in that she had minor outpatient surgery yesterday.
Did I mention that she's having incontinence issues that require me changing her bed every morning? She's had three dry days in the last two weeks. This morning, she literally wet the bed right in front of me. Are you kidding me???? And I have the added bonus of steam cleaning her rug every few days so it doesn't smell like a nursery without a diaper genie in her room.
I'd say that this is crushing, but having been crushed by infidelity, this is about a six out of ten on the crush scale. I'm exhausted, and physically sore from the work, and stressed, and worried so much about my mom's well-being and safety. I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid she'll fall out of bed or get out of bed on her own and fall. Both have happened in the last two weeks.
But at least my heart isn't broken. Which brings me to why I gave up.
Mr. TNS has been there for me 100% through this. Even with his job situation being crap, he's made me a priority in his life, and has been so supportive. He's my rock.
This weekend, I was thinking about all of this, and how he's been doing so much, from picking mom up off the floor when she has fallen (twice now) to taking me to a hockey game (which he knows I love) after the first day of tours to going on tours with me on Sunday.
And I put all of this into the context of how insecure I can be in relationships, with my trust issues, and my need for autonomy, and my instinct to cut and run at the first red flag. And then I realized that he has no investment in my mom at all. He just has an investment in me.
So I'm giving up my priority on self-preservation, and I'm just going to let this relationship go it's natural course. I may actually grow deep trust for this man. I have watched his behavior, and although the time hasn't been long, the behavior has been consistent and he hasn't shown me any reason not to trust him. As I typed that, I felt uneasy, probably because I have told myself for close to 20 years to never trust anyone completely ever again. This is a big change of pace for me.
For those of you working under the "pick a new partner" structure, I've picked. I'm not saying I'm going to marry him, but I am going to build a life with this man, as long as he will grant me the pleasure of having him.
Oh, and for clarity's sake, I had in-home care come in for mom this weekend and stay overnight to I had the time to do all of the stuff I needed to do for her and take a very-much needed break to relax for a while on Saturday night.
(Did you notice I didn't use a single curse word in this whole post? That's Mr. TNS's effect on me.)