It’s been one week of walking my technology usage back to 2002. If I’d written this report on Friday (day 6), I would have waxed poetic about how lovely our house has been without phones and streaming and constantly being connected. Alex and I are talking so much more, sitting around the dinner table, watching a 22-minute episode of Abbott Elementary on DVD together in the evening. On Friday, the Baby came and laid on my chest on the loveseat and giggled while I beatboxed. We’ve discovered that The Baby likes the Beatles. The Baby discovered how to reach up and turn the shiny silver volume knob on the CD player all the way up.
But I’m not writing this report on Friday. I’m writing it after Saturday (day 7), which was my toughest day yet.
The morning started out fine. I was tired from date night the night before but I sipped on my decaf coffee and wrote a little while I watched The Baby sleep on the monitor for another half hour. We had a slow start.
This is the torturous part of the summer that seems like the seconds are ticking by. The start of school cannot come fast enough. Aidan’s Private Duty Nurse was off on Friday so I had him all day. Caring for him is rote. Meds. Breakfast. Water. Diaper change. Lunch. Water. Diaper change. Water. Diaper change. Dinner with meds. Read a book. Go to bed. It is not difficult, but it feels relentless.
On Saturday, Alex was supposed to be home to give me a break. He ran over to his parents’ house to help with something and then circumstances outside of our control kept him there. I got more and more agitated as the minute hand on the clock continued its relentless ticking in the quiet house.
The silence was driving me crazy.
So, I stalked around the house doing chores annoyedly until I took the Baby up to the grocery store for a Sunday brunch.
When we got home, it was more of the same. The Baby brought me his favorite book to read. We read it three times and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I draped myself dramatically across the couch.
I was angsty with nowhere to hide. I drove angrily to the library just to have something to do. When I got home, Alex was finally there. I told him that I was going to take The Baby to swim in the kiddie pool in the front yard.
“No, I’ve got him,” he told me sternly. “You take a break.”
Very dramatically, I sighed, “No, it’s okay. I’ve already had him my whole life and I’ll just keep having him my whole life. Go do what you need to do.”
“Beth, you’re being a hairshirt.”
I often accuse Alex of being a hairshirt: a term that describes monks who wore animal skins inside out, rubbing their skin raw as an act of penance.
He was right.
I didn’t care.
I marched The Baby out in the front yard while Alex shook his head and shut the front door. I sat and read my book, still very annoyed at the world, until I decided that I needed to be working to keep up the hairshirt act. I swept the porch angrily with short, staccato swipes of the broom. It wasn’t until the wasp stung my calf that I saw a whole cloud of them swarming out from their nest beneath the teak coffee table.
“Ow! Owwwww!” I wailed. In my haste to get away from the angry horde, I stepped wrong and almost fell backwards off the porch.
I stuck my head inside, watching the swarm of wasps warily in my peripheral, and screamed for Alex.
My heroic spouse came to my rescue. The annoyance from the day drained out of me, paling in comparison to the needling pain from the wasp sting.
Alex sent me to my room where I laid under my weighted blanket and read a book for an hour in a dark room.
I emerged a changed woman.
In the absence of my normal tools of distraction from emotional discomfort, I had to deal. I didn’t deal very well, but I think I’m out of practice. I was mildly distressed and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
That in itself is a revelation.
***
I have cried a lot this week. After five years of being with us Monday-Friday, The Baby’s nurse is leaving next Friday. Moving on to new adventures. I am excited for her. She is being very brave. On Wednesday, the agency texted me about a possibly replacement nurse, some young guy named Axel, and wanted to schedule a meet and greet. I reluctantly agreed and spent the rest of the day with a knot in my stomach.
That afternoon, Liz and I were working on a puzzle when The Baby brought one of his favorite books to her. She plopped on the floor and read it with him, telling him to turn the page, drawing out the animal noises just like he likes. He kept looking at her with love in his eyes and making his happy, TV static noises.
How are we going to replace her? She’s irreplaceable.
She put her shoes on, chatting away about her plans for the evening. She opened the front door to leave and looked at me to say goodbye. I was sitting at the puzzle table with silent tears streaming down my face.
“Bethhhh,” she said before quickly shutting the door behind her. She had things to do. She couldn’t cry too.
I marched to my paper calendar in the kitchen and angrily scratched the meet and greet off. I texted the nursing agency to cancel it.
I texted Liz. Canceled Axel tomorrow. Can’t deal.
And then I sat at the puzzle table and wept. And sobbed. And howled.
I let it all out.
With nowhere to hide, no podcasts, no Project Runway, no Reddit, I let the fear, the sadness, the bittersweet hope for all of us tumble out of me, releasing it into the universe, instead of stuffing it down and bottling it up.
A gift, of sorts, from this very weird experiment. The gift of being present with myself, even if its hard.
So scary.
So great.
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