Reminders

Woke up to the sound of waves. Today was a lot less chaotic than yesterday. The night before I left, I’d gone to see my dad, and his caretaker told me that he himself wasn’t feeling well and needed to see a doctor. That put me in a tough spot: every booking for the trip was already locked in, I couldn’t cancel on such short notice, and I also couldn’t just leave my dad in unreliable hands, especially with the caretaker himself was unwell too. I took caretaker’s temperature, gave him medicine. Looked like a viral infection. I told him to take his meds and turn in early.

We left as scheduled anyway, but spent most of the fourteen-hour drive on the phone, calling agency after agency, finally landing someone around 2 pm who could step in and help out, to provide caretaker the required rest. In between, I booked a doctor’s appointment, arranged an auto to take him there and back, and got his medicine ordered. I also found someone else who could start the next morning and cover the following two to three days. All of it coordinated from inside a moving car, while my sister stayed on standby in case she needed to fly in. By the end of the day, the caretaker still wasn’t doing great, and I kept getting more worried, wondering if we’d have to turn the trip around. But he woke up fine this morning, actually doing well. I’m relieved. Things feel back on track. That’s put my mind at ease.

Through all of this, she’s been sending me reminders for my medicine. Do I actually need them? Of course not. I’m a fully functioning somewhat of an adult, perfectly capable of taking my own medicine without a nudge. Do I look forward to them anyway? Absolutely, I love them. It’s less about the reminder itself and more that just getting a message from her makes me happy. No idea why. Today she sounded a bit low. I don’t know how to help with that, and while strong boundaries were originally her idea, I’m the one trying harder to honor them these days. I hope she feels better and that her travel goes as smoothly as she said it would. I keep wondering if I should find time to check in and see how she’s actually doing. What if I’m the problem, the reminders, the chatting, all of it? Maybe I should give her more space. Except she already has more than enough of it. What am I even supposed to do here? I suppose just stay nearby, and that’s it. How do you play two opposite roles at the same time? I don’t think anyone can.

In other news, I still haven’t managed to pick her blog back up. Haven’t restarted from where I left off. Maybe I give it one more day. I don’t know what kind of gremlins are waiting for me once I do. I’ll admit, I’m a little scared.

Last night I had a dream after a long time, and she was somehow in it. We were in some kind of residential community. Things kept happening: a car crash, some other chaotic stuff I can’t quite remember. Someone told me I needed to call them out by name whenever something happened, the details are hazy. I told them I’d call them “firebush” (in the dream, it was her actual name). They looked at me, puzzled. My wife gave me a sideways glance. She knows that name. A few minutes later something else happened, and I told them again that I’d call them out by her name. Things got awkward fast, everyone wondering what my obsession with that name even was.

When I got up, everything was blurry, except this part of dream stayed behind. It was like I was trying to integrate her forcefully into my life.

I find myself thinking about her all the time and I am still not sure why and what am I thinking. Maybe nothing, maybe in that tiny world inside my head where there are no rules, expectations or right and wrong, I have the freedom to do as I will. Nothing has to make sense, it has to just feel good. That is the place my mind drifts to when I go to sleep often now. Once again.