A Day Later

I took down the yesterday's post about our crazy, but thank you for all your supportive comments. As our friend Georgia wrote, "Yes, marriage is hard. But you have a long good story with this good man. He may be overwhelmed at the moment. Sometimes carrying on and waiting (as extremely difficult as it is) is the best thing the do." Her words gonged loudly in my spirit, and I take that to mean they were the permission I sought to lay this blade of worry down, to let it be what it is, to meet whatever comes, knowing my husband is being who he has always been when it comes to medical things, I won't change him after forty years, forty good years on balance. I know I have PTSD from the emergency open heart surgery he had nine years ago now. We got through that. Whatever this is, we'll get through it, too. The lesson perhaps? Release the illusion of—the grasping for—control.

It did help that my dear friend Isabella came by for lunch with me yesterday afternoon. She being a psychotherapist by profession, and the two of us, mothers together, having almost three decades now of talking each other down from our worry ledges, had a good rambling chat about everything, the eccentricities of husbands, grown children fully claiming and shaping their lives, the surprises of longtime marriage, aging on the outside while feeling something else entirely on the inside, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, the inevitability of the unexpected—it was all so gentle and true. I love you, Isabella! And thank you for my beautiful flowers!

Also yesterday, I had my final PT session, and noted to my lovely therapist that I had lost ten pounds since I began working with her. Yesterday she basically followed me around the gym, making sure I had mastered the machines and the weights for the routine I will follow on my own going forward. She made an adjustment here and there, but mostly we chatted like girlfriends as I worked out, and as we parted she hugged me and said, "Let's stay in touch," and I would like that very much. This is me on the day I finished PT after my hip surgery. I'm getting stronger all the time, and the man and I are planning travel that is quite far afield come fall.