I have the tv on for the moment--The Sound of Music to be precise--but I'm probably not going to watch it. Instead, I am wondering if I'm not at least a little nuts for having just planned a three night trip for the core purpose of spending an afternoon and dinner out with Gabe in Connecticut. If I drive straight with just a lunch and maybe bathroom break, it will take us about 8 hours. I can make that kind of a trip, as sole driver, but I don't like it. This is why I'll split it up, and spend 2 extra nights at inns en route...places tranquil enough to keep it easy, but interesting enough to be fun for me.
Anyway, this is what I've been telling myself I'd do once Gabe got situated. Stuff Jeff in the car and go places. It's better for both of us. For me, it makes the home-time more productive and more welcome. I stop feeling like a caregiving hermit in a cave. For Jeff...well, I don't know, but he seems perfectly content.
It's a glimmer of good fortune that given a disease that is known for exaggerating personality traits, Jeff has never been a worrier, or one to fret in unfamiliar surroundings. As long as I lock our hotel or inn room door securely, and stick a small table in front of it for extra assurance (middle of the night bathroom searches can cause the most disoriented fumblings,) we do rather well. I have a little wake up routine in which I say (for example) "We are in Norfolk, Virginia. We are on our way to Nags Head." Then we get breakfast. It seems to work for everyone, and by the time the first coffee kicks in, Jeff has at least a rudimentary grasp of the program.
I have a special file holder for trip planning. It holds five plastic folders, all different colors, and each one contains things like Amtrak barcodes for ticket retrieval, notes on likely places to eat, maps, and hotel information. Since summer I've regularly had 3-4 of the folders full and waiting. I like it that way.
On tv, Captain Von Trapp and the Baroness have just had a little conversation about his busy travel schedule. It's the sort of conversation that would have been edited out of any modern movie, but not in 1965. He says "Activity suggests a life filled with purpose."
Yep. But I had to wait until my children were old enough to govern themselves, since there are no conveniently located convents full of inappropriately impulsive novices, but the time is here. For now. As long as it works for Jeff. And when it doesn't...that's when we'll need Maria.
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