Waiting
I remember the very first time I came home to Pete. We’d been living together for three years by that point.
… And I’d spent all of that time in bed or lying on the sofa – waiting.
Waiting for my health to improve, waiting for my life to begin again, waiting for researchers to come up with a treatment or cure, waiting to feel well enough for a bath, to feel well enough to read a book, to feel well enough to have an actual conversation, to feel well enough to tolerate noise – even the sound of cutlery banging on plates as my family ate was physically painful.
Waiting for Pete to understand that you need to separate the whites from the colours.
… You get the point.
On the rare occasions I could leave the house when my ME/POTS was severe (usually for medical appointments) – it was with Pete. I needed his support with pretty much everything: doing the driving, getting my wheelchair in and out of the car, and any other issues that required any physical movement or brain-work.
This meant that whenever I came home, it was always to an empty house – because I was always with Pete already.
House for one
The day I finally came home to Pete, felt pretty fantastic for both of us – for two reasons. The first being, Pete wasn’t used to having the house to himself. Like … EVER.
Don’t get me wrong, Pete loves living with me. Of course he does – I’m a fucking delight. (A delight who certainly never gets her knickers in a knot over mixing whites with coloured laundry.) But still, even the closest couples need their own space. And sure, I was bedridden a lot of the time for those 3 years, and Pete had the rest of the house to himself to do what he liked. But it’s not the same as a totally empty house now, is it?
I realise this more than ever, now that my health is vastly improved and Pete often works from home. Sure, he might be upstairs and out of my way – but still. I can’t just kick back and do whatever I feel like – or at least, not without having to consider Pete’s needs first. For example, can unpacking/re-stacking the dishwasher REALLY wait until later … or will it be too messy in there when Pete wants lunch? (Obviously if I’m in an ME flare up/got PEM then I can. But otherwise, not really). Or, if I’m feeling up to it – can I REALLY crank up the volume on that old Aerosmith album I just remembered I used to love, and belt out my bestest Steven Tyler impression to go with it? Probably not.
But at least Pete DOES leave the house regularly. Meaning, I DO regularly get the house to myself. I DO get to give Mr Tyler a run for his money SOMETIMES.
Whereas, Pete simply didn’t ever get that kind of reprieve from me. For THREE WHOLE YEARS. Poor guy.
… Oops, I mean lucky guy (I forgot for a second there what a fucking delight I am!)
Out on my own
And the second point being, I wasn’t used to being out on my own. Like … AT ALL. Not since before my ME/POTS became severe, three years earlier. I mean, talk about feeling like a dog who’s escaped the gate! It was SUCH an exhilarating feeling.
I can’t remember for definite where I went, but I do have one memory from around this time of going to Tesco. It’s something so simple and mundane for most people – but for me – it was totally amazeballs (yes, I am a forty-something woman who just said amazeballs. THAT’s how good it was.) First, there was the excitement of getting behind the wheel and driving for the first time in years. My body flooded itself with adrenaline, as I navigated the roads and incoming sensory information like a nervous-yet-overexcited puppy, likely to piss itself at any moment (off memory, I managed to keep my wee’s in. Barely). Having the car to myself felt possibly as exciting as I imagined Pete was feeling at home, with the house to himself.
Then there was wandering around Tesco unaided, like a proper ‘Big Girl.’ I only bought a couple of bits, as I knew my time was extremely limited before I would start feeling grim and need to lie down. But still. Talking to the checkout girl, like a ‘normal’ person out doing some shopping was fucking immense. In hindsight, she probably thought I was a total lunatic with how smiley and chatty I was. She may have also wondered why on earth I looked so surprised when she charged me for my plastic bag. Apparently, they hadn’t been free for years. Go figure.
Truth be told, I felt a bit like I’d been frozen for the last few years, and had finally been thawed out and let loose into the future. A future that looked more modern, but otherwise the same. Well, apart from the extortionate price of a plastic bag; I wasn’t impressed with that update – albeit not enough to let it shit all over my newfound independence and joy.
I practically skipped out of that Tesco and back to my Disabled parking spot, so gleeful I felt with my very-short-but-very-successful outing.
Cherry on top
And then, I got to experience the cherry on top: coming home to Pete.
Who knew that something as normal as walking in your front door to be greeted by the man you love could feel so … lovely. To be able to say: ‘Hey, I’m home. How’s your day going?’ instead of always being on the receiving end of it (and the answer always being the same). Being in a position where Pete could ask, ‘Where have you been? Buy anything nice?’ Now THAT felt good.
I finally felt like a person of interest, for the first time in years. Like an ACTUAL member of society again. It was just SO liberating, even if it was all done and dusted in the space of one hour and then I had to go back to bed for the rest of the day. But I was totally fine with that. Baby steps was required – I knew this. My new POTS medication and my ME still needed time and rest while I figured out a ‘new normal’ that my body could handle.
But in the meantime …
“I went to Tesco. I bought Tampax and shampoo. Fucking amazing, right?!”
“Uuuuuuuh.”
Of course, I also bought us a celebratory cake. After all, this WAS a milestone worth celebrating. We’d waited so long for something as ridiculously mundane and ‘normal’ as this to happen. And now, it finally had. First stop Tesco. Next stop … the world! 😊
(Oh, and I may have bought Pete some laundry detergent for ‘whiter than white, whites,’ as an EXTRA special treat.)
