Switches · the Jersey side, New York
Two years of caring for my father, and now an empty calendar
Pinned as caring_two_years
- Wants
- somebody unhurried while I work out what I still want
- Rope so far
- Eleven years, then two years of nothing at all, and a slow spring.
- Around
- the Jersey side, New York
My father died in January after two years during which I did almost nothing except look after him. I stopped going anywhere, I stopped answering people, and by the end of it the whole of this had become something I used to do. Now there is a great deal of time and I do not entirely know what to do with it.
Forty nine, the Jersey side, eleven years in before all that. I am posting rather earlier than the sensible advice would suggest, and I know it, and I have decided that sitting in an empty apartment being sensible is its own kind of mistake.
What I want first is company. Somebody to talk to who does not need the last two years explained in detail. Whether that becomes rope is genuinely an open question, because I do not yet know whether I want what I wanted at forty seven or something else.
I go both ways and always have. That much I am sure of. I should say plainly that I am not looking to be taken care of. I have just done two years of care and I am extremely tired of the whole category. I want ordinary company with somebody who has their own life.
Not looking for anybody who wants to hear about the illness. Not looking for something that requires me to be certain about what I want. And not looking for a person who is going to be careful with me, which I could not stand.