Life is Funny (Not in a ha ha way)

It has been a very exciting week, and not in a good way.  Maybe stressful would be a more appropriate word, but either way, it’s left me feeling very drained, and a bit unable to really get my thoughts clear enough to do anything aside from update everybody on very basic news of what’s going on.  That said, I had a bit of a moment of clarity tonight, so I thought I should write while the writing is good(hopefully).

Prior to the recent series of events that led to my wife being hospitalized for the month of February,  I was going to write something about how strange relationships are.  I had said to my wife, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the time period that she would be at home due to her maternity leave would be a true test of our marriage.  This is because when you really think about it, how much time do you actually spend with your significant other?  Between work, sleep, and just generally being busy, you are around each other for maybe 4 or 5 hours a day, maybe less, depending on your life.  People believe themselves to have great relationships, when in reality, they probably spend more time with their coworkers than with their significant other.  How would you handle it when you and your wife are basically forced to be around each other twenty-four hours a day?  Anyway, that whole line of thought got blown away when about a day after conceiving the idea, my wife was forced to stay in the hospital, thus leaving me very much alone in the house.

It’s funny how life tends to smack you in the mouth when you least expect it.  Here I was, preparing myself mentally for being around my wife all the time, and then we’re separated in quite an alarming fashion.  While I try to remain somewhat level-headed, and at least outwardly remain cool, to be honest, I was worried sick.  I have felt completely helpless these last couple of weeks, as I can do nothing but wait until the doctors give the ok for my wife to come home.  At this point, that’s all I want.  I’ve always been a guy who enjoys his alone time, but not when it has been forced upon me, and not when there’s a chance that whatever led to it could lead to very bad things. 

That having been said, it has made me very aware of my interactions with my wife as I’m hauling myself to the hospital every day.  Because we don’t have the luxury of having easy access to each other every day, what time we do have has sort of become a condensed version of what we do on a regular basis.  We sit, we talk, we hold each other, we nap.  Napping in one of those single hospital beds is a lot more comfortable than you would think, but maybe that’s because I just miss alternately holding and being held by my wife, and I’ll suffer any discomfort to enjoy that particular sensation. 

It just strikes me as funny, because if you were to observe it from an outside perspective, we’re not doing anything special, but I think that’s actually what makes our relationship work so well.  We just enjoy being in each others company, and don’t need a lot of hoopla in order to be happy around each other.  This actually makes me more secure in the fact that we’re going to be parents, and I believe we’ll be good ones.  We don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to be happy with each other, and that will somehow translate to how we take care of our kid.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense right now, neither here on the blog, nor in my head, but there is a correlation, even if I can’t express it at the moment. 

I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to be a good person, and it will only get worse once the baby is actually here.  I have to fight my natural urges to be selfish and get things the way I want them, and instead try my best to do what I can and what I must in order to try to meet my own expectations.  Being with my wife makes it easier, because most of the time, I want to do things for her and for others because she makes me feel like I actually am a good person.  Having been separated from her in this way has made me realize just how much of an affect she has on me in that regard.  I am better when I’m around her, and when I’m not, it’s a struggle.  It might not be an epiphany of epic proportions, but it does make me realize that her being on maternity leave would not actually have been a test at all.  It would have just been time that we could have enjoyed together.