So, When is your Day Off?

   My what?     That's not a thing.     Wait...    Is it? 

I have a couple days when I don't have to go in to work, sure, but apparently, someone said I'm supposed to have time when I don't have to be the one 100% responsible for Rob and his needs.

Well that's interesting, because prior to the stroke, wasn't I just as responsible for my own and my husband's needs as I am now? I mean, he's capable of taking care of himself. I leave him a list of the same basic stuff I'd make for myself to do during the day if I were the one who would be home.  But being a caregiver now, my only time away from my partner is when I go to work.  His day is unfulfilling and when I'm done at work, he wants me to come home and be there with him. I've also learned that I don't have to entertain him, I just need to be where he is. 

We don't have satellite or good internet out in our trailer, so we can't exactly flop down and binge watch anything right now.  So I have been trying to find us friends that are understanding of where he's at that will let us come visit for an hour or so and help engage him and work on his social skills. It's becoming a balance now.  Yoga is my thing on Thursdays. So, if he's interested in joining in (like he did last week for the first time), great, but I do need to make sure I keep doing this for myself whether he participates or not. I just need to remember that it's what I truly want and my body needs. 

But - how come no one else has stepped up and said to either of us  "Hey, can Rob come with me?"

One friend has done it when we're with him ... but  he certainly hasn't shown up to sit and just spend time with him.... and it would be weird if he came over to just pull Rob away to hang out with him right now. When we had the shop, it was easy for the two of them to sit in there and hang out and get "guy time" because I either had other things to do or a friend over.. right now, I'm a very thin trailer wall away.  As much as I was welcome to hang out with them, I didn't always, and right now I really don't have anywhere else to "go". 

That doesn't mean someone can't offer to come get him.

I also just realized that in a couple days, he'll have been home a month.  I don't think his brother has even come to see him.  He did go see him in the hospital parking lot the day before he came home, but I don't think he's seen him since.  Or maybe he did once just after he got home...

So.. I'm clearly feeling the effects of the fact that I don't have any time away from my partner - Now I need to figure out how to change that, still keeping in mind that, prior to the stroke, we didn't have to call it that, and that giving it any kind of name, really doesn't change what it is, except it still could very well hurt his feelings if expressed incorrectly.