Tired

i am writing from my makeshift desk in Iron Man's hospital room, trying to keep myself busy while he rests. he underwent spinal fusion surgery yesterday at St. Mary's Hospital-Mayo Clinic. He is doing so well, despite the awful pain. I am in awe of his ability to overcome it and keep pushing forward in his recovery.

i, on the other hand, am probably the bigger mess. while we have know for two months that this was coming and anyone who knows me, knows I was making to-do lists and getting things in order from the time the surgery was scheduled. i am a planner, an organizer by nature... my EC planner helps with that, as well. i make lists even after i have done things just so i can see that i have accomplished something. control freak right here! self-proclaimed and acknowledging it freely!

so, during those two months, i have been getting things set up for this three to six month window of him being down... refining our budget, getting bills in order, doing those last seasonal things before the snow flies. basically just trying to be as prepared as possible. Iron Man is the antithesis of me... procrastinator extraordinaire! And it drives me nuts!! i think i have found more gray hairs in the last two months than I have in the last two years! note to self: make an appointment with your colorist from this makeshift desk today too!

so these last two weeks have been jam packed with last-minute to-do's. he has been pretty much put all of those things that he needed to do and compressed their completion into those fourteen days. that also means that i have been busy too because his projects often become OUR projects (which is ok- we work well together). needless to say, he has been in a lot of pain since he had to be off pain meds three weeks' prior to this procedure, which has made sleeping a challenging, which means that overall he felt like crap (sorry to be so blunt).

i thought i was doing fine until yesterday afternoon, when i went back to the hotel room across the street to freshen up as he was in recovery. that is when it hit... and i fell apart. a hot mess of ugly cries with big tears and lots of sobbing. and i couldn't stop. i kept crying, and sobbing, and blowing my nose in the bull moose call of a blow i have made a trademark for myself. i laid down on the bed, box of kleenex in hand, not caring that i was flooding the decorative bolster with wet spots.  i was so tired. tired beyond what i felt after i ran my first 10 mile race. tired beyond the long days of waiting while my grandma slowly left this earth. tired past the point of the emotional exhaustion i felt when my first serious boyfriend (of three years) decided that long distance was going to work for him. it was the kind of tired that begins in your bones, permeating each nerve until you are numb, the world blurry through eyes flowing with salty tears. it is the kind of tired that comes from keeping busy and staying strong so your other half won't worry about you as he prepares for something major.

as amazing i am with how the body can bounce back and heal, i am also astounded by how the body can go into auto-pilot. he asked me to stay in his room with him- we like to be close to each other. i did and requested a recliner instead of a cot to sleep in. i went to the hotel, changed into my cupcake jammie bottoms and ratty college t-shirt, took out my eyes, brushed my buckies and went back across the street to the hospital. praise the Lord that they finally found the right combination of pain meds and muscle relaxers so he was sound asleep upon my return. i was practically asleep standing up so i thought i was going to crash hard. no such luck. because i am crazy in love with this man who happens to hours out of surgery, i slept with one ear open. every time he moved, made a sound, sighed, i woke up. my response? "are you ok? what can i get you?"

by the time the nurse came in at 5:50 am, i was cold, tired and frustrated. i packed up, went back to the hotel and had myself another monumental meltdown. a half box of tissues later and a few loving messages from friends, a 20 minute hot shower with more crying and i actually felt human again! i stood in front of the mirror, with my red-rimmed eyes and told myself that today i was going to be strong for him. i was giving all of this to the Lord, as challenging as it is for me to let go of my life's steering wheel and let God drive the bus of my life. as i said earlier, i am a control freak. this is where i struggle with the Lord. i also struggle with trying to care for someone who is trying to lessen the stress by doing everything himself. so here lies the problem... I am trying to fix him and i cannot. i want to take care of him but he isn't letting me because he is trying to take care of me.

now i sound like a crazy person and am probably making no sense at all. or maybe that extra shot of espresso kicked in and i am typing stream of conscious. either way, i have to pee- and you probably to do too!