Good Friday

It's 4 a.m - .Good Friday morning. As usual when I've been over anxious I'm unable to sleep through the night. I've returned to roaming the house in the early hours. A mug of hot milk and a couple of oat baked biscuits along with a paracetamol usually help me to get another couple of hours before the start of a new day. But the sleep I have is not as deep and restful as a good 'proper 7 hours'. My dreams are edgy and fear filled. I'm often running, in a speeding car or falling down a steep flight of stairs.

I seem to be having a recurring dream where I am trying to make my way 'home'. To our first house in Gloucestershire. I am carrying heavy loads up steep hills. Trying to figure out whether to take the shortest (but steepest) or the less steep (but far longer) route home.

The place where from my late 20's to mid 30's I used to drag shopping home from Stroud. Lugging heavy carrier bags up a long steep hill for nearly 2 miles. Looking back I realise that MyMan didn't think how I managed to get all supplies (for both of us, a cat and a dog and cleaning materials) home unaided. I can't believe how I just accepted this. A lack of reliable bus service along with high fares meant I would walk to and from town to shop 3 times a week. Once a month a friend would take me along to an out of town supermarket.

Now, on reflection, I believe this contributed to the RSI problems I suffer. An injury in my mid back that affects me from my shoulder, through to my pelvis and thigh. Today I can hardly carry a loaf of bread in a bag but have to hug it close to me.

At the time ( mid 1970s) I didn't drive. We only had one car - MyMan's. He needed it for the daily commute to work near Tewksbury. I used to save the weekends as his leisure time and not request assistance with shopping which he always hated. Even then I put his needs above my own.

He is frequently thoughtless and selfish. But I have partly made him the man he is today. Now I am trying to stop and think of myself, my needs; far more than I have ever done so in the past. Neither of us finding it easy to adjust to the people we are now.

I mentioned my recurring dream to MyMan. He agreed; "it was a long hard pull" up the Old Bisley Road out of town. I asked what he meant as he'd never walked it. For him walking was a ramble in the countryside not pounding footpaths or pavements. "Well, I always had to select the lower gears and just hope I didn't meet the bus labouring uphill". Hmm I didn't realise that it was just as tough for him too!!