Dehydration and Daily Routine

Lots of strange ideas come to you when you have time on your hands.

Last night I half thought, half dreamt that that maybe my illness earlier this year had been caused by dehydration. There may be something to this. It was certainly a factor in my trip to the hospital. I was very thirsty and after getting something to drink at the hospital, I started to feel better.

It only took me a week to realise this. But there was much more than that was going on. The conflict between the demands of my career and the needs of my family had become acute. I could not resolve it without giving up something. I wasn't going to throw my family under the bus by being away again when they needed me. So I took the money and ran.

So now I have to build a new life. It's hard because Mrs Horse is still at work and there the power has definitely shifted. I'm not retired but she wants me to be. She told me on the weekend that she and her siblings had forced their father to retire. I thought of it as castration and need to avoid that. The trouble is a man that does not work is not a man. Health and vitality comes from activity. I can't just be a "former".

For now, my daily routine slowly develops. I still get up at 5.30am, feed the dog, and then Mrs Horse and I go for a walk at about 6am. She showers, I take the dog out to poop. I bath. I drive her to work. On the way home I get coffee and something to eat. I take the dog out again in hopes of bowel movement, today sucessfully. In the morning I write and work, for the moment sorting through old papers, which is cathartic but sometimes tedious. There is no end to them.

After lunch I work around the house and walk the dog if the weather is good enough, as it is today. In the late afternoon, Sheba and I go and pick Mrs Horse up from work, sometimes we have to wait, which underlines my new status as chauffeur, the new power balance. We go the supermarket on the way home, have dinner, watch some TV and then go to bed, quite early.

That is where the dehydration was coming in, the early nights, and why I thought of it last night when I was thirsty in the middle of the night. It's not much, but it's a start. If I keep busy I'm okay.