What is the fastest way to blow up one’s plans?
Make them.
Last week Ryan and I got into an argument that was nothing except a miscommunication but also a realization of the blending of two lives. I am so used to working and providing for myself and working hard to keep afloat that it’s a big adjustment for me to sit back and allow God’s blessing of someone wanting to help and provide for me. I have two flexible jobs that allow me to take off or spend time with Ryan when he is in town, but my problem is that I obsess over making hours up for when I am off and gaining jobs or hours while he is in town that did not go well. All that to say, I’ve been trying hard to get more work here and there, knowing the time was coming for Ryan to be off Tuesday-Sunday around Thanksgiving, and we could spend time together when he got in town. We never spend time, just the two of us. We are either visiting someone, doing projects, hanging out with Brent, or something else. I calculated the hours I would need for my days off, counting the week off I’ll have in a couple of weeks when I visit my cousin. Everything was on schedule. I bought groceries for the week and started cooking and meal-prepping to hang out at the house.
I joked that I wanted to stare at Ryan’s face.
All my planning and stressing about work and meticulously trying to control a situation pretty much went exactly how it should have, and to make a long story short, I did get to do exactly what I asked for and got to stare at Ryan’s face.
We caught the flu and were sick in bed with a fever the whole time he was in town. While we did not go to the doctor, we caught whatever Brent had, and he was positive for the flu. The first day I cried because this was not what we had planned for our limited time off. However, it became so absurd and comical that I laugh hysterically when I think of it. We caught it from Brent, who got it from someone else, and because Brent was at my house, my dad also caught sickness, although my dad did not test positive for the flu.
I don’t have insurance right now, so I was a bit stressed about if things were to escalate what I would do, but thankfully it was not as bad as it could have been. Before Ryan got sick, he bought cough syrup and over-the-counter medicines for me. We survived on sleep, Tylenol, and toast for days. I have never been so thankful in my whole life to have been hoarding my homemade chicken stock in the freezer. Because of all the cooking ideas, I had the ingredients to reroute my plans and make chicken soup… TWICE! The first day I made it was for survival and I have no idea how I cut everything up, but I managed. My sweet Aunt went to the store a couple of days later for me to get more chicken so I could make some more. Ryan slept on a mattress on my floor, and Sofia was a trooper, hunkering down in my room for three days. This was not her idea of vacation from an 18-wheeler lifestyle, but she was great company. She’d run from room to room, checking on all of us and asking for pets. My dad said he was too weak to pet her, so she finally gave up, went to get her bone, and jumped back in his bed . The highest my temp got was 102 and what makes me cackle is the absurdity of how sick Ryan was that when I finally got him to take his temperature, it read 97.
On Saturday, we both could sit up, and my temperature was under 100, so it seemed like a good time for a DIY project of putting together a small desk I bought from Amazon. I wish I had this on film because we had to redo it three times after putting it together backward.
The absurdity of it all makes me laugh hysterically with how stressed I was about calculating my hours to spend a few days off together going on adventures, only to have us both comatose in my room. We both said it was God’s way of saying, “You said you do nothing together…”
Also, I should have known better as this is not the first time I struggled for control and lost. I stressed about money, and a lot of my groceries went to waste because we were too sick to eat it. I still haven’t cooked the turkey with which I had planned to make turkey gumbo. Turkey gumbo is the only thing I wanted and I bought the turkey on sale. It’s a few-day processes and it is too late to put the turkey back in the freezer, so I will have to deal with this soon.
Ryan and I agree that while this was not ideal, we spent time together doing nothing. We also were glad we were both sick and not just one of us because “that would be awkward,” and we both saw how we care for each other. We both got each other food or liquids when we could. I saw Ryan as a caregiver (in between naps), making me love him even more. I am so thankful I get to marry this man. Ryan’s mom called a few times to check on us and laughed, stating “Y’all always say you never do anything. If this is the only way y’all do nothing there are some issues.”
My dad asked what we learned during all this. Ryan said, “We can sleep.” haha!
Ryan left last night to go back to work, and I took a couple more days off work to recuperate. I woke up exhausted, and you ever have one of those days where you should have never left the bed? I spilled my entire cup of coffee all over my bedroom floor. So, I’ve been cleaning carpet today as well.
Life is nothing if it’s not an adventure.
Ryan should be back in town this coming weekend, and hopefully, we will be able to spend more time together without as much delirium.
If you want to lose control of your life download this game. Ryan and I played this the last day he was in town and we had some kind of brain function.
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