Tasting freedom...

Ok.

I can confess here: I am soooo happy Okaasan isn't here.

There. I said it.

I am beginning to enjoy and luxuriate in the freedom of being just a couple again. After so many years.

There is a lightness to home life. We are playful with eachother. The schedule of life - specially meal times and contents - has relaxed. My God - we are even going out after work and doing things.

It's a new norm.

And I am loving it.

Yesterday DS went to visit Okaasan and I had a sudden fear that the hospital would say she was fine to come home and we would have yet another weekend of tension and care work. But no - he came back and said she seemed fine, but that she wouldn't be coming home so soon....in fact the hospital originally had said one month...ONE MONTH???!!!! - whatever - not this weekend.

My mind is giddy with possibilities. Walking! Cycling! Flowers! Eating. Pokemon special event! Is my knee strong enough to load the kayak on the car roof and go out to the lake?? All of that.

You don't realize how trapped you are/feel until the bounds are loosened and release. We have lived with Okaasan for years now, it's become our normal life - with only a night or two of break - and now I am REALLY beginning to relax. Carers need a break, really.

I am careful, though, not to express my happiness too much with Dear Son - after all this is his mum, and she is in a hospital away from home. He has sole responsibility to make decisions. I am lucky that he trusts me enough to talk to me about the situation - but the decisions are his to make.

Hopefully the medicine will give Okaasan a new level of serenity and she can come home again. And if she does come home - now she and we can understand that it is possible for her to stay in another place - so maybe short stay breaks for all of us are an option in the future. Or - maybe she can't come back home and we have to find a care home for her.

All of that is to come. For now - I am planning a weekend of relaxing. Have a nice one everyone :-)