As most of you have gathered, Rebecca is on an inpatient rotation this month - she's working 80 hours a week, with only 4 (yes, just 4) days off the whole month. I've lost count of how many 28 hour shifts she's working, but several, including one that's probably a violation of residency rule restrictions. She's helping families and saving lives in the ICU, and finding it important and fulfilling to bring her family med perspective to such critical situations. But I know that she is also exhausted. Not as exhausted as she was from trauma surgery, and more fulfilled than when she was on radiology, but exhausted just the same. Helping families make life-or-death decisions, managing end-of-life care, and the administrative tasks that come with such a role can be a lot.
And so this month is a lot for her. We're also moving. I'm in a bit of a transitional time at work. The holidays are coming. We're still working on buying the house (I turned in more documents to the bank this morning! :)). On months like this, when she works so much and life gets so busy, things shift.
I get into a mode of semi-singledom. I have tried to train myself to plan social engagements, to go out to eat by myself, to attend church alone (although I only walk through the doors alone, and then my chosen family is there), to plan meals and housework and laundry differently.
I doubt this has anything to do with us being a same sex couple, really, although the length of time we went without a legally recognized marriage took its toll and may affect me forever on this front. I think it's just part of being a DO wife, or any kind of doctor's wife, though I should write sometime about DO wife life specifically.
I think most of us, as medwives, learn to be alone without being lonely, because if we can't learn to be alone, we just can't BE. That's the cost of loving someone, marrying someone, supporting someone that works nights, weekends, overnights, 30 hour call, etc to keep your spouse, your mother, your child safe and cared for in the hospital. That's the cost of watching my helpmate glow with satisfaction because a family finally got the support they needed, or flush with anger that someone wasn't treated as a human being. But some days, usually about this point in the rotation (most rotations are about a month, so I'm about halfway through), it's hard to really feel married.
If I'm honest, some nights when she is working, I sleep on the couch because it doesn't feel like there is simply too much space there. The cats are more likely to tuck themselves into the bend of my knees or the crook of my arm there and stay snuggled for long periods, as if they know that I am trying not to feel the emptiness next to me that should be my helpmate's warm body.
And I don't feel married in that schmoopy way romantic comedies paint love and marriage. I still feel that I am a helpmate, charged with supporting another human being, but the ways in which I love her are different. It may be as simple as boxing leftover lentils into a lunch-sized, microwave-safe container, and then not getting upset if she forgets to grab them on her way out the door at 6 am. It may be bringing a cat to snuggle her in bed when she sleeps during the day and I'm getting work done. Some days, it means directly asking if there's something I want her to do, instead of hoping she'll think of it, because I know that she's too tired and she can't think of it.
I don't know. Maybe feeling married isn't a thing. I see friends post about their husbands on facebook and maybe it's the social media halo or maybe healthy hetero relationships are different or maybe I'm just doing this wrong.
But some days, right now, I don't feel married. I'm grateful to see my helpmate realize her calling and love people like Jesus would. But it's not a fairy tale. It's not a romantic comedy.
It's messy, and it's hard, but that's how real love is.
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