I feel as if I have been asleep for 25 years

There are moments when I feel as if I have been asleep for 25 years. I went to work outside the home in 1994 after having proofread/copyedited for private printers for about 10 years and before that for the NRC Research Journals for a couple of years (we were laid off by the then Conservative Government). Working at home was marvelous. I loved every minute of it actually. Go into work; pick up my work and then work at home with my then toddler daughter. She loved to sit beside me and work. We had this wonderful work/ play arrangement that made our days a lot of fun and a lot of accomplishment. For the most part we were undisturbed except when we had to stand in line at the bank for Church needs as my husband was treasurer or go into the Church on some business or another. Occasionally I got a call to babysit from my husband's cousin and that threw our day off of course but I felt it was my duty to help out since he was my husband's cousin. 

But back to the idea of being asleep. When I went to work at the Medical School and later the Ottawa Hospital I stopped doing everything outside of that pretty much. I just worked and then came home and cleaned. That was my life and I actually really enjoyed it. We started going to Dominion Chalmers Church and I loved those sermons from the old Testament Scholar and then when he retired we moved on to Christ Church Cathedral eventually. We had been going to Orleans United for about twenty years before that where Ed had very much enjoyed singing in the Choir and Treasurer for about ten of those years. Ed pretty much took over seeing the girls off to school every day and he was home before me as the larger part of my time was spent at the Civic Campus on the other side of Ottawa. It was blissful and exactly what my psychiatrist had mentioned to me all those years ago. Live a life that is fairly quiet; I was doing that for the most part in as much as I was able those days. 

So I continued and Ed decided to retire in 2004 and that actually worked really well and I retired in late 2007. Then home quietly slipping into this quaint new field of DNA genealogy that I had embarked on. Ed had pretty much taken over meal planning, grocery buying and he had always managed his own finances and I had managed mine. The years slipped by until he took ill in 2011 and acquired a pacemaker. That was a bit of a warning for me but I did not particularly heed it. Edward loved managing and so he continued to do so and I lived in my little cocoon of my own making (and which he really encouraged to be honest; he liked a quiet wife at home) from which I did not really start to emerge until 2017 when he took on Treasurer of OGS Conference 2017. It was a lot of work and I did help him with that by doing the actual book keeping portion of it. Still in my cocoon though not really interacting with anyone unless I absolutely needed to do so. His health though had been a concern but he was managing very well and we were still traveling about although mostly in Canada after 2016. 

Then COVID-19 struck and suddenly Ed was needing more care and I just managed as he needed more and more help and 2020 passed by the end of which he was a full time invalid and I had become a full time driver and 100% helper to him. 

Today when I woke up I thought about all that has happened in the last six months since Ed had cellulitis and was in the Montfort for five days in early December. He recovered but in retrospect I can see the steady decline which I couldn't see at the time as I was too close to him. Now I am sorting things out and it is a very slow process and an expensive process for sure. At 75 one does need help to manage all of this for sure. Living in a cocoon for twenty five years may have been good for my mental health but coming out is a shock. I will be glad to slip back into it when everything is sorted. 

Church on You-Tube at Christ Church Cathedral Sunday mornings helps to steady me for the week. The Daily Bible Reading in my inbox every morning starts out my day with the word of God helping me to see my path. I still try to live in that cocoon but life does reach in on occasion.