Welcome to my world. We're camping out in the living room for a change. Last time Andy hurt himself, back last winter, we camped out in the living room for a good month or so. Andy had torn his rotator cuff and could only sleep sitting in a semi-upright position on the couch. So we ALL slept on the sofa in the living room.
Although I guess Boo slept on the floor.
This time, though, the cast's only supposed to be on for a couple of weeks followed by therapy. Maybe we'll make it up to the bedroom sooner than last time.
But don't think I'm complaining. The living room is fun. It's like having a sleepover party except that you don't invite any of your friends from school.
When Andy went to Kenya, Boo and I spent about a week camping out in the living room. Eventually, Boo got tired of that and started going upstairs to the bedroom at night. I, of course, followed Boo. When Andy's home, Boo follows my every move. When Andy's away, I follow Boo.
Andy wrote his first journal entry and talked about why he's hiking the trail. I guess the question people want to ask me but don't exactly know how to articulate is "how the hell can you allow your significant other to leave for half a year?" When the AT discussion comes up, people just kind of look at me, start a sentence that clearly wants to begin with "how the hell" and then just kind of stop. Perhaps they realize that the situation just defies explanation.
The truth is that I fell in love with a person who likes to go on adventures and I want him to be the person I fell in love with. While saying this, I should also mention that I've given Andy the third degree to ascertain the percentage of time he'll be "adventuring" each year. He's assured me that he's planning to be home for a good part of our relationship. Perhaps even most of it. Luckily, he doesn't seem to hanker for walking around the world or across the country or anything time-consuming like that. The AT does seem to be a unique adventure that will be over when it's over.
Knowing Andy, he'll return home with some totally unrelated hobby. He'll have met some wacky Joe on the trail - some guy who's into something science-related...maybe involving measuring things or building things. And Andy will come back prepared to embark on a campaign of learning all about his new interest. That's usually how it happens. And that will be fine with me.
My best friend Madeline, a most reliable source for wisdom and wise talk (as in "wisecracking"), once gave me a piece of advice I took to heart. I was in the middle of dating actively and en masse. I fell in with some guy who thought I was the neatest chick he'd ever met because I was so different from the girls he'd known. I bragged to Madeline "he loves me" "he thinks I'm different!"Madeline, being the "experienced" gal she was, told me to watch out for guys who like you because you're different. She said that eventually they would hate me because I was different.
I've thought of that so many times over the years. One of the reasons I think I trust my relationship with Andy is that we both like who the other person fundamentally is. I know that I was captivated early on by his curiousity. To hamper that now would turn him into a different person. And make me a hypocrite to boot. As for Andy, he's basically the same exact guy I fell for. And, I believe, he's basically stuck somewhere between 10 and 14 years of age.
No offense, Andy. But you know what I'm talking about. After Andy got his cast yesterday, we came home where I expected Andy to rest.
Nights of pain had cost him some good sleep.
But is that what a curious kid would do?
NO.
Here's Andy following our trip to the doc. He's happy because the pain is significantly less in his arm and now he can play again with his stove experiments.
