“Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing, but different than the day before.”
Welcome to my version of Groundhog Day, the movie. This song has just recently become something more for Larry and me and it has everything to do with the above lyric. Being home alone a lot of time over the last 3.5 years it sure does seem like I’m busy doing something close to nothing, but different than the day before.
Time moves differently for me now and it’s hard for me to keep up with how fast it is moving for the people around me. I know some of this is just due to getting older and the concept of days, weeks, months and years changes when we have more of those years in our rearview mirror but spending so much time home and sick also affects one’s perception of time and how quickly or slowly it is moving. I am very lucky to have a wonderful husband and a small group of very close friends who I stay in contact with to help me stay sane through all of this. Not everyone is so lucky.
P.S. Just heard Larry’s write up about being on the back of his bike and wanted to share a fact about that from my perspective. In 2015 we had an amazing vacation and on that vacation one of the things we did was ride to Devils tower, which was about an hour and a half from our hotel. I literally fell asleep on the back of the bike on that ride. Talk about total and complete trust in another person.
Larry’s Perspective:
Whenever I listen to this song, the part that always sticks out to me is "So, look here - I put her on the back of my bike - And-a we went riding - Down by old man Johnson's farm"
I'll never forget how nervous I was starting to ride with Shannon as a passenger. Whether it's good or not, I hardly think twice about her riding in the car with me driving. It's that illusion of safety that a cage creates, I suppose. But having her as a passenger on my bike is a whole different experience.
Before we moved out to Kansas, I told her we need to find our own "old man Johnson's farm" so we can live out this song. Alas, I haven't come across any Johnson's farms yet.
As time and her condition progressed out here we settled into a somewhat "normal" routine, if you can call it that.
I head off into the world everyday and she is home with Kenji. I am super fortunate that I literally work less than five minutes from home, so I come home everyday to have lunch, check on her and walk Kenji.
So I always ask how her how she's feeling and how her day is going.
And more often than not, the smartass response I get goes something like this: "It seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing, but different than the day before."
Whenever I get that sarcastic response, I smile internally because I know she's having a good enough day that she's joking. And that means she isn't letting herself fall down a dark hole...
Ghost of a Chance 