Taking Charge

Daddy is so sick, y’all. Sinus, headache, achy, slight fever, sleeping all the time kind of sick.

It started Tuesday, for both of us, but we powered through. Wednesday, I felt better, and he felt worse, but he managed to stay up and about. I had to work on Wednesday, and when I came home, he crashed. He slept on and off all night and in to today.

We were supposed to go to lunch today and have the big talk. I don’t know exactly what Daddy has to say, but I know that I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks – and days. Several times this week, I posed a question about our future, and his response has always been, “We’ll talk about that later this week.”

But there was no lunch today.

I cried for about an hour. All of it in self-pity. He leaves on Saturday. We haven’t had sex since Tuesday night. I don’t know when I’ll see him next after he leaves. We haven’t had our talk. He feels miserable and I don’t know what to do. Will we work out? Am I just dreaming? See how quickly I went down the rabbit hole?

For whatever reason, all morning, I waited for him to jump out of bed and tell me what was going to happen – he was going to sleep; we’d do lunch tomorrow; whatever. The man is barely coherent, but I was waiting for Daddy to treat me like babygirl. Jesus.

Part of the problem is that I don’t know how to be sick. I get strep and bronchitis and still go to work (true stories). When someone sleeps for days on end, I feel sort of useless and helpless. I don’t even know how to be properly sympathetic.

When I finally stopped crying, I made myself do a little bit of work on my business – I mean, that is part of the plan for the summer, and if I believe in the plan (which I do), I can’t let one self-pitying moment stop me from getting work done, right? By the time I was done, I felt better. And I realized I’d been an idiot.

I was sitting around waiting for him to be Daddy and although he’s always Daddy, he’s also a very sick man who needs to get better.

I pulled myself out of my funk, went upstairs, and demanded to know every symptom he had. I told him I had to run errands and get lunch and that when I came back, he was taking medicine and he had 24 hours to get better – I have to work a half-day tomorrow at the office and I’ll be home around 12:30 p.m. I might not get my lunch out, but I will get my conversation. He mumbled, nodded, and fell back asleep.

I bought DayQuil, NyQuil, sinus medicine, Vicks VapoRub, chicken soup, and Saltines. I gave him the medicine. I slathered the Vicks on his chest and back. I sat and watched him eat – he had seconds (that’s a good sign, right?). I told him that he had to take his medicine every four hours and get better, damn it!

He gave me the Dom Look. I told him that the ends justified the means, and if I had to be bossy to make him better, oh well.

He better watch out, because I’m taking charge over here.