It is 2 pm. We finished lunch at 1 and then I sat and went through my email – so many newspaper articles and book reviews and I want to read them all. I scan through some, read others in their entirety but not truly absorbing their content. There are still more left unopened.

There is the book I am reading while I eat lunch. I skipped the middle, the beginning was of interest, the last third even more so, I have about 100 pages left to read. I want to, I do.

Mornings are so busy – especially the mornings that include a shower for my husband. I grab a half hour here or there to do some of MY stuff – read some of those articles, pay a bill, research a new doctor. Do some odd housekeeping chores, laundry, wash dishes, cook lunch.

Then there is this afternoon time. I can barely keep my eyes open – so tired. Lately I have been lying down after lunch, during this time that I am now writing instead of resting, and I’ll drift off for 40 winks because my brain knows that I have to be up at 3:15 to make my husband his coffee and snack to have at 3:30 when he watches Jeopardy re-runs.

6 o’clock comes quickly. Evening meds and other odds and ends – perhaps wash all the dishes – from lunch and afternoon snack, I often save them all up and just do it all in one fell swoop. Oh, and my husband’s physical therapy exercises, have to do those as well.

Where does the time go?

7pm – a light supper and then sitting like a lump, watching television I have no interest in, wasting precious time doing nothing when I could be doing something – my husband wants company – he sits all day in his recliner – unable to do anything on his own. While I flit around the apartment doing this and that – fetching for him – trying to steal a moment here and there for me – but there is no ME.

And here I sit writing when I could be catching a much needed nap, because I need to, write this, at this moment. Write this. Write other thoughts that are swirling through my mind.

But I must stop now. I need to lie down – just for a bit. Please.

There was no shower song this morning but there was a laundry song – Enya – Only Time.