Afternoon

  Well, its another one of those days. At least its just aggravation and not the depression. IT may be part of the depression but at least I'm not going back and forth between tears and anger. Poor Cathy has to suffer in silence or I can come unglued with the smallest thing. This can't be good for her.
   Don't know where I was going. But Cathy is alright at the moment and I think she understands that she needs to leave me alone unless she really needs me to help her with something. I'm sorry I blow up at her. I don't know how we are still together with all our problems and being two totally different people. She is a person I wouldn't even waste a conversation on if I didn't love her. I'm pretty sure I love her. I'd hate to put up with anyone that does things the way she does without a very good reason. I  do see her making efforts to do things she thinks will help me. I don't know. I took a Xanax. I hate that I have to take pills just to be able to be around my own wife. And theres a lot of guilt. First off, I know that she has the mind of a child and isn't really responsible for the way she feels and acts, up to a point. She also has dementia that carries that point a lot farther. She needs someone with both compassion and patience to care for her and she needs pleasant interaction with other people to avoid feeling lonely. Believe me, I'm not someone that is nice and friendly or likes engaging in conversation and hates gossip. So besides me not being the type personality that she needs, I'm even worse with all the problems I have. I'm the type person she should avoid. The only thing in my favor is that I do love her. I must even though I question it sometimes. Well, another thing which ain't all that good at times. I'll do whatever it takes, as far as I'm able to make sure she has at least some chance to be happy.
  What about me? Do I have a right to be happy? Do I have to sacrifice everything to give Cathy as pleasant an existence as possible? Especially when nothing I ever do is good enough or goes far enough. I try to do special things and go to a lot of effort and pain to take her places and get her out of the house. Most of the time, we end up arguing and unhappy because she didn't get enough time to spend looking and making up her mind or she wants something that I have said we aren't getting. She wants to buy more plants. More things for me to have to care for. A short while earlier, she wanted another dog. Something else I have to care for. She has three already and I take care of them 95% of the time. Hell they won't leave me alone most of the time. When Cathy wasn't expected to be here long, I had a general plan to sell out the house and move to the desert southwest where you can live for free within certain rules and the money from the house would sustain me long enough for my retirement kicks in. A whole $300 something a month. It still seems like a good idea. I have thought it through and it can possibly be a dead end situation but I don't know. I don't even know if theres a good enough reason to keep suffering through this miserable existence after Cathys gone. One thing one of the nurses said to me when Cathy was in such bad shape keeps sticking in my mind. It's not painful to starve to death.