What a roller coaster this is

 A roller coaster of emotions that is.  I spent the weekend irritated and am slightly ashamed of that because the irritation was caused by Ash not knowing what to do with himself and that's not his fault.  

Before my week away, when Ash was almost permanently cross with me, he would sit grumpily in front of the tv and only move when he absolutely had to.  Now he wants to do things but he wants to do things with me and he needs me to come up with the ideas which is a little exhausting.  

Before my week away, on the odd occasion that he wanted to get out of the house, he would ask what we were doing and would be happy with a suggestion for later in the day.  Now he asks but, as soon as I come up with something, his coat goes on and he's waiting at the door.  There will be a strategy for dealing with this of course but right now I haven't quite got a handle on it hence the irritation.

Of course I've thought about this and realised that my irritation isn't helping either of us so, although I haven't worked out the timing bit, I decided to throw myself into giving as much of me to him as I can emotionally cope with.  

Having made this decision we went out for coffee this morning, found a table overlooking the local market place and enjoyed a good half hour of people watching, an activity which went so well I felt myself settling down again.  

This afternoon I asked Ash if I could go for a walk with him and the dog.  He readily agreed and off we set but this time was different.  In our pre-dementia lives, walks have involved Ash striding ahead and teasing me for my slow pace, then waiting for me, taking my hand and walking along pointing things out that he's noticed on previous walks.  Today he trailed behind me and then got cross because I was 'striding out' when I'd been invited to join them in their afternoon stroll.  This struck me as so sad that I could feel myself being overwhelmed by memories of everything that's gone before and all the things that are now missing from our relationship.

The sadness won't last of course, it never does because there really is no point in wallowing in memories.  There are always things to look forward to, life is rarely dull and it's not often I'm despondent but every so often the past creeps up behind me and takes me by surprise.

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