Respite Care: Temporary institutional care of a dependent elderly, ill, or handicapped person, providing relief for their usual caregivers.

I first heard of this word when Vera, my ex, and I had considered adoption many moons ago. The child psychologist said that, if we decided to adopt a child with special needs, physical or psychological, that the state would provide respite care. At the time, I had no idea what that was, nor any experience to think that I might need it.

Later, I did some volunteer work for a hospice agency and though I was not respite care, I provided a listening ear and some friendship to the caregiver.

When Hobbs was first diagnosed with diabetes, people told me that he would get along fine with the disease, but that it would be difficult for me, possibly. At first, it was no big deal, now some 6 months later, I find that I am tired. It seems to be nonstop – of course, this doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to do what I need to do to keep him healthy, but my world seems to revolve around his schedule and it can get tiring.

I’ve only been away from him a couple of times since he was diagnosed, both on visits to see Deb, in Florida. These get-aways were October and November of last year. Since then, she’s been to visit a couple of times and I’ve not been away. Today, I’m looking forward to dropping him off for boarding and letting them take the helm for 5 days. I need a break. It will be worth the money.

It wears on you after a while – the almost constant need. The bathroom breaks, the eyedrops, the injections, the walks (which I enjoy too), preparing special food for him a couple of times/week, the need to be home at a certain time to make sure that he gets to go to the restroom, gets his insulin, fed, etc.

Yep. I need some respite care for my lovely pup so that I can come back, invigorated, and ready to serve.

It’s been a while since I’ve written here, for whatever reason. It’s probably not because I didn’t have much to say, but just that I didn’t say it.

Life is good and it continues on. I’m having a great time. I’m listening to another book, a very insightful book, recommended to me by my friend, James. The name of the book is: No More Mr. Nice Guy. No, it’s not subtitled: How to be a jerk in 10 easy lessons.

It’s a serious book about the issue of being a ‘nice guy’. The guy who basically bends to everyone else’s will thinking that it will make him liked, loved, and appreciated, none of which it does.

Quite honestly, it is a fascinating read. In parts, I see myself partially, in other parts, the mirror is held squarely to my face, and yet other parts, I am slapped silly by the truth presented. Dr. Glover goes into detail about what a ‘nice guy’ is and how they got that way and what to do about it to break out of that syndrome.

So, what exactly is a nice guy. I am a recovering nice guy, so I can speak to it at length. A nice guy is one who has a girlfriend, or perhaps a wife, he is totally focused on her, on her happiness. He makes her the center of his world. He has no outside friends, no interests, nothing. He caves in to her every desire. She is the center of his universe. However, there is a unspoken agreement; she must become his everything and make him feel like he is worthwhile, lovable, and deserving. This, of course, is unfair to her. It is not her responsibility to do this. It is his responsibility to create his own happiness by doing what he likes, setting boundaries (learning to say ‘no’).

The interesting thing about this is that most women don’t want a guy that they can run over. They don’t want a ‘nice guy’. They wanted an integrated man. A man who is balanced. A man who can say no to them, even if it makes them upset. They respect it. Nice guys get very little respect from anyone.

So, how does this come about? In my case, it came from having a demeaning, angry father, and a mother who didn’t know what to do about it other than to be sad and crawl into a bottle. Looking back, this affected me in a couple of ways: With my father, I learned to not rock the boat. So, these days I have a lots of difficulty with disagreement and will try to steer clear of it, but I’m learning to handle it, to discuss and not run. It’s better this way. I have learned that I have needs, wants, and desires and that they are just as important as anyone else’s. Period.

As for my mother, being a little, I want what all little boys want, for their mother to be happy. So, seeing her sadness, I did everything that I could to make her happy, to make her smile. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t my job, but hers to make herself happy. I took on that burden because my father was not, in my eyes, doing it. This got me into the role of people pleasing. Again, when one becomes a people pleaser, usually there is one left who is unpleased. You. Soon, you start to look outside of yourself for people to give you validation, when it doesn’t come, you just try harder. I started looking for validation from women because it’s something that I never had. My mother was ‘unavailable’.

All of this to say that in the past two years I’ve learned how to be there for me, to please myself, to be nice to myself. In the past year I’ve started saying “no” to what I don’t want to do. It’s more difficult than it sounds after so many years of doing the opposite. I get a massage every month. I go to the doctor when I need to. I buy new camera equipment just because I want it – I used to have terrible buyer’s remorse, but not anymore. I eat healthier food. I still eat some junk food, but I don’t feel badly about it. I exercise at least 5 days per week. I read books that spark some insight. I take an occasional workshop. All of these are being nice to myself and it was very much needed.

I’m still learning how to be nice to myself, and it feels good. What also feels really good is that I have a woman next to me who doesn’t find that odd. She supports me in doing my own thing! And, what’s even better, is that she is beside me because it’s what I want, not what I ‘need’.

Thorstein Veblen, a U.S. economist and social scientist came up with the the phrase, Conspicuous Consumption. Also, certain types of goods are named after him. These are called Veblen goods. A Veblen good is an item that becomes more desirable as the price increases. It has snob appeal, so to speak. People want it because it is out of the range of most people. A classic example is a Bently automobile. From what I understand, not a particularly reliable vehicle, but in demand as a status symbol, a show of wealth. Fortunately, these trappings have never appealed to me in the least, nor impressed me.

Tony is home for the Christmas break and without him having been here, I would have never known about this. Nike released the Air Jordon Concorde 11′s two days before Christmas. These ‘classic’ basketball shoes cost $180 per pair. Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is probably not much, about twice as much as a ‘normal’ pair of their shows; however, as they did a limited release and hadn’t released this style in 11 years, they created an artificial market for it. Young adults and children were standing in line for several hours just to be able to buy a pair of these shoes. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but a few web sites reported that the desire for these shoes caused riots.
Tony, who’s always looking for a business edge, wanted me to invest in a couple of pair so that he could sell them. I did. He purchased 3 pair of the shoes, for which he will reimburse me when he sells them. He showed me, the next day, on eBay that a single pair had a high bid of $1,225! Yes, $1,225 for one pair of the same shoe that was came out the day before! A 680% increase in price. Naturally, he’s chomping at the bit to get the shoes and get them on eBay.

All of this was amazing to me how Nike was able to take a pulse of the market, come up with marketing plan to cause an almost world-wide frenzy for this simple ‘foot covering’ and how much people are willing to pay to have this coveted item.

Regarding my own son, he’s excited at the prospect of owning the shoe, too; however, he seems more excited about the prospect of selling two pair and getting the money.

As one who, thankfully, has not been much of a consumer, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the appeal. I suppose as long as we are looking for outside validation, these marketing ploys will continue to work quite well…

The other day I mentioned about the dates that I had. It was an interesting time; however, I grew tired of it very quickly. There’s a lot of ramp up time for me. I want to get to know this person, their background, what makes them tick, likes, dislikes, hopes, goals, fears, everything.

As I mentioned, I was about to call it quits, hang it up for a while. Then, I got a mail from Debra, just a short one saying how she liked my profile. I went to hers, checked and really liked what I read … I assumed that she lived in the Charlotte area because I said that I didn’t want to date anyone further than 40 miles from Charlotte. Hmmmm. Is 650 miles < 40 miles? Anyway, I replied to her email, she replied back, and we were off to the races, as they say.

We talked on the phone everyday, a couple of hours per day. Now, what you have understand is that, even though I write a lot, which might imply that I talk a lot, I don’t. I get tired of talking fairly easily. We talked and talked and talked. We talked, I think for nearly a month, every day before we ever met.

Then, one day, I made a ‘joke’ about her coming to Atlanta. I didn’t realize how much of a woman of action she was. She said OK and we set the date, May 25, 2011. We both flew to Atlanta to meet.

During our conversation, Deb comes out with one of her straight shots: You know, so we don’t have to think about it all day, let’s just get that first kiss right out of the way as soon as we get off the plane! Hell! That sounded like a great idea, a straight shooter have we here! LOL

I arrived first, about 30 minutes ahead of her flight. I waited, somewhat impatiently at her gate, nervous to meet her in person. As soon as I saw her and she got off the plane, we hugged, and took care of that first kiss of what would be many on that day. We spent from about 9:30 AM until 10:00 PM together, then she flew back to Florida, I to North Carolina. We just spent the day touring the town and having a good time. At the end, I was exhausted, but happy!

Since then, we see each other about once per month, for 4 or 5 days. It works. There’s no drama. When we are together, we are both introverts, so going out and doing the town is not something that we want to do or very much consider. Our idea of a night on the town is about 3 hours long, then home to sleep before 10 or 11 PM. Party animals!!!

The cool thing is that there is no high octane “chemistry” burn. In other words, no drama over OMG, I have to be with him/her or my world is incomplete. We’re both old enough to know better and that we have to be happy in our own skins before we can be happy with each other.

As a bonus, she has a very cool dog named Mufasa, a Rottweiler. He’s my buddy. I love that dog!