Assisted Living

I try to live my life as high functioning as possible. I was cursed with a tenacity curiosity and intellect that in themselves require constant care and feeding. On my own my energy curve would be significantly affected with the day to day tasks of living commuting and working. I would not be able to function professionally at the level I do if I were alone.
The energy and time to: clean the house, which I totally suck at. Cook, which I do sometimes anyway, cooking is a new thing for me and I’m loving it. Washing cloths, which I’m not too bad at except for the spots I can’t see which are, all of them. Commuting is always problematic. I have an equation I use to plan a commute if it takes 5 minutes in a care it takes 20 minutes on a bus. The time I waist getting from point a to point b is significant. In the labor market i’m in I’m reticent to relocate for any particular gig lest I find myself commuting to my next opportunity exactly where I just moved from. I have to say I am very happy in the job I’m in right now.
When you disabled logistics are everything. For me the first thing I figure out is where to pee, then where to get a drink, finally where can I eat. Basic logistics take a ton of energy, planning and believe it or not discipline. People would not believe the work I put into my logistics in a day. Keeping safe, working logistics, getting there on time. There is such a thing as disabled time. It takes as long as it takes, this can drive you crazy or lead you to think I’m lazy and incompetent. But, no not really, it takes the time that it takes to do the things that I do.
Energy, Pain, and Fatigue are everything to me. Those three variables define what I can and can’t do during a day. Alone I would be spending most of my day and my: energy, pain, and fatigue just doing the things I have to do to survive. My mind my creativity my tenacity would have no place for expression and I’d get depressed and go crazy mad.
Sharing my life with someone allows me to be high functioning and perform at or near my potential or as close to as possible. Without basic logistics I’d be the twitching pile of poo incrusted piece of humanity in the corner making pee puddles. Do I use the people I live with I hope not, I don’t think so. They are big people and have choices and I like to think that live with me is far more fun, exciting and interesting than it would be with some “normal” man. How lame could that be, I think very.
My wife sometimes gets mad at me and says all I am is the driver, all I am is the cook, all I do for you is clean, No, not really. I’m with my life because I love her. If we had too we could outsource the driving, the cooking and the cleaning. My perverse dream is to have a six foot buff blond woman in a short leather skirt and a peasant top with knee high boots driving me around in a Mercedes. Driving seems to be a pain for anyone. I’m so glad that I can’t drive. There are times it would be nice but ultimately I’m happier that I can’t.
I like to cook and when I have the energy I’m all for it. When I don’t we improvise or my wife does her specialities. Cleaning I suck at. My wife has very high standards for spotlessness and I just offend her sensibilities by even attempting to clean. I can organize the big things but cleaning the little things is all bad.
Its like anything else its about balance. My wife and I have a balance where we are doing our thing and were happy. Yes, she does some extra driving for me, which is profoundly appreciated. Yes, we share the cooking duties and yes she cleans stuff. But we are happy. It works for us. How does this compare to others well for some it doesn’t sound all that different and for others its totally alien.
But, we are happy.
When we get older or if my wife and I didn’t have each other any more I would seriously look into moving into assisted living, where cooking and cleaning was done for me. I’d get a place with good transportation characteristics and do the best I could to manage my energy fatigue and pain budgets. Its all about balance and doing what you can do to be as high functioning as possible.
High functioning comes at a price. There is a direct correlation to functionality and poverty and prosperity. Actually that’s not totally true. High functioning is more 1:1 with prosperity. Poverty is more like a steep deep dive as the effects of depression hopelessness and ultimately helplessness will lead into a very dark place where its all about survival, leading more to isolation and ultimately death.
I feel blessed that I can function at the level I do but I know that eventually the cost of remaining high functional and highly competitive will cost too much or not be possible at all. I hope god is kind in letting my down.