My journey is not my husband’s journey, but they do intermingle. I cannot measure my successes based on what he does but rather on what I am able to do in my day. I can take credit for helping him when appropriate, but more importantly I need to look to my life and obligations to acknowledge the good things that I accomplish every day. I think that if I stop and take the time, I will find that I have a lot of little victories that I don’t even realize are happening.

A lot of the things I do are automatic, cooking, cleaning, laundry, but still they are accomplishments that should be acknowledged and, yes, celebrated. For example, I worked in the garage tidying up yesterday, I spent 2 hours volunteering at the museum, I prepared our lunch and dinner meals and took the dog outside to avoid accidents in the house. These are all things I do in addition to my duties as a CarePartner. While these tasks may seem trivial, they are a part of the load I carry and wouldn’t be done otherwise.

My life is busier thanks to my husband’s diagnosis and yet I am still able to take care of the basics and more, and I need to know that it is okay for me to feel pride in my work. I finished writing this blog, yay! Now it’s time for me to move on to the next accomplishment of my day.