Pontificating on Physics

I learned very little when I sat through high school Physics, I really kind of hated Physics.  I do remember learning that it takes energy to maintain an orbit and even more energy to alter an orbit.  Marty’s Husband burst out of his care giving, Waco, Texas heat orbit with a trip to Boston last week (what does it say about you when you talk about yourself in the 3^rd person). 

Rudimentary physics taught me that to maintain an orbit without any energy expenditure you have to exist in a perfect vacuum and not even outer space is a perfect vacuum.  When your environment is full of the gunk of life, stuff like responsibility, paying bills, working you clearly have to use energy just to maintain your orbit.

Marty’s first stroke threw us completely off-kilter and blew us out of orbit careening through a vast unknown space.  It took a lot of energy to get back into some kind of reasonable orbit.  Hell, it took a lot of juice to simply stay in orbit and to maintain any sense of regular rotation.  We were just getting into some semblance of a new rhythm; we were just starting to replenish our energy stores when the 2^nd stroke happened.

In the interim, between strokes, I had found enough energy, I had found my way to starting a new career, altering my own orbit just a bit.  I had signed up and paid for an alternate teaching certificate program so I could get back into the flow of life with a different kind of job.  I was looking forward to starting the classes when Marty slumped to her left that evening of January 3^rd.

After the 2^nd stroke we had to establish a completely new life, one that was totally unfamiliar to both Marty and me.  We had to force ourselves into an uncomfortable new orbit and it was exhausting to get there.  I found that it took a great deal more energy to live our lives and keep from succumbing to gravity and burning up as we fell to earth.  We spent a lot of our fuel simply staying alive.

I went to the teaching certification classes and actually took the tests to get my teaching certificate all while Marty recovered in the hospital and rehab.  When it actually came down to looking for and starting a new career I found I was completely out of gas and only had enough fuel to get us into our new orbit and keep us there.  There was no extra for outside interests or exploring new orbits.

We eventually got into a rhythm and learned a lot about our new orbit and the world we were circling.  We got accustomed to our new route and we were both able to maintain status quo without as much energy, but it seemed impossible to find the energy to break out of orbit and do something different.  It was simply too much work, too much worry, too much expense of high cost fuel to try and take a trip or start a new career or develop new friendships.

Things have changed in our world, not completely, it will never be normal, but frankly, normal is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Today I have found the energy and the bandwidth to do some stuff and not completely obsess over my bride when I’m doing said stuff.  Hey, that’s a big thing for a guy who is a 24x7 worrier. 

We have some excellent support in our lives and our children are always willing to spend time and energy in our orbit.  Because of all of that I’ve been out of my box a couple of times, I have seen some new orbits and in doing so I’ve learned some new things, and I love seeing and learning new things from new people and exploring strange new worlds, like Fenway Park.

I miss Marty when I go; mostly I miss not having her to experience the new stuff with me.  I think when I leave Marty misses me, some, but she likes the break, the small alteration to her own orbit.

I think she sees when I am gone her orbit changes just a little too and she too has to work a little harder, she has to use more energy to alter that orbit and not crash.  I think she likes that seeing the world from a little different route. 

A lot of this whole thing is about how much energy you have, what is using that energy and where you want to expend that precious resource.  Always and forever I will circle our world with Marty that is where I will and want to spend the majority of my time and energy. 

I will continue to go and come back, I will continue to break free of our own gravity and explore other worlds and then re-enter our orbit.  Marty will continue to support my temporarily breaking free because I often bring gifts from foreign lands and sometimes that gift is nothing more than a stronger me better equipped to keep us both in orbit.