I’ve been home alone for more than a week now, with Jason away until Tuesday, and I’m running on fumes.
Here’s why. I’m doing the things Jason normally does. I’m keeping the house clean and not letting the dishes pile up in the sink. I’m keeping the litter box from smelling up the apartment. I’m making sure the kitchen and bathroom trash don’t add to the funk. And I need clean clothes for work, so the laundry can’t wait either. If I do all of that right, the apartment will look like nothing happened. That’s the part nobody sees.
Let me be clear: I’m not complaining. I like a clean home, and I can keep one. What I want to talk about is cost. Most chores take me more time and more energy than they would for someone else, and when I only have so much of both, every chore comes out of something else I could have done.
Why Jason Is Gone
Jason is my partner, and he’s also my PCA. This year, Minnesota is moving people from PCA to a new program called Community First Services and Supports (CFSS). Because of that transition, there’s a gap in my hours, and the new program doesn’t start for me until November 1. We asked the county for an extension of my PCA services, and as of today, I haven’t gotten one.
With a month of no work, Jason decided it was a good time to visit a friend in Los Angeles. I knew about a week and a half ahead, so I had time to prepare. What I didn’t expect was how clearly this stretch would show me what those supports do. They don’t just get chores done. They give me the energy I need for everything else.
What Jason Usually Handles
Most days, a lot of the household runs through Jason, and I don’t always notice how much until he’s gone. He feeds the cat and cleans the litter box and any messes. He sets up the coffee for the next morning. He asks what I want for breakfast and lunch and gets both ready, and sometimes he gets the dog’s lunch ready too. He helps me get dressed once I’ve picked out my clothes, helps me with my shoes, and sometimes puts the cape on Surley. When I head out the door, he locks it behind me.
None of those jobs are huge. Together, they’re most of the small tasks that fill a day. When he’s here, I spend that energy on other things. This stretch, I’ve been spending it on all of them myself.
The Daily Math with Jason Gone
With Jason gone, my mornings start differently. I have a cup of coffee and feed the dog. Then I get the dog’s lunch ready and into my work bag and check that the cat hasn’t thrown up his breakfast. He’s on an automatic feeder that doles out small meals through the day, and I adjusted its timing because he occasionally throws up right after eating. I’d rather that happen when I’m home and can clean it up easily. Then I clean the litter box, looking around to see whether he went somewhere else in the apartment.
Somewhere in there I go to the bathroom, pick out my clothes, and get dressed, which is energy I don’t normally spend. I decide whether I’m taking a lunch and whether I’ll eat breakfast at home or grab something at work. A couple of days, that meant Caribou Coffee. Then it’s teeth, shoes, jacket, and Surley’s cape, and out the door. Locking it behind me is usually Jason’s job, so that’s one more thing I have to remember.
I get home between 5 and 5:45, check the mail, set down my work bag, and take off my jacket and Surley’s service dog cape. Then I check the apartment for cat throw up and clean up any I find. The cat gets a can of wet food, the dog gets dinner, and I grab one of the premade meals I ordered ahead of time so I didn’t have to cook lunch or dinner on top of everything else, feeding one of the animals while it heats in the microwave.
After I eat, I clean up and do whatever dishes are in the sink. Depending on the time, I might play video games for 30 minutes to an hour. Around 8, I take the dog out one last time, then set the coffee for the next morning. One day I forgot and woke up with none. Another time I set it but forgot to turn on the timer. Then it’s teeth and pajamas, and I’m in bed around 8:45, watching about an hour of TV before I fall asleep. At 4:45, I wake up and do it all again.
None of that is hard on its own. But it’s a long chain of small things, and if I drop one link, I usually find out at the worst possible time.
The Extra Steps
Last Sunday night, I noticed someone had been sick on my comforter. Probably the dog, since he was in bed with me, but I can’t say for sure. It wasn’t too cold in the apartment, so I threw the comforter off the bed and left it until Monday, when I was working from home. Then I had to time the wash so it didn’t collide with my work. Once it was washed, I hauled it down the hall to the dryer, because otherwise I’d be cold that night. That’s one task on paper. In practice, it was a few rounds of wrestling a heavy, wet comforter, and it used up energy I’d planned to spend elsewhere.
Dishes are the same. When you’re the only one dirtying them, it’s a cup, a bowl, and a few pieces of silverware. That sounds like nothing, but it still takes energy, and it still has to happen. Then there’s the trash. It had to go out a couple of times because of cat litter and my incontinence supplies, and I don’t want that sitting in the bathroom all day. When the bag filled up, I had to manhandle it out of the can and down the hall to the trash chute. Coming back was its own struggle, getting a fresh bag into the can.
None of these are big jobs. But they stack up, and by the end of the day I’ve spent most of what I had. If you read my post on shrimp videos and doing the math, this is the same idea. Every task draws from one pile of spoons, and a comforter or a trash bag comes out of the same pile as everything else. Preparing ahead helped, but it can’t make the pile bigger.
Work Doesn’t Pause
My job isn’t physically demanding. I sit at a computer for eight hours a day processing things, and compared to a lot of work, it’s fairly easy. But it takes focus and attention to detail, and you can’t do either well on an empty tank.
These past couple of weeks haven’t been slow at work. They’ve dragged. I was spending my energy at home, so by the time I sat down at my desk, I was already running on fumes. There were several days I wanted to call it a day, go home early, and just relax. That’s the part people don’t always see. The energy I use on a comforter or a trash bag in the morning is the same energy I need for a 2 p.m. stretch of detail work. It doesn’t refill in between.
Two Games, Two Weekends
Jason is away for two weekends, and both have a Minnesota United game. The first was a Saturday evening match. I went. I’d had the day to rest, and it was in the 70s and low 80s, which is about as kind as Minnesota weather gets for sitting outside in a wheelchair.
The second weekend’s game was midday Saturday, kickoff at 3:30, and the temperature was in the low 50s. I skipped it.
The cat threw up on Jason’s bed Saturday morning. I could have left it. Jason isn’t back until Tuesday, and it would have been there waiting for him. But I didn’t want to leave it, so I stripped the blanket and sheets and ran them through the wash, the same routine as the comforter the week before. Then the dishes were starting to pile up in the sink, and I wanted things clean. By the time everything was finished, it was 1 o’clock. I had little energy and even less enthusiasm for a game that started in two and a half hours, in the cold.
Nothing was wrong in the way people usually picture “can’t go.” I just had nothing left. The first weekend, I had rest and good weather, and I went. The second, I had neither, and I stayed home. Same fan, same team, different pile of spoons. I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon, during the match I skipped. That’s not a complaint either. It’s just what the math looked like today.
Coming Home
Jason gets back Tuesday, October 20, while I’m at work in the office. He’s told me plainly that he expects the house to be messy. That’s not how I roll. I want him to walk in to a clean home with as little waiting for him as possible. I’m also thinking about a Target delivery so there’s real food in the fridge when he gets home, and I already have a small premade meal delivery scheduled for that Tuesday, just four meals. After that, I’ll probably pause it.
Some of that is love, and some of it is just who I am. But it’s also the same math. Cleaning now, ordering ahead, and letting delivery carry the grocery run are all ways of spending spoons on purpose, so I’m not spending them on a bad day. He’s back Tuesday, but the gap in my hours runs until November 1, and this is how I’m trying to make that stretch easier for both of us.
What I’d Tell Myself
I’ve been pushing through. I haven’t asked anyone for help, and I haven’t left work early, even on the days I wanted to. I got the comforter washed, the trash out, and everyone fed. But I also skipped a game I’d been looking forward to, so pushing through wasn’t free.
Here’s what I keep coming back to: I had time to prepare, and I still ran low. I don’t know what that means yet. Maybe it means the preparing only goes so far. Maybe it means I should have asked for help sooner.
I haven’t figured that out. I do know this: the support I get isn’t a luxury. It’s what lets me spend my energy on the things I care about, like work, games, and my own home.
Pushing through isn’t a badge of honor, and it isn’t a failure either. It’s what I did with the energy I had. What I’m asking for isn’t for the work to go away. I’m asking people to understand what it costs.
On Tuesday, Jason will walk into a clean apartment. The dishes will be done, the litter box fresh, the trash out, and my clothes washed. From the outside, it will look like nothing happened. From the inside, that’s what running on fumes looks like.
How do you pace yourself when you’re the only one holding things up?
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