[insert trumpet fanfare] There’s an extra sparkle in my button eyes! (No, my misfit toy is not being naughty.) I have just now learned how to allow comments on the pages. So if there was anything you were dying to say, the crayon box is now open! Grab your favorite color, and feel free to color outside the lines.

And now back to our regularly scheduled toybox update . . .

It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve been lying in bed with gradually increasing stomach discomfort for the last two hours. At first, I thought it was returning gastritis, but the yummy orange-flavored antacid tastes like chalk in my mouth. In hindsight, this should have told me that this was more than “merely” gastritis. (I say “merely” because there’s nothing mere about gastritis pain, but it would have been far preferable to what I experienced this night.) Suddenly, I need to get up. I race to the bathroom—just in time.

Dollies don’t vomit, especially this one.

So when I actually do vomit, you know it’s bad. Three times, standing over the sink. Without being too graphic, but I do want to paint the messy picture of my abject misery—as the pressure inside my body forces some of my insides up my esophagus, it also forces all the stuffing out the other end—at the same time.

Now, Dolly doesn’t like messes. Dolly absolutely cannot leave a mess like this! Dolly must clean things up right away! There’s no way to ignore it. But Dolly is so weak. And she feels the stomach pain building again . . .

I need you, MFT! How am I going to clean myself up when I can barely stand myself up?

When things start piling on me, it’d be really nice to have my husband hold me, or cook me a meal, or clean up the vomit when I’m sick. That’s when this prison wife life sucks.

It’s hard living our life alone. I like being on my own and being independent, but only to a point. At that point, I want to be like everyone else who lives with their partner. I miss the little things—waking up together, seeing him, touching him, going grocery shopping together, even cleaning the bathroom together. (I’ve always thought MFT is the type of person to make my least favorite chore laughingly fun.)

MFT is not physically here to hold me when I’m overwhelmed, or to make me dinner when I’m run down, or to take care of me when I’m sick.

Yes, because he’s such a great guy, such a dependable provider, because he loves me so much, and because there’s only so much he can personally do from his happy home, MFT orchestrates help for me.[1] And sometimes the help costs money.

For example, if I’m stressed and overwhelmed but I still have to make dinner, he’ll tell me to save my sanity and just order DoorDash. But then Dolly, being Dolly, will now start worrying about finances and have a hard time enjoying the meal guilt-free. It’s hard to accept DoorDash when every dollar feels like it needs to go toward the $2000 it takes for me to visit him, which I do three times each year.

I don’t remember how I cleaned everything up that night in the bathroom, alone, but I did it. And two more times that night, alone. (Norovirus was making its rounds through the facility where I work.)

If I tilt my head, I could be writing this post about how strong this prison wife life is growing me.

But not right now. Right now, with working 40+ hours a week, taking 6 units of college work, and orchestrating a necessary change of abode, I’m just wanting my husband. I need him.

[1] Someday I’ll write a post about all the wonderful ways he does support me!