Hurt

I am a caretaker. I make people soup and fetch people crackers when they're sick. When my grandmother lived with us, it didn't matter I was a teenager, I took care of her. Dad's heart problems, yep, helped nurse him back to health while Mom went to work. My brother had a terrible car accident, who waited by his bedside, me again. I need to be needed and to feel useful. Probably explains a lot of why I'm married to the man I married.

I talked to the Other this afternoon. I had gotten a couple calls from a number I didn't recognize while I was at lunch with Amy. I got a call from him as I was browsing around Franklin. (Cute over there by the way. Bought an adorable set of cards at Rock Paper Scissors, but I am a paper junkie.)

Turns out he was in the hospital Tuesday night and yesterday. (And really, too many people I know have visited Hospitals and ER's lately) Got the shit beat out of him, he has a broken eye socket and a bunch of bumps, bruises and lacerations. I feel this need to be with him. To play Florence Nightingale once again and clean his wounds, ice his cheek. I think to myself that he has no one to take care of him, though I do realize he's an adult who can take care of himself.

I think of how my life would be different if I didn't have this personality trait. I would have gone to medical school and not moved back to NY, (well, I might not have wanted to if I wasn't a 'helper") I wouldn't be here in Nashville.

I hurt when those close to me hurt, I want to be able to take their pain away and fix whatever is broken. Even though I know the reality is that the broken issue here is me. I don't have to "save" everyone. I just have to remember that.