My boyfriend's sickness

My beloved and I, and the rest of Melbourne, are in the grips of a long hot summer, the hottest on record. I for one am well and truly ready for the heat, and the circumstances of this summer to be behind me and my family. It's a long time since these photos were taken. I think we had recently fallen pregnant with Luka but did not yet know it. We went out, we got a little drunk, we talked and giggled all night.

Having Luka was an event I knew would turn my world upside down. We planned for it. Finn being at school, we knew that would take time and energy. We were prepared. We didn't know Julian would get sick, and that it would slowly and quietly eat away at the limited remaining familial resources. Now it is March and we are both exhausted. We aren't even sleeping in the same room because my beloved has a wicked post-viral cough. Anyway, I collapse into bed at 9ish and he works until midnight trying to catch up on all the work he has missed.

I miss him. I miss us.

Part of me wants to panic about this. But I don't have the energy. Another parts of me wants to make an action plan to make date nights and romantic dinners, but we just don't have the time or space right now.

But my beloved is stoic and wise. He understands the saying that this too shall pass. He really gets it.

And then I realise I don't have to miss him. In the years we have been together he has been a balm for my restless sometimes troubled soul. He knows what so often I cannot. But this time I see it too. This is just a phase in our lives. It will pass. We will find our way back to romance and time alone. But for now he is resting on the couch beside me. I don't have to miss him because his calm has been imbued into me in some way. And because it may not look like it once did, but he is still my deepest joy.