I am not a pessimist. I just feel better if I plan for highly likely potential eventualities. And, as dark as it sounds, that includes my husband dying before me. This is something I have been aware of the statistical probabilities of since I was a young girl. I’m observant.
Maybe its just a way to “deal” with it, or maybe its just that I like to avoid stress when I can, but one of the things I use this knowledge for is to motivate me to learn things that I have hitherto avoided. Whether it be for lack of opportunity, lack of need, or lack of interest, there are many things I would not know how to do by myself.
Sure, I will learn what I need to when “the time comes.” I have no doubt of that. But why not try to learn some of them now? Like how to put in wall anchors for hanging things on the wall, an experience I expound upon in a post for D&B Supply. I already know what it is like to have to deal with something that my husband usually does, when he is out of town. That is stressful enough. It would be tons worse if he is, um, indefinitely unavailable.
He likes to teach me things that he has greater knowledge in, but we do seem to have different perspectives about how liberally, when, and where I should apply my new found skills. I try to be polite and ask his opinion on things before I get too wild with my newly acquired skills.
Sometimes, however, like with the stock market or certain computer skills, it reaches a point where I actually am able to build off of what he has taught me and learn more than him in some ways. He thinks that is fun, too, and it helps him relax about his responsibilities.
I think it is supposed to be that way when two people are bound together the way we are. We inspire and help each other. We wisely make use of each other’s strengths, but buffer each other’s weaknesses. I will always be helplessly in love with him, but when he dies first (according to his plan and statistics), I should be less helpless than if I hadn’t made an attempt to learn these things now.