Because I Didn't Have To

I am a caretaker.  Any time I take any personality or career type test the results always involve a caretaker type role.  

The past few years people have been telling me I need to take care of myself.  I always shrug it off and say "I will, I will."

Since I have been having all these long conversations with Randy, he has really been talking to me about taking better care of myself.  The more he has talked about it, the more I have thought about it.  

I think I have figured it out.

I don't take care of me, because I never had to take care of me.  

Once I graduated high school I continued to live with my parents, but I had a job, enrolled myself in college, and ran my life.  We had a great family life, but I didn't require my parents to take care of me, but I only took care of myself in the basic ways because heck I was young and invincible.

Then I married Raymond.  The first few years of our marriage we took care of each other, but we were also so busy with our jobs, saving for our future, young married life, and we cared for each other but were pretty independent too.

Then life became a little busier. We had the boys, my dad was ill, my mom was stressed, and I was running around taking care of everyone because that is what I do, and I didn't have time to worry about taking care of myself.  I didn't need to take care of myself, Raymond took care of me.  He took great care of me all the time, in every way, allowing me to take care of the ones that couldn't take care of themselves.

Since Raymond died, I have continued to take care of others, but I never added myself back into the queue. 

I had all those years of not taking care of myself because I didn't have to thanks to Raymond.Now I realize I need to start taking care of myself, especially if I am going to try to have any type of relationship with Randy or anyone else.