Dependence.
As far as my "dependence" on you, I am not sure exactly how to answer that. Yes, I have depended on you for a lot of things. Some things by your own admission you have taken on and made bigger than I proposed or asked, i.e. my initial blog suggestion. Another might be your research on TB.
I thought I had already told you I tested positive. I am fairly sure I had at least one or two annual chest x-rays during the 2003-2004 writing blitz, and I said why I had them. But this is one of those subjects I should have been clearer on.
I will never, and to the best of my knowledge I have never lied to you during the last four to five years of writing. Had I been clearer on the TB, maybe you would not have felt the need to research and spend time on the subject. In that case I apologize, but I do appreciate your concern for my wellbeing.
A good example was the fact that without any medicine and only some self-sacrifice on my part, I was able to lower my cholesterol. Now having lost that ability for the past five to six months, I was not surprised that my cholesterol went back up. As soon as I get to commissary next week I will go back to eating mostly fat-free foods to bring my cholesterol down. Why bother? Well, because I do hope to be free some day.
I am working on depending on you for less, but I am still not sure how to deal with the volume of mail. Hopefully it will resolve itself with the typewriter once I get settled in. The dividing the letters should also help as the direct correspondence and answers to your letters is the "real" part of our relationship. The day-to-day babbling could actually be skipped over and not adversely affect our ability to share lives, ideas, goals, etc.
I think the relationship we do have and have forged out of this miserable situation I am in is one that each of us can really open up to each other. I might be placing too high a value on the heart-to-heart stuff we share, but it is my understanding you have shared stuff about your life with me that you have not shared with others.
I do understand your feelings about your job, your boss, the quandary of your wife's changing life goals and needs, the lack of your brother and sisters being closely around you, the loss of your Dad, your Mom moving out of state, etc. etc. etc. Life as I have learned cannot always be easily measured in specific quantities.
True, you must feel some positive "growth" or else why bother. You are not being an enabler for my twisted fantasies, nor do I feel you are like the sober partner in an addictive alcoholic type relationship and as such, hopefully you do get some things from my writing to you.
Do you get too much sometimes? Yes, that is part of life. I know in the past you have looked for my mail if I skipped writing for a week or so, but I guess I still need to be more patient and if my letters hit your box at a time you have other things to do, well then I can wait. True, once you see my envelope you might not want to wait to read it, but that is something I am able to deal with.