Good god this one is tough

I realize that I’m really at the end of a ten year cycle. And how this time it really is so different from last time, or the time before that. And that each time I come to this point I think I can’t possibly do this again. That it can’t possibly be as hard, or as satisfying, as the time before.
But this time around I can see it coming. And I’m kind of.. excited?
It’s like we hit this plateau, and my husband was content to just stay here. This place was enough. And I think I held myself back to stay here, because ‘here’ was the place we’d been trying to get to for our whole lives.

He feels it’s safe enough.

But I’m still fighting monsters every night. It’s better than where we WERE, but this isn’t sustainable either. They don’t come for him here, only me, and even then only rarely. He is willing to live with that.

Climbing the next mountain is going to be different, because I’m going to enjoy it. I haven’t been idle in the last decade – I know so much more about how to navigate and do things and when and how to ask for help. I’ve gotten so much stronger, and I’ve learned how to relearn my body by listening to myself instead of what other people think it ought to do.  I have REASONS for what I thought were my deficiencies, and I have strategies for the things that come out at night and how to make peace with them.

Anyway. I don’t know what kind of crisis it is, but it’s the one that’s right on schedule. Midlife or decadely… I don’t know what that’s called.

Which would all make a good little horror novel wouldn’t it? Somewhat cliche, because it’s true – a haunted house but it’s only haunting her. Very paranormal activity.
but what if it doesn’t affect him at all?

We don’t know anything about where they came from –

oh. That’s it. It’s a haunted house in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. And the things in the house are only haunting her, so he’s not willing to go outside and try to find a house that’s better because this one is keeping the zombies OUT. (For magical reasons? Who cares it works!)

but now, it’s starting to haunt their daughter, and he has to make a choice.

And come to terms with what he was willing to sacrifice to keep himself safe.