My Health - 1780

He helped me dress for the day, although his help meant that it took about twice as long since he had to kiss each inch of skin before it was covered. But he wouldn't let me remove my clothing so that we could make love. He told me that I must be able to walk quickly all the way around the outer edge of the formal garden twice without stopping, and without being winded, before he would feel that my recovery was complete, and then we would be able to make love.

After we ate breakfast, my husband led me down the hallway towards his study but we did not enter his study. Instead, he showed me a set of rooms across from his study. He told me that these rooms were a mirror image of his study and that if I wished, I could use them as my own personal space for meetings that I felt should be estate or community related rather than related to my personal social undertakings although I was free to conduct my social calendar planning in these rooms if I so chose.

The first room was a wide but shallow room, the right side having a desk with shelves and cabinets behind it and on the back wall a door. On the left was a sitting area with several small tables between chairs and another door on the back wall. We went to that door first. In the room behind was a larger table with chairs, a meeting room as it were. There was a door at the far back left which went outside to a porch. We then backed out and went to the right side door which was the entry to a larger room with a seating area and a large desk with bookcases along the right wall. My husband pointed them out saying that many of the ladies whom were mistress of the house left journals for their daughters and grandchildren and some even wrote stories to be passed down through the family. He then asked me if I read French, saying if so, I could read his mother's journals, left when his father had passed ten years ago and she decided that the weather in the south of France suited her more than the local climate.

It was the first that I had even thought of him having any other family and when I asked he said that his mother still lived in France along with his younger sister and brother who had chosen to go to France with their mother. His sister had decided to dedicate her life to the church and his brother had become an artist, somewhat famous throughout Europe though he used his mother's maiden name. His French grandparents had been famous in the opera circles on the continent and the name was still somewhat connected to that, but his brother had put a new even brighter shine of his own on the name as well.

His mother had been well when he had last visited her a little over a year before. She was enjoying life as the matriarch of the village where her villa was located. His visit, part of a business trip that circled the entire Mediterranean Sea, had coincided with her fiftieth birthday and he had stayed nearly a month and met some of the gentlemen whom were trying to convince her to remarry. But she had not seemed very interested in any of them as far as my husband could ascertain; she did not need their money since she had her own businesses operating in the area. She owned a large vineyard and a winery along with several smaller businesses in the village.

My husband said that she employed similar methods in her businesses as he did; treat the employees as if they were family, and they would be loyal to you. Each year, she would have her villa staff go out into the village and find out what was needed. Then she would make sure that those things were available to be given away at the annual festival that she hosted for the entire area. He told me that I would be traveling with him the next time he went, a little over a year from now and he had already started trying to arrange his schedule so that the visit would be during the annual festival.

I asked my husband if he had an annual festival here that he supported or if he had plans to start one. He told me that he already was the primary sponsor of the Spring Festival and the Harvest Festival in the village and that he also had a Christmas party for the entire area, estate and village, each year. The Spring Festival had been a fortnight before our wedding and the planning for the Harvest Festival had to be completed within the next month so that everything could be made ready.

While we had been talking, we had finished looking over the rooms of my study and he had allowed me to see his study. He showed me the miniature paintings that his brother had done of his mother, his sister and himself which my husband kept on his study desk. When we went to France, he would have his brother paint a miniature of me to keep on his desk and one of himself for my desk and a larger portrait of the two of us for the entry hall of our home. I looked forward to being able to see him every day even when he was traveling on business.

While we walked through the house to get to the gardens, he told one of the kitchen servers to have tea and tea cakes available to us in the garden summerhouse at midmorning. I was supposed to keep drinking the revitalizing tea for at least another week but I planned to keep drinking them for at least two more weeks. I decided that our midmorning tea break would be the best time to discuss my health issue and the treatment.

We spent almost an hour walking and talking in the garden before we saw the kitchen server bring out the tea set. We then made our way to the summerhouse to rest while we refreshed ourselves. Once I had dismissed the server back to the kitchen I was determined to discuss the treatment options for my condition. I had to make my husband see how important this is to me and that we had to discuss this until we had the best solution.

I started the discussion by asking if he liked the tea we were drinking, explaining that it was a recipe from the local folk healer whom he had allowed to gather items on the estate. I spoke about the day I spent with her gathering some of the herbs, mushrooms and berries that she used in her teas and poultices and such. I mentioned that she and I had talked extensively about my condition and the different treatment options for it. I told him that obviously, the soup treatment was not going to be the best one for me since I could not function with even just half strength portions. I needed him to work with me and I asked if the doctor had explained to him the alternate treatment option.

At first, he seemed to be resisting even mentioning the existence of the other option, but I told him that I had already discussed it with the healer and knew what was involved, that he had to help me to try. Once I got him to admit that the doctor had mentioned it and that he had felt that it would be too humiliating to me, we had a serious talk about the fact that nothing he could do to me would be more than I was willing to do to have his children. Once we started talking, I told him that we must never be afraid to discuss any and every subject that came up so that we could have a full and fully-shared life. That night, together, we prepared me for the other treatment. It was odd at first, but became more bearable over time and my husband and I did indeed learn to enjoy the added closeness that it entailed. In fact, we came to use it even when we were not intending to have me catch with another child.

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I guess the moral of this story is that a person should not impose limits on themselves which may keep them from achieving their full potential. Maybe she forced me to write this to overcome my own self-limitations so that I would recognize that I still have potentials that have not been tried and stretched to their limits. At least I now am thinking that there still is the possibility out there for me to keep accomplishing things that I may have previously thought would never be possible. So I guess I will now have to live by the rule of, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again'.