What’s making me frustrated?

In chronological order, in yesterday’s timeline (October 3, 2026):
• DOGS.
• BEDBOUND.
• WIFE.
• WRITING.
• KEYBOARD.
• HOME.
Maybe somewhere down the line, I’ll add politics.

Let’s start with Saturday’s trigger. Our two male DOGS, both neutered, have been pissing in the bedroom and the corridor, mainly on anything they can lift their legs against. This creates an enormous amount of work for Juanita’s son, Jason, and his wife, Kaylee. This has been a problem ever since we moved in with them 3 months ago.

The next cause of my frustration is being BEDBOUND and unable to do anything around the house. When we were in our first house in the U.S., I was relatively mobile. However, when we moved, the situation confined me to a bed, and I then fractured my right femur. Having gone from an active life to being stuck in bed, I sometimes feel totally useless. What am I contributing to anything other than being a drain on resources and time, which might never have happened if I had remained in the UK, but that’s the ocean under the liner?

Maybe if we were still in the UK, I’d be able to help my WIFE more. She is not frustrating, but she gets frustrated with her situation, over her health, money, her computer, sometimes me, especially random answers like this one. I can do very little, if anything, to help, so that frustrates me. Frustration becomes a vicious circle.
In theory, I should have at least two or three things to distract me.

Being with my loving wife, gaming, and WRITING. Yes, on a good day, writing helps me feel better, especially when I accomplish something, such as finishing or revising another chapter. But with so many unfinished stories and novels, only one published book and one story in an anthology, I’m running out of time.

I thought I finished a novel in 2025, but that proved to be a non-starter. So far, I have had one good, encouraging piece of feedback… from my writing software. But that’s AI. Does it have a valid opinion? Then there’s the novel revision I gave up on a few months back, knowing it needed something like another murder. I need to revise the last few chapters of my alternative history, but I’m frightened where it’s leading. Is this another dead end? Am I wasting my limited time?

Another writing problem is a messed-up KEYBOARD. It either misses characters completely or writes multiple versions of the intended letter. The only solution seems to be dictation, but then that makes a lot of errors and encourages me to ramble. Forget technical solutions. They haven’t resolved the problem.

Finally, we get to HOME, sweet home. The house we are living in with my wife’s son, his wife, and their daughter has worked out great, and they do everything to look after us. But my green card expired, and even after 10 years, the authorities have not provided me with any medical assistance. That contrasts with universal healthcare in the UK. My British assets have all gone. Now it is my brother who is selling possessions to cover my medical needs.

Almost every day I miss the UK, and there are moments where I hate being in the U.S.A. – but not most Americans. That comes down to politics, but then the cause of those problems has become global. Even the UK is feeling the fallout. Yet there are moments when my wife and I still feel our hearts are in North Wales.

Now that I have spelt out my frustrations, maybe I’m calmer, but revision might be the next step.