Do you want to live forever?

I have spent nearly 10 years here in Germany and with one man whom I met on line. We biked through Europe together which was our main connection. He's not an easy person to stay with and over the years I have gotten much information about him and his personality, from family members and from my own experience. Ours is the longest relationship he has had in his life. He bullies and controls with big brash bluffs of angry outbursts, some of which have nearly driven me away.  But I am the type of person that can 'make lemonade out of lemons'. I stayed because I wanted this European experience. I stayed because I wanted to learn about this culture and I stayed because I didn't have much of anything for which to go home. 

Don't get this statement wrong. I have certainly family, whom I love and love me. No question about that. But I had closed up many things when I left the USA. Technically I still 'live' at my father's home in Florida. It is my state-side address. But everyone in the USA has their own lives to live and I need to be autonomous too. Dad married 4 years ago and has had a wonderful life with her. It is their home now and I am the daughter that visits once a year, welcomed to be sure, for that time I am there. I don't live there anymore. Returning would mean intruding on their lives in some way which might be long term, given the state of the job market. My sons also have their own lives. So here I stay, with a job and a man to whom I am a friend and now a caretaker. 

How long will I be here, how much longer? His health is questionable and his illness is not under control. He is not good at maintaining the right combination of all his drugs and does not follow 'doctor's orders'. Perhaps more is the question, how long will he be here. Cause once he is 'gone' I will leave. 

Then my next step will be to return to the USA, but where? Close to my sons? Close to my 85 year old dad and his wife? Or strike out on my own and start up in a new place. Why I am thinking about all this? No, the man I am with is not about to expire but my thoughts do drift to this subject from time to time. 

It's a rainy night in Heidelberg and this helps to lay my brain waves out on the pavement like this.