Don't Romanticize

Recently I told my friend 'Drah that I would be returning home to New Jersey.
The reason... to care for my father who suffers from advanced Alzheimer disease.
-"WHY?" she said.
-"It's just something I feel I have to do." I replied.
She'd gone through a similar experience helping to care for her grandmother. It required lots of hard work and attention. Free time vanished. Cleaning, feeding, brushing teeth, changing adult diapers... for someone who has always been your parental figure may be one of the most difficult experiences a person can have.
I listened, but I'd also thought about many of these things before and I have a regimen of actions which I have also thought about to combat the difficulties I will face taking on this task. I know there will also be un-forseen issues, probably quite a few of them.
I told 'Drah
- "Every day I plan to wake up early and take my dog for a walk. Then I will shower eat breakfast and say a little prayer before I walk into my father's room to wake him up. We'll face the day together... and if it takes three hours to put on one sock then so be it. At the end of the day after all is done and he lies in bed again... I will walk to my computer and... I think.... I think that I'll Blog about it..."
'Drah became strangely angry. She grabbed my arm. She said...
-"Kev. I don't want you romanticizing this."

The next day another friend of mine, after hearing my plan said..
"Kev. Do it. Do it now."

So I am doing it. This is it in fact. And I am not romanticizing anything.
Or at least I hope I'm not.
I feel as if I am doing the opposite of romanticizing, whatever that may be exactly, Realitize maybe.
In fact before this decision was made my life was... well.... sorta "romantic"
For the past 6 years I have been living and working in Asia and Europe. I gave tours at the Vatican, taught English in Italy France Japan and finally The Czech republic. I once considered myself an actor and a playwright and even helped run a small theatre company. I cry at movies. I have almost no money in the bank, almost no practical skill or experience that can help me much in our currently financially bereft world. I recently acquired a Parson Russell Terrier named Bubble. I don't consider myself to be very intelligent although I have a certain emotional awareness of things that's helped me to survive. Besides my dog I own almost nothing. I am 42 years old, a homosexual, single (although I've had a few experiences out there in the world). My relationship with my father has been... ever-changing throughout my life and now I plan to care for him at the end of his (the middle of mine) and write about it.
Let's see how it goes...