Reflections From Life After Caregiving

After almost four years of trying to figure out life alongside of caregiving, I’m suddenly thrust into life without it. Like a car careening to a screeching halt, the abruptness and impact is still revealing itself. I’m picking up the pieces… again… and no sooner had I started to make sense of the ones I was holding do I find myself holding new ones, wholly foreign and equally frustrating. Just as my caregiver life began to click, things changed and my ever quest for stability has shaped-shifted once again.

Last year, around October, I started to really feel like I was gaining a grasp on things.. The years of trial and error eventually led to some clarity around how to be a full-time caregiver. Actually, for the first time in my caregiving journey I felt like I was more than just a caregiver. I had returned to having my own identity with a vision of myself as a maker. I started to identify as an artist and a baker. A maker of things that reflected my journey with time, because more than anything, I had learned how to stand still. I was embracing what I’ve come to think of as the “slow-life” movement.

The monotony of caregiving and its day-in, day-out inertia was a vacuum. It consumed my time and energy and gave me very little in return. The overwhelming feeling of sacrificing my desires for the care of my parents left me bitter, angry that these were my life’s cards. I spent years with that anger, mostly unresolved, because emotionally I was conflicted by love. Love for my parents, love for my partner, and love for the person I was becoming prior to this whole mess starting. Caregiving pit all these loves against each other, forcing me to prioritize them, as if one might have somehow held more importance over the others. I was paralyzed in making pivotal life choices and in that paralysis my frustration grew into rage. My anger seethed and with no place to channel how I was feeling I recoiled into my mind, mentally scheming a way out of this mess. I became a cruncher, a term I’ve identified for how my mind became calculatory. Crunching was the puzzle work of solving my problems and I crunched constantly. I crunched numbers, schedules, and systems, addicted to finding solutions. I crunched in my sleep merely awaiting daylight, so I could just get back to the drawing board to resolve my mess. And I couldn’t settle for just surviving the time. I wanted to enjoy my time and rid myself of the toxicity that was consuming my emotional and mental health.

Long story short, around October of 2018 I started to formulate a plan. All the crunching had paid-off and for the first time in my caregiving journey I had ideas for how I was going to move forward in my own life with happiness. I was ready for caregiving to be a piece of my life, rather than my whole life and I was ready to do that by injecting my interests into the inertia of the job. 2019 Couldn’t come soon enough! I was so ready for a fresh start, so excited to work on this website because this platform was going to encapsulate my new beginning. If caregiving meant a life of isolation then my website would become my vehicle for connection. I realized that if I couldn’t go out and greet the world in the way I craved, maybe I could convince a piece of the online one to come to me. I was ready to do that through food and craft, creating opportunities for interactions. I would post recipes (which are a dime a dozen) but more so I would create reasons for individuals to “visit” me. I prematurely launched the Full Moon Baking Club and Winter Squash Bingo because I was excited. I anticipated them being the cornerstones of 2019 but thrust them into the world early because I was tired of waiting. I had waited nearly four years at this point to feel a sense of myself in my days and finally a sliver of that girl was showing. I didn’t need a specific date or a launch party to validate my readiness. I was ready to hatch, armed with all things related to food, carving, and caregiving that might convince someone to interact with my world.

But then came the abrupt shift, hardly a month into my new found plan. My dad fell on December 14th. I remember it was a Friday. He was gone five days later… His passing was met by the cusp of winter, the government shutdown, and the end-of-year holidays that consume everything that time of year. It was not the most wonderful time of year. Quite the opposite really. And yet 2019 rolled-in, once highly anticipated and now, suddenly an afterthought. There was no fresh start. Instead, 2019 greeted me with a sour taste in my mouth. The bitterness I chocked down from my years before had been replaced by something acrid. The final decree, hamstringing my heart, again to this role of caregiver and stealing my identity once more…

It’s not fair. That’s really all I have to say for myself. It’s just not fair. And never-the-less, it just is what it is… I know people hate that expression but I’m not sure how else make sense of the enormity of grief that encompasses the last four years other than to surrendering to time. I lost my mom, my dad, and my dog. I lost my job, my apartment, and my community… I don’t think the vacuum of caregiving is well understood, which in and of itself is a tragedy. The loss of lives is compounded by the loss of livelihood. Grief alone is heavy but without a social and economical construct to pad the edges, it can push your life to the fringe. The vacuum swallows everything, eroding just about every facet of connection and commonality into something even more incongruous. I am the last person you want at your dinner party. I’m am every bit the definition of your Debbi Downer… Everyone died, I’m unemployed, and too much alcohol will probably bring me to tears... But where I lack in dinner parties, I thrive in pity parties! Other people’s problems serve as respite from my own and I find myself happy to listen to the struggles of others. Not because misery loves company but because pain deserves a voice and after four years of sitting on the sidelines I have found that emotional trauma is dangerous when left unchecked. Luckily my outlets were baking and carving and they will continue to be healthy escapes from a world riddled with malfeasance.

I keep waiting for my course correction. Caregiving has “ended” and I find myself anxious to move on. But Joseph Campbell’s theme of the hero’s journey whispers softly to me that this is hardly an ending. It’s entry into the “abyss”. According to his narrative, I’m only halfway through my caregiving journey because it took four years to get here and it might take four more to recover. The mere thought of this exhausts me but it also gives me comfort. Time has been my one trusted companion thus far so we kinda know the drill. As I mentioned before, I have learned the lessons of staying still. As the clock ticks on with a strange new nothingness, I have mastered the art of waiting cause my life feels perpetually on hold. Something will come… Some job will rescue me from my newly inherited mortgage and other financial burdens but it appears that white knights liberate without time restraints so all I can do is wait. And carve… and bake… and be. Cause life after caregiving isn’t an ending. It’s a blind spot and my only choice is to turn to the sun.

New Moon, New Spoon

I’m pretty focused on fresh starts right now and with a new moon upon us and spring around the corner, I’m starting to shift gears. Unfortunately, change doesn’t always arrive lockstep. It feels as though I’ve swapped one holding pattern for another, and waiting and time remain the constant backstory. After four years of sitting idle caregiving for my parents, they have both now passed and yet I remain. Even the dog is no longer company and so the question of home feels foreign as I remain in their house but lack everything else.

There’s an emptiness here that I hope holds space for a new beginning. However, cold starts are a struggle and the days are slowly slipping into months. It’s hard to grasp the slowness though. Whereas before the nothingness dragged, I am now consumed by the clock ticking and yet, I have nowhere to be. No job, no curfew, no obligations to be accountable to… Just me and again, this strange relationship with time.

The Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon is available in the shop. Click here.

If you read my father’s obituary then you know Space was a big deal for this household. Like, as in “lunar landing/ satellite telemetry ” big deal. Growing-up with a human calculator was no easy task for a girl afraid of math. But somewhere along the way I gathered the significance of measurement relative to his passion for Space. I remember him giving me a gyroscope once as a gift and forever trying to get it to spin upon a string. Only now, as an adult, am I making sense of it. In watching this gyroscope video and seeing one in action do I realize how planetary this gift was and his own interest in celestial movement.

Time often accounts for change and those changes parlay seasons. And now, amid all the change that lays so heavy in my air, I am reminded that the seasons of life can account for nothingness and without much attention, life just passes by. So, if you have ever come to this page and wondered about the Full Moon Baking Club or my obsession with time it’s probably worth noting that the space-time continuum is some complicated mathematical model that I’ll never truly understand but thanks to the gyroscope, I can trust that this time will pass. Nature is cyclical… Seasons are cyclical… And if there is ever a clock worth trusting, it’s not the one that tells the time; it’s one that tells where we are in the cycle.

It’s understandable that the seasons of life can be difficult and if you are anything like me, you might find yourself far from one that brings a good harvest. The growing ain’t good right now cause I have nothing much to sow. I’m just now sorting seeds. It’s not realistic to assume life will magically fall into place. But time itself is a kind of magic and so a little intentional seed planting now will surely grow into something later. What better time keeper than the moon? (I think my dad would agree.) And what better way to track change than pursue a craft? Time lends itself to the artisan maker and good craftsmanship can take a lifetime. For the moment all I have is seeds. Time will tell but until then… new moon, new spoon!

The Joy Of Carving

I've been thinking lots lately about why I love spoon carving and it always comes back to time.  When I sit down with a piece of wood, I lose myself to the process and for a few moments, or hours really, I become consumed with the task of turning a random piece of wood into a functional kitchen tool.  Wood which is little more than debris or even compost, has a life still full of potential if just given the chance.  And the shape of spoons are quite forgiving. One doesn't need to be an artist to rough-out something functional. Maybe even beautiful...  You just have to go at it and keep at it.  It will get there.  As the time passes and the form begins to take shape, a spoon will emerge along with parts of oneself; parts you might not have realized you've been hiding.

“Make time to take time.”

A little hand carved, wooden jam spoon and spread knife.

The spoons aren't all perfect.  Rarely do they begin as true love, but again, time has its own way with magic and as with most things, it seems to heal the pains that came before it. Frequently it's towards the end, after a spoon is carved and sanded that I give it the appreciation it so deserves.  A little bit of oil helps preserve the wood and reveal the grain.  Similar to scares, the grain and gouges tell a story and almost immediately I realize how overrated perfection is. My spoons are misshapen  The handles are crooked and the balance is sometimes wonky.  But when has life ever come with an easy grip that's perfectly balanced?  Rarely are our stories that simple. 

Small, hand carved, Wenge wood spoon with brass peen. Cracked but not broken...

“There is no greater joy than that which you make for yourself.”

If you are looking for something quick then perhaps carving is not for you.  But if you are trying to slow down, working though something painful, or need an escape while resting in place, then  go make something  designed to serve you.  It doesn't have to be a spoon. Make something you want. There is no greater joy than that which you make for yourself and there's no better time spent than the hours investing in you. The journey lives in the process and your story might benefit from a reminder. If you slow down and listen, time will tell you everything.   

Next workshop: May 12th, 2018; Ticket details here. 

Sundays...

Perhaps the Morrissey song is better titled because everyday really is like Sunday, but Willie does a better job defining the mood.  The mornings here are almost always good.  If there is ever an opposite of Sundowners then it should aptly be named Moon Stars Syndrome and refer to the casual awakening of possibility in a day. Spirits are always high, the coffee is always hot, and a runny yolk is almost always around the corner.

Caregiving gets a bad rap.  People don't realize the best parts of the weekend can be experienced every day.  Lazy mornings on the couch or awake but still in bed are comfortable routines anyone can get used to.  Time is for the taking and my thoughts are filled with what to make of what remains, a luxury my old life rarely afforded.  Obviously, all this idleness means it’s time to create this guy a garden!