Los Angeles is a spectacular city from the air — overwhelming, really. I was in a weird mood the entire time I sat on the plane, even as I watched some dumb movie and chatted with the woman sitting next to me. I had a wonderful time visiting Heather over the last few days, and the weather was perfectly beautiful — cold and clear. I am grateful for our enduring friendship and for the chance to breathe in Pacific Northwest air and feel for a few days that I am resting and at peace, without care.
The truth, though, is that I dislike travel of any kind. I don’t know when this happened — when I burnt out — because I feel burnt out. Even as I’m desperate for them, it’s too stressful to plan these getaways, to arrange the childcare and make sure that everything is in order, to navigate travel spaces with my bum knee, to get home and just — well — begin again.
Those who teach mindfulness meditation talk a lot about beginning again, and I have a strong meditation practice that reinforces it. I think caregiving for three decades has also taught me how to live in this exquisite present. I told Heather today that the present — living in it — is a kind of imposition, a necessity, a coping mechanism to endure what stretches toward the future. Will I die before Sophie? Will she die before me? Sophie’s sameness and dependence upon me, the perpetuity of it, lends new meaning to both beginning and present.
I feel stunned lately. I don’t know how else to explain the floaty, dissociative feeling. Does it have to do with caregiving at all? Looking down on this vast city of lights that I call home, I wondered where all the time had gone, all the time. Is this my home? I thought. How did this all happen? From New York to California with baby Sophie, the past a tail, the present lit up, always, like Los Angeles, the future blurred, black.
This touched me so deeply, places I could relate through my own particular life's traumas. I so appreciate your candor regarding the worry, the exhaustion and continuing to meet each new day. Sending love and support.
What will happen to Sophie when you die? I worry about that with Katie as well. My ex husband and I are guardians, as well as my middle daughter. My ex will turn 70 in two years and none of us knows what will happen going forward with my middle daughter. She can still walk and manage but what happens if she can no longer walk? She is getting married, so perhaps her husband to be. It's a never ending worry. What ifs?
You are burnt out because you're human and a caregiver. I feel you. I worry about living long enough to raise Jack too. I feel like a shit magnet sometimes:) Good thing I can still laugh.
Sending hugs and love. And when is your knee surgery?