The Caregiver Lifestyle

  Depression and anxiety are not unfamiliar to many caregivers. There are mornings when we wake up already uneasy about what the day may bring—especially when someone we love is ill and their care is largely outside our control. When a parent is in a hospital, nursing home, or care facility, all we can really do is hope. Hope they are treated with patience. Hope they are seen as human beings—someone’s parent, someone’s grandparent—worthy of tenderness and dignity. Since my dad became ill and was hospitalized, mornings have felt different. I often wake with my heart racing and the urge to stay in bed just a little longer—to pull the covers close and linger in the quiet warmth that feels safe. It’s a brief pause between rest and responsibility, between calm and whatever the day may hold. Caregiving often lives in this in-between space. Trying to stay calm while anxiety hums beneath the surface. Wanting to move forward while exhaustion pulls you back. Over time, I’m learning ...

I have never been the kind of person who jumps out of bed at the sound of an alarm. I’m more of a coax-yourself-awake person — one, two, three, four, five… let’s go. That rhythm shifted when my dad fell and broke his hip. I still don’t leap into mornings, but I’ve come to appreciate the slower pace he’s moving at now as he heals — and as we enter this final phase of our journey, walking him home. There’s something about his need to go slow that has given me permission to do the same. To do less. To linger more. To reflect. To sit with what I’m feeling, knowing our time together is short. I’m more emotional than I expected to be. Or maybe not more — just more aware. My moods shift. The emotional weight of caregiving has become sharper this past week, especially as we begin making what-if plans and quietly close chapters we once took for granted. There are so many thoughts moving through me. Too many to manage all at once. And maybe the answer right now isn’t to manage them at ...