When you believe you can rest only after caregiving ends
This story is for you, checking on your parents’ requests before getting ready for work every Monday morning.
Scenes
- Caregiving starts the moment you wake up — Even while getting ready for work, you check your parents’ schedule first. Today, leave a place for yourself to sit, too.
- You wait for a call even while resting — Though no one has asked anything, you can’t bring yourself to turn your phone face down. If you stop caregiving, it feels like you’ll become irresponsible right away.
- You reopen the schedule while making toast — At 7:30 Monday morning, you reopen your parents’ schedule while making toast. Before work, you try to fill every gap in their day.
- Recovery doesn’t come in the time left over — Caregiver burnout doesn’t come only from having too much to do. When there’s no end time, your mind keeps waiting even while you rest.
- Set a time for caregiving to end — Tonight, choose the last time you’ll check caregiving messages, then put your phone away from the table. Even if your hand reaches for it, you’re practicing a boundary.
- Even with a boundary, your heart runs back — Even if your mind turns back to caregiving, you don’t have to see it as failure. You can leave that empty chair for yourself again.
Stories by Onyu
- Onyu
- After the meeting, I come back and start figuring out my living expenses.
- Even after a meeting, I come home and have to explain why I need to rest.
- Just before clocking out, the clock reminds me of a request
- Gray hair reflected in the window on a rainy day
- Right before clocking out, I pause before canceling our plans
- Right before quitting time, just thinking about learning makes me check the clock.
- Right before clocking out, I can’t think of what to say to a friend.
- I keep checking the clock just before quitting time.