The Silver Haired ChooChoo

“Don’t Forget: You’re Coming With You”

August 30, 2026

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My heart broke a little the day I realized I had forgotten myself.

I don’t mean that in some grand, existential, cue-the-violins kind of way. I mean I actually looked in the mirror one day and didn’t quite recognize the woman looking back at me.

I used to go almost nowhere without my hair and makeup done. I loved fashion. I loved all the sparkle. I knew what music people were listening to and what was happening beyond my own front door. I built my original Royal Albert tea set one piece at a time from garage sales. I drooled over my dream car. I worked out. I loved the feel of the sun on my face. I loved going on a food search just because somebody said there was something fabulous hiding on a menu somewhere. A good book on a rainy day with chili on the stove was my idea of a good party.

None of those things were particularly important. Except they were. They were the things that fed Ruth.

Somewhere during years of caregiving, those things didn’t disappear all at once. They simply became less important than everything that needed me. Mom needed something. Work needed something. The house needed something. There was an appointment, a prescription, a meal, a problem, a deadline.

And handling things is something I’m very good at, so I handled them. Hair could wait. Makeup could wait. Who cared what I was wearing? The tea cups weren’t going anywhere. There would always be another restaurant, another song, another Saturday. I’d get to it later.

Later. There’s that word again.

I can already hear somebody telling an exhausted caregiver to “make time for yourself,” and I may have to throw one of my precious tea cups at them. That’s not the answer. This isn’t really about time. It’s about loving yourself enough to remember that you are important, too—and that’s more difficult than it sounds.

Because when you’re caring for someone you love, their needs are real, immediate and often non-negotiable. Yours? Well, they can wait. Nobody suffers if I don’t put on mascara. Nobody misses a medication because I haven’t listened to new music lately. The electric company does not care if I’ve lost all interest in fashion, and Medicare has yet to ask about my tea cups.

So those things become optional. The makeup is optional. The music is optional. The workout is optional. Wandering through garage sales is optional. Going somewhere just because it sounds fun is definitely optional. Optional, optional, optional.

And little by little, almost without noticing, everything that feeds you gets moved into the optional column. Until one day it isn’t just the things you love sitting over there. You find yourself in the optional column, too.

We become so accustomed to asking, What does she need? What needs to be done? What problem do I need to solve next? that we stop asking ourselves much of anything. We stop dreaming, anticipating and looking forward to things-not because we’ve decided we don’t matter, but because treating ourselves as optional quietly becomes normal.

That’s the part I wish I had noticed sooner.

I don’t think the answer is desperately hanging onto the person we were before caregiving. I’m not even sure that’s possible. The last seven and a half years have changed me. Of course life changes all of us, but caregiving has changed the way I see love, responsibility, sacrifice, time-and myself.

Then there are the things that surprise me. I’ll see a beautiful tea cup at a garage sale and feel that familiar little spark. There you are. Not the woman I was seven and a half years ago. Just me. Still here. The same, but different.

And maybe that’s the shift. At some point, we have to stop focusing only on what we think we’ve lost and start looking at what can be.

I can spend a lot of time cataloging the things caregiving changed, the things I stopped doing and the pieces of myself I thought had disappeared. Some of that loss is real. But if I keep looking backward for the woman I used to be, I might miss the woman who is standing right here—and all the things she might still become.

Those old loves aren’t necessarily instructions to go backward. They’re clues pointing forward.

And I think those clues are worth noticing, even while you’re still caregiving. Not because you need another assignment. Good grief, the last thing a caregiver needs is a checklist titled HOW TO REMEMBER YOU ARE A PERSON stuck to the refrigerator next to seventeen appointment cards.

Just quietly notice. What still makes you laugh? What catches your eye? What do you miss? What makes you feel beautiful, interesting or curious? What makes some little part of you perk up and say, I remember this?

Because someday, in whatever way it happens, caregiving will change. I don’t believe the goal is to emerge from it exactly as we were when we entered. How could we? We will carry the wisdom, the sacrifice, the hard days and tender ones, the ridiculous stories, the scars, the laughter and an extraordinary amount of love that we poured into another human being.

And I believe something amazing can come from that.

Not because the hard parts were secretly wonderful. Some were excruciating, and they don’t need a pretty bow tied around them. But we will walk forward with something we didn’t have when we began: hard-earned wisdom about love, sacrifice, ourselves and what really matters.

If you’re right in the thick of caregiving, please hear me: I’m not leaving you behind while I start talking about what comes next. You are the reason I’m writing this. Maybe your days still belong almost entirely to someone else. Maybe you can’t see your “next” from where you’re standing. That’s okay. You don’t need to see it yet. Just be on the lookout for those little pieces of yourself that still light up. You are still in there.

We may have made ourselves optional. But once we notice, we can start looking for the clues. And instead of focusing on everything we think we’ve lost, maybe we can begin to wonder what can be.

Because you’re coming with you to the other side of this.

Maybe that’s where we start.

Caregiver Hack of the Week: Notice the Clues

No assignment. No schedule. No new obligation. Just notice something that still makes a little part of you light up.

A song. Lipstick. Fishing. An old recipe. Power tools. A ridiculously expensive coffee. A motorcycle. Whatever. Notice it and tuck it away for the “next.”

Don’t ask whether it’s productive or decide what you’re supposed to do with it. Just notice.

P.S. If anyone has a 1965 Royal Albert Old Country Roses soup tureen they need to get rid of, I’m your girl. I am finding that some parts of myself require absolutely no rediscovery whatsoever. 🙂

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“Plot Twist: There’s a Next”

August 23, 2026

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Part Three of the Capacity Series

Last week I promised we would dig into what happens when the demands of caregiving finally decrease – for whatever reason. Can we rebuild what we’ve depleted? How long does it take? What now?

After three months away from my own 7 year quest of daily caregiving, I thought I would have a very different answer to those questions.

I wish I could tell you my tank is full, my brain has rebooted and I’m now bounding through life with the energy of a Labrador puppy. I’m not. One full day with my mom recently showed me just how quickly some of those old demands can drain the tank again, and that surprised me.

Mom is happy. She’s safe. I’m no longer responsible for every moment of every day. Surely my capacity should have come roaring back by now.

Except it didn’t.

So naturally, I wanted data. How long is this going to take? Three months? Six? A year? Surely somebody has a chart that will tell me exactly where I should be by now.

Drop the calculator. Close the spreadsheet. Apparently, there are no performance metrics for this chapter.

Three months does not magically undo seven years. My body is still recovering from everything it carried. I had pneumonia in June, bronchitis this month and, as I write this, I’m dealing with nerve pain in my shoulder. I’ve even wondered if my shoulders are literally starting to come down from around my ears after years of carrying so much tension. I can’t prove that, of course. Maybe I just slept like a pretzel.

My brain has been reminding me, too. I used to be able to write for sixteen hours at a stretch. Now, when my brain has had enough, it simply shuts off, sometimes without warning. Apparently, it has unionized.

So how long DOES rebuilding “capacity” take?

Longer than I thought.

That is the most truthful answer I have right now. But I’m beginning to realize I may have been looking for the wrong signs. I’ve been waiting to feel dramatically different when the changes are showing up in much quieter, albeit more powerful ways.

I notice pretty flowers again. A song comes on the radio and I actually hear it, sometimes catching myself singing along. I take a nap because I’m tired without spending twenty minutes negotiating with guilt about everything I should be doing instead. Sometimes, I go for a drive simply because I want to, with no doctor, dentist, pharmacy or grocery store waiting at the other end. Sometimes, there might even be a root beer float calling my name.

I’ve also eaten popcorn for dinner. More than once. Before anyone alerts the nutrition police, I am fully aware popcorn does not represent all the recommended food groups, but for today we’re calling it a solid (starchy) vegetable.

These things seem small, but I don’t think they are.

For years, so much of life was dictated by necessity. What needs to happen? Who needs me? Where do we need to be? What can wait? What absolutely cannot wait? Even while running my business, there was always another full-time job waiting when the workday ended.

Now, every once in a while, an hour appears that doesn’t already belong to someone else.

And newsflash: those hours can be surprisingly uncomfortable.

My first instinct is to put them to work. I could clean something, answer something or catch up on something. Give me an empty hour and I can have three obligations, a project and possibly a committee living in it by Thursday. One might think I thrive on stress.

But what if the empty hour doesn’t need a job? What if some of this returning capacity doesn’t have to be immediately reinvested in responsibility? What if a little of it gets to be spent on something or someone simply because it makes me happy?

I’ve decided to call this delightful irresponsibility.

Not call-the-bail-bondsman irresponsibility. Take the nap. Eat the tacos. Go shopping because you want to look around. Drive nowhere with the windows down. Turn up a ridiculous song and sing badly while the dishes remain scandalously unwashed. Somewhere in all of this, I also feel strongly there should be chocolate chip cookies and a tiara. I do like (love) sparkle and sass.

See? Those little moments bring joy, and I know in my soul that joy is fuel for capacity.

Soon after I noticed those moments, something else started showing Meet curiosity. I wonder where that road goes. I wonder if I’d enjoy doing that? I wonder what else I might want to try?

I’m dreaming again.

Maybe, just maybe, this is my Under the Tuscan Sun moment. You know the dream—Tuscany, sunshine, beautiful food, a gorgeous old villa and the delicious possibility of a life you never planned. Underneath all that beautiful scenery is a woman whose planned life disappeared. She found herself standing in an unexpected one and began building from there.

My current version is considerably less Tuscan villa and considerably more Wyoming driveway, but that’s okay.

Tuscany may be the dream, but happiness doesn’t require a passport.

For years, life was about what had to happen next. Now I’m beginning to wonder what could happen next. Those are two very different questions, and I’m dazzled by the second one.

What could I try? Where could I go? What could I create? Who could I meet? What if this completely unplanned season eventually lands me somewhere I never expected to be—and I love it there?

Maybe the life waiting for me isn’t the life I always wanted. Maybe it’s one I hadn’t even thought to want yet.

Caregiving changed my life in ways I never planned, and I won’t pretend every part of it was some wonderful gift wrapped in a pretty bow. It wasn’t. But I came out of those years carrying an incredible amount of hard-earned wisdom, and I don’t regret the life I shared with my mom or the choice I made to care for her. Make no mistake, I would do it all over again – if for nothing else than love. My mama is precious to me – even when she makes me cray.

So, back to those questions.

Can we rebuild what we’ve depleted? I think we can. I’m beginning to see pieces of my capacity returning, although much more quietly and differently than I expected.

How long does it take? Longer than I thought. My preferred timeline is apparently irrelevant, and yours is too. We are not on deadline anymore.

And what now? For once, maybe we don’t need to know.

That may be the ultimate opportunity. To dream again. Get curious. Have adventures. Try something ridiculous and discover we love it. Build a life we couldn’t see coming.

Plot twist: there’s a next.

Before I leave this series, though, I want to talk to the caregiver who isn’t where I am yet. Maybe your days still belong almost entirely to someone else. Maybe an empty hour sounds about as realistic as that villa in Tuscany. Maybe you’re reading about delightful irresponsibility while reheating your coffee for the fourth time and cussing at me under your breath. I get it.

I remember. I’m not removed from it, now it’s just different.

I am not telling you to find more time, try harder or add another thing to your already impossible list. I simply want you to know that there is a next, even if you can’t see it from where you’re standing….YET.

For now, maybe all you can do is protect one tiny piece of yourself inside the life you’re living. Twenty minutes. One song. A chocolate chip cookie eaten while it’s still warm. Something that reminds you that underneath all the responsibility, you are still in there.

Someday there will be room for more. And when there is, I hope you will let yourself dream. There is so much more to come.

Caregiver Hack of the Week:

Commit One Act of Delightful Irresponsibility

Do one thing this week for no reason other than it delights you. Don’t measure it, improve yourself with it or turn it into something productive. Take the drive. Eat the cookie. Turn up the song. Wear the tiara. Dance like a crazy fool.

And if twenty minutes is all you have, take the twenty minutes.

No performance metrics. No guilt. Just delight.

And if your delightful irresponsibility happens to involve a plane ticket to Tuscany, call me. Let’s go.

Until next week, hold on, look in the remember and be proud of who you are and what you are doing. I am standing with you, proud of you, too. With love from the tracks…

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“World, Meet Capacity: The Little Word That Explains A LOT”

August 15, 2026

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Part Two of a Three-Part Series

Last week, I told you about spending an entire day with my mom after being largely removed from full-time caregiving for about three months. It was a perfectly ordinary caregiving day—a dentist appointment, three hours in the car, hearing issues, repeated questions and a little mother-daughter sniping—and yet I came home feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.

I was tired, frustrated and, if we’re telling the whole truth, mad. What bothered me most wasn’t how I felt, though. It was that Mom and I had gotten short with each other. I love that woman more than I can possibly explain, so why did one day together leave me wanting to crawl into a quiet room, shut the door and hang a “DO NOT DISTURB UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE” sign on it?

Then I realized something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

I wasn’t reacting to one day. I was reacting to seven years.

That sent me looking for answers, and somewhere between the research and replaying that day in my head, I landed on a word that has become my new favorite.

Capacity.

Brilliant.

We caregivers hear an awful lot about patience. We’re supposed to have more of it, find more of it and apparently manufacture an endless supply somewhere between the medication organizer and the grocery store. When we lose our patience, we feel terrible because we assume it says something about our character or, even worse, about how much we love the person we’re caring for.

I’m beginning to think we’ve been looking at this all wrong.

Patience is how we respond to a moment. Capacity is how much we have left before that moment ever arrives.

Think about an ordinary caregiving day. You wake up with whatever energy you managed to gather overnight, and then the withdrawals begin. What’s for breakfast? Did you take your medicine? Where are my glasses? What time is the appointment? What did you say? You explain something and then explain it again because it wasn’t heard, wasn’t understood or wasn’t remembered. You make appointments, manage medications, solve problems and keep one part of your brain permanently assigned to someone else’s well-being.

Meanwhile, your own life apparently didn’t get the memo that you’re busy.

Many family caregivers are also working full-time because mortgages, groceries and electric bills remain remarkably unsympathetic to our caregiving responsibilities. In my case, I’ve been running a business while caregiving, which means there have been plenty of days when I finished one full-time job only to discover the other full-time job standing in the kitchen wondering what we were having for dinner.

Then there’s the rest of being human. Homes need attention, bills need paying, friendships need nurturing, and spouses, children and grandchildren need us, too. Somewhere in there we’re supposed to take care of our own health, go to church, see our friends, have interests outside of caregiving and occasionally do something simply because we enjoy it.

And relationships? I’m single, and to my chagrin, I may have to call that divine intervention. I genuinely don’t know where I would have found the time or emotional energy to build a healthy relationship during some of these years. “Hi, it’s lovely to meet you. I own a business, I’m a full-time caregiver, I’m exhausted, and there’s an excellent chance I’ll cancel dinner because something happened with Mom.”

Apparently, romance thrives on mystery.

I’m joking, but only a little. All of those things require pieces of us—our attention, time, energy and emotions—and every one makes a withdrawal from the same account.

That’s capacity.

And this is where burnout belongs in the conversation, because caregiver burnout is real. Exhaustion, irritability, trouble concentrating, sleep problems, resentment and feeling overwhelmed are all associated with prolonged caregiver stress. I don’t want to minimize burnout by simply giving it a shiny new name.

But burnout has always felt like the end of the conversation to me.

You’re burned out. Great. Now what?

Capacity helped me understand how I got there.

I didn’t wake up one Tuesday morning suddenly burned out. I got there one withdrawal at a time. One interrupted night, one doctor’s appointment, one repeated conversation, one work deadline, one cancelled plan, one meal eaten on the fly and one more day of putting myself somewhere near the bottom of the list.

Eventually, there wasn’t much left to withdraw.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows patience has never exactly been my spiritual gift. (Fine, I barely have any at all). I stopped praying for it years ago because I’ve read the book of Job and have no interest in voluntarily requesting additional character-building opportunities. Mom often reminds me, “Remember Job.”

Trust me, Mom. I remember.

I think God made me this way for a reason. I’m a doer and a fixer. I like solving the problem, checking the box and moving along. Coaxing (and a cattle prod) makes much more sense to me than patiently waiting for enlightenment to descend from above. After nearly sixty years I’ve accepted that I’m probably not winning “World’s Most Patient Woman.” No chance at all.

What I’m beginning to understand is that some of the moments I’ve labeled impatience may have been moments when I simply didn’t have much left to give. That doesn’t give me permission to be unkind or sassy to my mom. Her hearing loss isn’t her fault. Cognitive decline isn’t her fault. Repeating a question because she doesn’t remember asking it isn’t her fault, and when I snap, I still need to own that. We all should – but we need to understand it.

But reaching my limit isn’t a moral failure either.

Thankfully, Mom and I have another weapon in our arsenal: we’re both smart-alecks. She had many brothers growing up and her wit is second to none. (So are her toe-stepping abilities but we will save that story for another day).

Laughter has saved us more times than I can count. There have been days when one of us has said something completely inappropriate, the other has fired back, and suddenly we’re laughing so hard we’ve forgotten what irritated us five minutes earlier. I’m fairly certain our shared sarcasm has saved us thousands of dollars in therapy.

Laughter doesn’t fix dementia or fix chronic stress, but it reminds us that we’re still us. We’re not simply caregiver and care recipient. We’re mother and daughter, and sometimes we’re just two sarcastic women who find the same ridiculous things funny.

I’ll take the laughter.

Maybe protecting our capacity isn’t always about adding another task to our already ridiculous to-do lists. Maybe it’s also about leaving some room for laughter, faith, friendship and the parts of ourselves that have absolutely nothing to do with caregiving. It’s pure gold.

Because here’s what that drive to Colorado finally helped me understand:

My love for my mom hadn’t changed. My capacity had.

Those are two very different things.

Next week, we’re going to tackle the question I immediately had once I understood that difference. If burnout is where we can end up after operating beyond our capacity for too long, what happens when the demands finally decrease? Can we rebuild what we’ve depleted? How long does it take? What now?

After three months away from daily caregiving, I thought I’d have a very different answer to that question.

Apparently, my brain has other ideas. We will dig in next week. In the meantime, pay attention to our word of the day.

Caregiver Hack of the Week

Before you decide you’re impatient, resentful or simply lousy at caregiving, ask yourself a different question:

How much capacity do I actually have today?

Maybe you woke up with a full tank. Maybe you’re starting at half. Maybe the little gas light was already blinking before your feet hit the floor.

Knowing where you are doesn’t excuse how you treat the people you love. It simply gives you information. And understanding that you’re running low might be a whole lot more useful than beating yourself up because you couldn’t magically manufacture more.

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“I Thought I Was Better. Spoiler Alert – My Brain Disagreed!”

August 7, 2026

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Part One of a Three-Part Series

Three months.

That’s how long it’s been since my mom broke her hip after her ill-fated attempt at Olympic stair diving. (The good news is she’s healing beautifully. The judges, however, deducted points for the landing.)

Somewhere during those three months, I convinced myself I was getting my life back.

The mental fog I’d been living in for years had finally started to lift. I was making decisions again instead of putting everything off until tomorrow. My business had my attention instead of whatever crisis might be unfolding in the next room. I wasn’t constantly listening for movement or wondering if I needed to stop what I was doing because Mom needed something. For the first time in a long time, life felt…lighter. I honestly thought I was getting better.

This week, Mom had a dental appointment in Colorado, so we loaded up for the hour-and-a-half drive. This wasn’t just any dentist. He specializes in patients who are terrified of the dentist, which sounded perfect because the last time I tried taking Mom, she cried so hard in the waiting room that I finally looked at her and said, “We’re going home.” There wasn’t a filling in the world worth putting her through that kind of fear.

So imagine my surprise when the dentist smiled and asked if she was doing okay and Mom laughed, and cheerfully announced, “Oh, I’m not afraid of the dentist.”

I just sat there blinking in astonishment. Ma’am…that is the biggest story you’ve told all day.

Apparently dementia has a way of editing out memories you’d just as soon forget. The woman who had been absolutely hysterical at her last appointment had no recollection of it whatsoever. I decided right then that arguing with dementia would be like arguing with Wyoming weather. Nobody wins. The appointment went wonderfully, and we have a plan. Snap!

The drive, however, was another story.

Ninety minutes each way in the car gives you plenty of time to discover there is no perfect volume setting for a 94-year-old. The music was too loud…until it wasn’t loud enough…until it needed to come back up again. I’d ask Mom a question and she’d stare out the window as if I’d never spoken. I’d ask again because I assumed she hadn’t heard me, only to get a sharp answer that caught me completely off guard. Now, if you know my mom, that’s not really who she is.

By late afternoon, we were both tired. We even sniped at each other a little. It wasn’t some dramatic argument. It was simply two women who love each other trying to communicate through hearing loss, memory loss, road noise, fatigue, and years of accumulated caregiving.

It didn’t feel good. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I wasn’t thinking about the dentist anymore. I was mad and I was thinking about us.

What bothered me wasn’t that we’d gotten short with each other. What bothered me was how quickly it had happened. Three months ago, this had been my everyday life. Why did one ordinary day leave me feeling so emotionally drained?

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Somewhere between pulling into the garage and getting ready for bed, the answer quietly found me.

I wasn’t reacting to one day. I was reacting to seven years.

That realization has stayed with me all week because, if I’m honest, I’ve spent years believing I simply needed to become a more patient person. Now, anyone who knows me well is probably laughing because they also know I quit praying for patience a long time ago. I’ve read the book of Job. I’ve seen how that particular prayer tends to go, and let’s just say I’ve had enough “character-building opportunities” to last a lifetime.

The more I’ve thought about our day together, though, the more I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve been asking myself the wrong question all these years. Maybe patience was never the issue at all. Maybe there was something else happening that I simply didn’t have words for.

That realization sent me down a rabbit hole of research. What I found surprised me. Researchers at the National Institute on Aging, the Family Caregiver Alliance, and Neal Shah at CareYaya have spent years studying what prolonged caregiving does to our brains. Difficulties with concentration, decision-making, memory, emotional fatigue—even something Shah calls cognitive overload– are all well documented.

For the first time, I realized I wasn’t imagining what I was feeling. There was a reason. I just hadn’t discovered it yet. And I have a feeling it’s going to change the way I look at caregiving…and maybe the way I look at myself.

We’re going to unpack that statement over the next couple of weeks because this is far too important to rush through. I’ve stumbled onto something that has the potential to free a lot of caregivers from carrying guilt they were never meant to carry. And that is BIG!

Get ready, I think this will provide some relief that we all need! I’m not being coy, it’s just a lot to unpack in one sitting. I’m already on it! In the meantime, here’s a small assignment.

Caregiver Hack of the Week

This week, don’t try to fix anything. Don’t promise yourself you’ll be more patient tomorrow. Don’t spend another week criticizing yourself because you lost your cool.

Instead, ask yourself one question.

What if I’ve been asking myself the wrong question?

Don’t answer it today. Just sit with it for a few days.

Sometimes the questions that change our lives aren’t the ones we answer immediately. They’re the ones that quietly stay with us until we’re finally ready to see ourselves differently.

Sources: National Institute on Aging (NIA); Family Caregiver Alliance; Neal Shah, CareYaya, on cognitive overload and prolonged caregiver stress.

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“The Cost of Later”

July 27, 2026

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This weekend, a fellow caregiver passed away.

I knew her as someone who loved deeply and cared faithfully for the person she loved. Like so many caregivers, she spent years putting someone else’s needs ahead of her own. When I heard she was gone, it sucked the air out of my lungs.

As I sat with the news, I couldn’t escape the feeling that her story was asking me to take an honest look at my own.

I found myself asking a question that has been sitting heavy on my heart ever since.

Have I slowly become comfortable neglecting myself in the name of loving someone else?

I thought about all the mornings I’d been too tired to go for a walk…or the evenings when I knew I should have, but simply didn’t have anything left. I thought about the healthy meals that turned into whatever was quickest because I was exhausted. The doctor’s appointments I’d postponed because someone else needed me first. I even caught myself looking at the additional notches on my belt and realizing how many little decisions I’d made over the last seven years that all seemed insignificant in the moment but, together, had added up to something much bigger.

When I was a little girl, people used to say, “Stress can kill you.” I remember thinking they were absolutely crazy. How could a feeling possibly do that? The truth is, it isn’t the feeling that does the damage.

It’s what chronic stress quietly convinces us to stop doing.

It convinces us that we’ll schedule the doctor’s appointment next month. That one more unhealthy meal won’t matter. That we’ll go for a walk tomorrow. That we’ll start taking care of ourselves after things settle down. Before we know it, those little decisions stop being occasional. They become habits.

And habits have consequences. Caregiving has a way of convincing us that we can wait.

For me, that waiting didn’t just show up on the scale or in postponed checkups. It showed up in the mirror, too. I used to wear makeup almost every day because I enjoyed it. I loved doing my hair. I still love clothes and fashion, but somewhere along the way getting dressed stopped being fun and started becoming another reminder that I didn’t recognize the woman looking back at me anymore.

This isn’t about vanity. It’s about neglect.

Not intentional neglect. Quiet neglect. The kind that happens one small decision at a time until one day you wake up and realize you’ve been putting yourself off for so long that later has become over seven years.

I know there will be people reading this who don’t see themselves in my story, and that’s okay. Some caregivers have done an incredible job protecting their health while caring for someone they love, and I genuinely admire them. Others will say caregiving isn’t the reason I gained weight or postponed doctor’s appointments. They’re right. Those were my decisions.

Caregiving did change my priorities. It changed my schedule, my sleep, my energy, and how much of myself was left at the end of the day. Pretending those things don’t influence our choices wouldn’t be honest either.

I started reading this weekend because I needed to know if what I was feeling had any truth behind it. Unfortunately, it did.

Research consistently shows that family caregivers experience significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, chronic illness, sleep problems, and declining physical health than people who aren’t caregivers. One landmark study even found that caregivers experiencing high levels of emotional strain had a 63% greater risk of death than their non-caregiving peers.

Those aren’t just statistics. Those are people. Those numbers are careivers. They are us.

Now, before anybody starts feeling guilty because this is one more thing you aren’t doing well enough, let me stop you right there.

That isn’t why I’m writing this.

Caregivers have enough guilt to last ten lifetimes. We don’t need another list of things we’re supposed to be doing better. This isn’t about perfection, and it certainly isn’t about adding one more impossible expectation to an already impossible job. It’s about recognizing that our health matters, too, because if we keep telling ourselves “later,” one day there may not be as much later as we thought.

Somewhere along the way, I think we’ve confused sacrificing ourselves with loving well, and I don’t believe they’re the same thing.

God called us to love sacrificially, but I don’t believe He ever called us to neglect the very life He entrusted to us. Loving others and caring for ourselves are not competing callings. In fact, I think they go hand in hand. The healthier we are—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—the better equipped we are to love the people who depend on us.

There is no cure. There are no shortcuts. There are no caregiver hacks. There are only small decisions, made over and over again, that determine whether we’re still standing when this journey is over.

So this week, I’d simply like to ask you to join me. Not in trying to become perfect. Not in promising that tomorrow we’ll suddenly have everything figured out and on schedule.

Just in making one small decision each day that protects the person we’ll be after caregiving. Just one.

Maybe that’s finally scheduling the doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s taking a walk before the day gets away from you. Maybe it’s planning healthier meals, drinking another glass of water, or asking for help instead of carrying everything alone. Whatever your “one thing” is, let’s do it together.

Let’s stop waiting for “later.”

Let’s start changing the story…

One small decision at a time. We’ve got this! Now, let’s make it a reality.

I’ll see you at the next stop!

Resources

Schulz, R., & Beach, S. R. (1999). Caregiving as a Risk Factor for Mortality: The Caregiver Health Effects Study. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Caregiving for Family and Friends — A Public Health Issue.

National Alliance for Caregiving & AARP. Caregiving in the U.S.

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“Plot Twist: Mom Likes the Nursing Home”

July 19, 2026

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For more than seven years, I worked hard to keep Mom at home. That is what good daughters do, right? We rearrange our lives, give up a large portion of our freedom and develop the ability to hear suspicious elderly movement from three rooms away.

We become cooks, chauffeurs, medication managers, appointment schedulers and amateur detectives who spend an unreasonable amount of time asking, “Where are your glasses?”

What I didn’t fully recognize was how small Mom’s world had become.

She had once been a fully functioning adult with a husband, friends, places to go and a social life that didn’t require checking my work calendar first. When she stopped driving and had to rely on me for everything, life became quieter and lonelier.

I was her daughter, caregiver, chauffeur and social director. While I am delightful, even I am not enough company for another human being seven days a week (tongue in cheek).

One day in late April, Mom, apparently deciding that ordinary aging wasn’t keeping us busy enough, tried to cartwheel down my stairs and broke her hip.

There was nothing wonderful about the fall, surgery or worry (and there is a whole story behind that saga), but once she moved into our local nursing home for rehabilitation, something unexpected happened.

Mom perked up. She already knew many of the residents, quickly made friends and began enjoying the daily activity around her. Her friends visited more often because they didn’t worry about interrupting me while I was working. There were people to talk to, things to do and somewhere besides our living room to do them.

My 94-year-old mother suddenly had a better social life than I did.

They even had water fights during the horrible heat last week. Apparently, I didn’t move Mom into a nursing home. I sent her to senior summer camp. I could not be more delighted!

We began talking about her staying. At first, I felt the familiar twinge of guilt because, after seven years of caregiving, guilt is practically a member of the family. It doesn’t pay rent, but it certainly makes itself comfortable.

Then I realized Mom wasn’t merely being cared for. She was thriving!

Her days were now designed around her needs instead of being squeezed around my work and responsibilities. She had companionship, activity and help when she needed it. I had freedom—and the chance to simply be her daughter again.

Our relationship became happier and healthier because the constant pressure of caregiving was no longer sitting between us.

I know how fortunate we are. Our local nursing home is clean, welcoming and staffed by wonderful people who genuinely care for the residents. We hit the jackpot—pure gold—and I understand that not every family has the same experience.

That is why families must visit, ask questions and pay attention. Look beyond the fancy lobby. Watch how the staff speak to residents. Notice whether people seem clean, comfortable and engaged. Talk to other families, visit at different times and listen for conversation and laughter. If they have “visiting hours” RUN! You should be able to visit your loved one anytime of day or night. And, apparently, ask about water fights.

We are quick to assume that placing someone in a home means abandoning them. Sometimes, though, keeping them at home means their entire world has been reduced to one house and one exhausted caregiver.

A nursing home isn’t always the sad ending we fear. For Mom, it has been a new beginning. She found her friends, her niche and a life that belongs to her again.

She gets her world back. I get to be her daughter. For me, there is nothing better. Give some of the alternative ideas a chance to work. They may just surprise you.

Caregiver Hack: When considering a care community, don’t ask only, “Will my loved one be safe here?” Ask, “Could they build a life here?” Safety matters—but so does friendship, laughter and having someone besides their exhausted daughter available for daily entertainment. Before Choosing a Care Community

Ask yourself:
- Is it clean—and does it smell clean?
- Do staff members know residents by name?
- Do they speak to residents with patience and respect?
- Are residents engaged, or merely parked in front of a television?
- What care is included, and what costs extra?
- How are falls, emergencies and changes in condition handled?
- What dementia-specific training does the staff receive?
- Can your loved one’s increasing needs be accommodated?
- Can family and friends visit comfortably?
- Could your loved one build a life here?
Visit more than once, at different times and on different days. Talk privately with residents and their families. Look beyond the fancy lobby, trust your instincts and get every financial promise in writing.

Need help finding the right place?
I created a practical Choosing a Care Community Checklist with questions to ask, things to notice and red flags to watch for when visiting assisted-living, memory-care or nursing-home communities. The full list is housed on the Silver Haired Choo Choo’s Facebook page where you can print and take it with you. Do NOT be shy about asking all the questions, because a fancy lobby is nice—but it cannot answer a call light.

See you out on the tracks!!! Choo Choo!
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“Two Things Can Be True: The War & Peace of Caregiving”

June 28, 2026

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There is something about caregiving that people don’t talk about nearly enough, and I think part of the reason is because it’s messy. Not messy in the practical sense-though Lord knows there’s plenty of that too, but messy emotionally. People like feelings when they’re easy to define. Sad. Happy. Grateful. Angry. Those are manageable. Nothing about caregiving is simple, especially the emotions that go along with it.

Caregiving is full of split emotions, and if you’re in it long enough, you begin to realize that two completely opposite things can be true at the exact same time.

That’s one of the strangest parts of all of this. You can feel relief and guilt in the same breath. Trust m, I know this one well.

There are moments when my mom falls asleep, when someone else takes over for an hour, or when the house goes quiet for just a little while, and I can physically feel my body exhale. It’s relief. Real relief. For a moment, I don’t have to listen for movement. I don’t have to answer the same question six times. I don’t have to think about medications, meals, appointments, or whether someone is safe.

And then guilt walks right in behind it.

Because what kind of daughter feels relieved to have a break from her mother?

For a long time, I thought the answer to that question was: a selfish one. Now I know better. It’s a tired one. And there’s a difference.

The distinction matters because caregivers are often so hard on themselves for having human reactions to inhuman levels of responsibility. We think relief means we love less. We think frustration means we’re failing. We think exhaustion means we’re weak. None of that is true. It just means we’ve been carrying a lot.

The same thing happens with tenderness and anger, and I think that one catches people off guard even more. I can be helping my mom with something simple, like buttoning her sweater or brushing her hair, and feel overwhelmed with love for her. In those moments, she feels fragile and precious, and I’m struck by how much of life we’ve shared.

And in the very same moment, I can feel angry.

Not at her. At all of it. At aging. At dementia. At the cruelty of watching someone you love slowly lose pieces of themselves. At the endlessness of it. At the way your world gets smaller while your responsibilities get bigger.

That anger can feel uncomfortable to admit. It can feel disloyal.

But I don’t think it is. I think it’s grief. And grief, especially caregiver grief, is rarely clean. It’s messy and mentally exhausting.

Research from the National Institute on Aging and the Family Caregiver Alliance shows that caregivers experience significantly higher rates of chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion than people who are not caregiving. They also talk about something called ambiguous grief, which is grief that happens while someone is still physically here. That one hits hard, because it explains so much.

You are loving someone while grieving them at the same time. How could that not create emotional contradictions?

And then there’s another truth people don’t like to hear. It is easier to be patient with someone else’s loved one. That sounds harsh, but it’s true.

When it’s your own parent, spouse, or partner, you are not walking into a neutral situation. You are walking in carrying years of history, shared memories, old wounds, deep love, and all the complicated things that make relationships what they are. That history changes everything.

A professional caregiver can be compassionate, and many are extraordinary-but they do not carry your history. They don’t carry the emotional freight of who this person used to be, what they meant to you then, and what they mean to you now.

That weight belongs to you. And it changes how the hard moments land.

The repetition feels heavier when it’s your loved one asking the same question over and over. The decline feels sharper when you remember who they used to be. The hard days feel harder because they are layered with memory.

That’s why I’ve stopped trying so hard to explain caregiving to people who haven’t lived it. Not because they don’t care. Most do. But until you’ve been the one awake at 2:00 in the morning listening for movement, until you’ve sat in the car and cried because you needed one minute before going back inside, until you’ve had to make impossible decisions for someone you love, you don’t fully understand what this asks of a person.

You just don’t. And maybe that’s okay. Not everybody has to understand it. But caregivers do need to understand themselves. That may be one of the most important parts of surviving this.

Your emotions will not always be tidy. They will not always make you proud. There will be days when relief feels bigger than tenderness. There will be days when frustration shows up before patience. There will be moments when you miss who your loved one used to be so deeply it takes the air out of you.

That doesn’t make you a bad caregiver. It makes you human. And humans carrying heavy things are going to feel complicated things.

Maybe part of surviving caregiving is learning to stop judging those feelings so harshly. Maybe it’s letting them exist without assigning meaning to them. Maybe it’s understanding that love can still be present even when the emotions around it are complicated.

Because two things can be true. You can love someone deeply and still need space. You can feel grateful and overwhelmed. You can feel tenderness and frustration. You can miss who they were while still loving who they are. That isn’t failure.

That’s caregiving.

Caregiver Hack of the Week

This week, when one of those split emotions shows up, try naming it instead of fighting it.

Not to fix it. Not to judge it. Just to tell yourself the truth.

Sometimes saying, I feel angry, or I feel relieved, or I feel sad, is enough to take the shame out of it. Name it, acknowledge it, and release it. When the shame lifts, the feeling often becomes easier to carry.

That matters. Because caregiving is heavy enough without carrying shame too.

Be kind to yourself!

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“Nobody is Coming to Save You! The Most Important Relationship You’ll Have as a Caregiver”

June 14, 2026

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There are a lot of things nobody tells you before you become a caregiver.

Actually, that’s not quite true. People will tell you plenty of things. They’ll tell you to enjoy every moment. They’ll tell you how lucky your loved one is to have you. They will tell you that you are a good human. They’ll tell you to take care of yourself. They’ll tell you to ask for help if you need it.

The problem is that most of those things are easy to say and much harder to live.

What nobody really explains is what happens to you over time.

Nobody sits you down and says, “One day your life is going to become smaller than you ever imagined.” Nobody explains how your priorities will shift, how friendships will change, or how entire conversations will start revolving around medications, appointments, insurance forms, and doctor’s offices. Nobody warns you that there may come a day when you look in the mirror and realize you’ve spent so much time taking care of someone else that you’ve completely lost track of yourself.

And perhaps most importantly, nobody tells you that the relationship you have with yourself may become the most important relationship of the entire journey.

That’s a realization that has taken me years to understand. Over seven years to be exact.

When I first started caring for my mom, I thought the challenge would be learning how to navigate aging. I thought it would be about helping her through the physical changes, the medical appointments, the growing list of medications, and all the practical things that come with getting older.

I didn’t realize that caregiving would also introduce me to parts of myself I didn’t know existed.

Some of those discoveries have been good ones. I’ve learned that I’m stronger than I thought I was. I’ve learned that I can function on far less sleep than any human should. I’ve learned that I can advocate for someone I love with a level of determination that occasionally borders on frightening.

Other discoveries have been a little less flattering.

I’ve learned that exhaustion can make me impatient. I’ve learned that stress can make me emotional. I’ve learned that there are days when I don’t particularly like the version of myself that shows up. Some days, make up and hair, just seem pointless. And I’ve learned that guilt is always waiting around the corner, eager to remind me of every mistake I’ve ever made. And, if guilt doesn’t, there is always a know-it-all human that will make a snide remark – but I digress.

The interesting thing about caregiving is that while you’re busy learning how to care for someone else, you’re also building a relationship with yourself whether you realize it or not.

The problem is that many of us don’t pay attention to that relationship until it’s in trouble.

There will be seasons of caregiving when nobody understands what you’re carrying. That isn’t a criticism of other people so much as it is a reality of the experience. Most people simply cannot understand the weight of caregiving until they are carrying it themselves. They can sympathize. They can “care.” They can mean well. But truly understanding is different.

And if that feels isolating, you’re not imagining it. Research from caregiver organizations and aging experts has consistently found that caregivers experience significantly higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and social isolation than non-caregivers. Many report feeling disconnected from the people around them, even when they are surrounded by family and friends. I can tell you this is 100% true.

That’s why advice from the sidelines can sometimes feel so frustrating.

The friend who tells you to “take a break” may genuinely care about you, but they may not understand that finding coverage for a loved one isn’t as simple as blocking out an afternoon on the calendar. The person who questions your decisions may not realize how many hours of thought, research, worry, and responsibility went into making them in the first place. Even family members who love both you and your loved one may only see a fraction of what happens behind the scenes.

The fascinating thing about caregiving is that everyone seems to become an expert until it’s their turn.

The reality is that most people simply haven’t lived it – but that number is trending upward quickly. Today, nearly one in four American adults serves as a caregiver in some capacity. Yet even with millions of people providing care, the experience remains surprisingly invisible until it arrives on your doorstep.

Over time, if you’re not careful, you can start measuring yourself through the opinions of people who don’t have enough information to make those judgments. I’m a professional at this one – and it’s dangerous. Eventually the criticism starts sounding like your own voice.

And once that happens, you’re carrying more than caregiving. You’re carrying a running commentary that tells you you’re not doing enough, not handling it well enough, not patient enough, not grateful enough, not strong enough.

It’s exhausting.

Research from the National Institute on Aging and caregiver advocacy organizations consistently shows that caregiving functions much like a chronic stress experience. It brings uncertainty, constant vigilance, competing responsibilities, and emotional strain that can stretch across years. In other words, if this feels hard, it’s because it is hard. The struggle isn’t evidence that you’re failing. It’s evidence that you’re carrying a tremendous amount of responsibility over a prolonged period of time.

I think that’s why the relationship we have with ourselves matters so much. At the end of a difficult day, after the appointments have been managed, the medications have been sorted, the meals have been prepared, and the house has finally gone quiet, we’re left alone with our own thoughts when we are the most exhausted. The question becomes whether those thoughts sound like an ally or an adversary.

I’ve discovered that I can extend compassion to almost anyone except myself. If another caregiver told me they were exhausted, I’d understand immediately. If they admitted they were overwhelmed, I’d reassure them. If they made a mistake, I’d remind them that they’re human. Yet somehow, when it comes to our own struggles, many of us become prosecutors instead of advocates.

We build a case against ourselves and then spend years trying to defend it.

Maybe that’s why this lesson has taken me so long to learn. The goal isn’t to become a perfect caregiver. The goal is to make sure that somewhere in the middle of all the responsibility, sacrifice, love, grief, frustration, and exhaustion, we don’t lose ourselves completely.

The relationship with ourselves is a relationship worth protecting. In fact, you need treat it, and treasure it like it is the most important thing in your life. Because no one is coming to save you – and that relationship with yourself WILL make you or break you. It’s harsh – but an honest statement.

Caregiving will end at some point, and you will have a chance to rebuild all that has been pushed down, forgotten or overlooked for a time. Be sure there is something left to carry you forward so that you can flourish.

Caregiver Hack of the Week

This week, pay attention to the way you talk to yourself after something goes wrong. When you forget something, lose your patience, or have a hard day, ask yourself whether you would speak that way to another caregiver who was doing their best.

Most of us already know the answer.

Maybe it’s time we offered ourselves some of the same grace we so freely give everyone else. Pretty sure I’m 100% right on that little tidbit.

Loving you all! See you out on the rails!

Sources: National Institute on Aging (NIA); Family Caregiver Alliance; National Alliance for Caregiving; CareYaya and Neal Shah’s work on caregiver stress and cognitive overload.

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“I Thought I Was Losing My Mind. Turns Out I Was Caregiving”

June 7, 2026

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Five weeks.

For the first time in nearly seven years, my mom has been away from home for more than a few days.

Now before anybody starts imagining some luxurious vacation involving fruity drinks and ocean views, let me clarify. My mom isn’t away because I’m sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere. She’s recovering from a broken hip after deciding, at the age of 94, to launch herself down eight stairs and remind us all that life can change in an instant.

Thankfully, surgery was successful. She’s healing. She’s getting stronger. And, she’s thriving in rehab.

And while I’ve spent the last several weeks focused on her recovery, something unexpected has begun to happen.

My brain is starting to come back. Not all at once. Not dramatically. It’s more like little moments where I suddenly realize I’m thinking differently than I have in years. The other day I made a decision about something in my business without putting it off for three weeks. I almost threw myself a parade.

I’ve started noticing that I’m not automatically avoiding every non-essential decision because it feels overwhelming. My attention span is a little longer. My thoughts feel a little clearer. The constant sense of urgency that has lived in my chest for years seems to be loosening its grip, if only for a few minutes at a time.

And honestly, I didn’t realize how much of my brain had been living in survival mode until it started coming out of it. What surprised me most is how emotional that realization has been.

I didn’t fully understand HOW much of my internal self-had been consumed by caregiving until I started getting little pieces of myself back. Not because I stopped loving my mom (I LOVE just being her daughter). Not because she stopped needing me. But because the intensity of the moment shifted just enough for me to come up for air and look around. Oh, snap!

I think a lot of caregivers know exactly what I’m talking about. I knew I was struggling but didn’t realize the extent of it cognitively.

We joke about forgetting why we walked into a room. We laugh about putting our coffee in the microwave three times and still forgetting to drink it. We tell stories about losing our keys, our glasses, our train of thought, and occasionally our last remaining nerve. But beneath the humor, there’s something very real happening.

Researchers have found that chronic caregiving stress can affect memory, concentration, decision-making, sleep, and emotional regulation. The National Institute on Aging has written extensively about the impact prolonged caregiving stress can have on both physical and cognitive health. Neal P. Shah, founder of CareYaya, describes caregiving as a form of “sustained cognitive overload,” and I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever heard a phrase that better captures what so many of us experience every day.

Every caregiver knows the mental load. It’s not just the appointments or medications. It’s the constant need to anticipate problems before they happen and make all the decisions for another human being while still trying to manage your own life. After a while, your brain becomes so focused on immediate needs that everything else starts getting pushed aside. Bills, decisions, desires, wants, anything outside of what is in front of me. The proof of that is everywhere in my life. What these last five weeks have taught me is that caregiver brain isn’t a sign that we’re failing. If anything, it’s evidence of just how much we’ve been carrying for far too long.

I spent years believing I just needed to get more organized, become more disciplined, or somehow find a better system. If I forgot something, I blamed myself. If I put off decisions, I blamed myself. If I couldn’t focus on a project or finish something that should have taken an hour, I blamed myself for that too. It never occurred to me that maybe my brain wasn’t malfunctioning at all. Maybe it was simply exhausted.

When you’re responsible for another person’s well-being day after day, your priorities change without you even realizing it (and frankly, so does your personality). Your brain starts sorting information differently. It becomes incredibly efficient at identifying immediate needs and immediate threats, but everything else gets pushed to the back of the line. Projects can wait. Personal goals can wait. Returning a phone call can wait. Cleaning out a closet can wait. Your brain quietly decides that if it isn’t directly related to keeping the wheels from falling off today, it can be dealt with another time.

The problem is that “another time” turns into months, and sometimes years.

Looking back, I can see how much of my life has been lived in a state of low-level emergency. Not because every day was a crisis, but because there was always the possibility of one. Caregiving teaches you to stay ready, and after a while your nervous system forgets how to fully relax.

I think that’s why these last few weeks have felt so strange. For the first time in a long time, I find myself thinking about things beyond the next appointment or medication schedule. I’m making decisions that I’ve been avoiding. I’m revisiting projects that have been sitting untouched. I’m noticing opportunities instead of just responsibilities. It’s not happening all at once, and I’m certainly not claiming to be cured of anything, but there are moments when I feel a little more like myself than I have in years.

And maybe that’s what I want other caregivers to hear.

If your brain feels foggy, if you’re struggling to focus, if you’re forgetting things, losing words, avoiding decisions, or feeling overwhelmed by tasks that used to feel simple, it doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong with you. It may mean you’ve been carrying an extraordinary amount of responsibility for an extraordinary amount of time.

Maybe that’s why I’ve become so grateful for these small moments of clarity. They’re reminding me that underneath all the exhaustion, stress, responsibility, and mental clutter, I’m still here. The person I was before caregiving hasn’t disappeared. She’s just been working very, very hard for a very long time.

As for what helps, most experts agree that recovery starts with the basics: rest, movement, connection, boundaries, and respite. The challenge isn’t knowing what helps. The challenge is finding room for it in a caregiver’s life.

Which brings me to this week’s Caregiver Hack.

Instead of trying to tackle everything that’s been piling up, choose one thing you’ve been avoiding and give it your attention for fifteen minutes. Not because you’re trying to be productive, but because you’re reminding your brain that not every waking moment has to be spent reacting to someone else’s needs.

Sometimes the first step out of survival mode isn’t a vacation or a life-changing breakthrough. Sometimes it’s simply realizing that your own thoughts deserve a little space again.

And if you’re finding yourself in that fog right now, please know that you’re not alone. More importantly, you’re not broken. You may simply be experiencing exactly what happens when a human being spends years carrying responsibilities that were never meant to be carried alone.

See you back out on the rails!

Sources: National Institute on Aging (NIA), Family Caregiver Alliance, Neal Shah and CareYaya research on caregiver stress and cognitive overload.

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“Caregiving Doesn’t Care Who You Voted For!”

May 28, 2026

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Apparently society believes caregivers survive entirely on inspirational Facebook memes, reheated coffee, and people telling us how “strong” we are. No? Convince me different.

More than 63 million family caregivers in this country are out here trying to hold together an entire care system with caffeine, guilt, exhaustion, and sheer force of will.

And somehow everyone is pretending this is sustainable.

The longer I live in the caregiving world (and I’m seven solid years in), the more convinced I become that this is one of the biggest societal crises nobody wants to honestly talk about until it lands directly in their own living room. Because caregiving has somehow been packaged into this soft-focus, inspirational version of reality where devoted daughters lovingly fluff pillows while meaningful piano music plays in the background.

The Lifetime movie version of caregiving is alive and well in people’s heads. It was in mine too, when I started, but life is brutal, and real caregiving looks a whole lot different.

Real caregiving looks like forgetting your own medications because you’re too busy managing someone else’s. It looks like crying in your car because the pressure never really shuts off. It looks like losing friendships because your world gets smaller and smaller while everyone else keeps moving. It looks like slowly realizing your identity has become entirely wrapped around keeping another human being safe, fed, medicated, transported, emotionally regulated, and alive.

And then—on top of all of that—you get judged for being tired or grouchy. That part might honestly be one of the hardest pieces of all.

The reproach.

The criticism from people who have absolutely no idea what this life actually requires but somehow still feel qualified to comment on your attitude, your patience, your exhaustion, your frustration, or your choices. People who think caregiving means dropping by for a pleasant visit once a week while someone else handles the medications, appointments, hygiene, insurance battles, meals, emotional breakdowns, memory issues, mobility concerns, paperwork, and endless responsibility. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Let me say this as clearly as I can:

There is a massive difference between visiting caregiving and living caregiving.

And the people living it are tired.

Not weak. Not selfish. Not ungrateful.

Tired.

Because the system itself is FAILING and FAILING them.

Professional caregivers are exhausted too. They are working incredibly difficult jobs that demand enormous emotional and physical labor, often for wages that don’t remotely reflect the responsibility they carry. Families cannot find affordable help. Facilities are understaffed. Home health agencies cannot find enough workers. Dementia rates are climbing. People are living longer. Middle-aged adults are simultaneously raising children, running households, working jobs, and trying to care for aging parents at the exact same time.

This is not a niche issue anymore. This is everybody’s problem.

And newsflash – caregiving does not care who you voted for!

Dementia doesn’t stop at red states or blue states. Aging doesn’t care about political affiliation. Illness does not check party registration before it arrives at your front door. Eventually, most families will touch caregiving in some way, and when they do, many are going to discover just how fragile this entire system really is.

That train is already coming fast down the tracks.

Which is why I’m tired of hearing politicians from both sides of the aisle talk endlessly about issues that divide people while largely ignoring one that affects literally everyone eventually.

Congress needs to pay attention.

The President needs to pay attention.

EVERYONE needs to pay attention. Trust me, if you don’t now, you will wish you had when it’s your turn. And, there WILL be a your turn.

Because you cannot continue building a healthcare and eldercare system that quietly depends on unpaid family labor while simultaneously offering families almost no meaningful support. Double that statement if you’re in rural America. You cannot expect professional caregivers to stay in the workforce when burnout is crushing and compensation often falls painfully short of the demands. And you cannot continue expecting millions of people to carry two full-time jobs-one that pays the bills and one that keeps someone alive-without consequences.

That is not strength. That is barely survival. And eventually, survival mode breaks people.

Caregiving work deserves real support. Better pay for professional caregivers. Better staffing. More respite care. Better mental health resources. Tax relief for families. Policies that recognize caregiving for what it actually is: necessary labor holding together an aging society.

Because right now, the system is functioning largely on sacrifice. And sacrifice is not an infrastructure plan.

So no, I don’t really need another person telling caregivers how “strong” they are while watching them drown quietly in plain sight. I need people paying attention. I need people educating themselves before caregiving becomes their own emergency.

And I need lawmakers to understand that 63 million caregivers is no small number when it comes to voting, either. Want to win an election? Champion this cause.

This isn’t somebody else’s problem anymore.

It belongs to all of us now! Let’s get to work. We can do it together. Red, White or Blue. This is an AMERICA problem.

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