It’s been a hairy week.
The kind of week where plans change, doctors and waiting rooms become part of the schedule, and you find yourself thinking, Well… this wasn’t on my calendar.
But somewhere in the middle of it all, I realized I’ve learned a few things.
First: shower. 😂
Seriously. If you’re a caregiver, just shower and get dressed before you leave the house. Because “we’re just going to get this checked out” can quickly become hours at urgent care, a doctor’s office, or the ER.
A shower won’t fix the situation, but at least you’ll feel comfortable in your own skin while you wait.
Second: pray.
Pray when you hear the news.
Pray on the drive there.
Pray while you’re waiting.
Pray with the person you love.
Sometimes I have beautiful words. Other times it’s simply, “God, please help me with whatever comes next.”
That counts too.
Third: remember that you ARE doing it.
Sometimes we get so caught up wondering, How am I going to handle all of this?
Meanwhile… we’re handling it.
Maybe not perfectly. Maybe with messy hair, cold coffee and a puppy waiting impatiently in the car. But we’re doing it.
And somewhere in all of this, I’m also learning that I still have to live my life.
Today, I’m going to lunch with a friend.
I’m going to walk the dog.
I might pull some weeds and smell the flowers.
I’m going to appreciate that my body works and carries me through these crazy days.
And I’m even going to be grateful for the construction mess around my house because, yes, it’s noisy and chaotic, but it also means we’re fortunate enough to be creating a beautiful new sunroom.
Sometimes gratitude shows up wearing work boots. 🌿
A Few Helpful Reminders
• Eat and drink the water. We caregivers can keep everyone else fed, hydrated and cared for while somehow surviving on coffee and three almonds.
• Don’t borrow tomorrow’s problems. Take care of what is actually in front of you today.
• Let good enough be good enough. Some days, everyone getting safely to bedtime is an accomplishment.
• Keep little pieces of your life. Lunch with a friend. A walk. Gardening. Sitting quietly with your coffee. These aren’t extras. They help keep you connected to yourself.
• Laugh when you can. Sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you cry. Occasionally you do both within five minutes. Welcome to caregiving.
• Notice what is still good. Even during a hard week, there are little gifts everywhere if we remember to look for them.
And maybe that’s my biggest lesson this week:
Taking care of myself isn’t something I do after I’m finished caregiving.
Taking care of myself is part of caregiving.
So today, I’m going to lunch.
The appointments, responsibilities, construction dust and weeds will still be there when I get back.
But for a little while, I’m going to sit with a friend, breathe, laugh and simply be.
And thank God for the good that is still growing right alongside the hard. 🌸
Caregiving
Talking care of loved ones
When All You Can Do Is Laugh
You know those moments when life piles on one more thing and all you can do is laugh?
That was my morning.
I got home from the gym, talked to Dad, walked the pup, greeted the contractors working on the house, and finally walked inside.
And there comes Mom toward me…
with one hand twice the size of the other.
Seriously. 😳
Deep breath.
Get the ice pack.
Ice and elevate.
Quick shower.
Get dressed.
Load Mom into the car.
Load the precocious puppy into the car.
Off to urgent care.
And now… we sit.
Funny thing is, sitting here, I can finally breathe.
The workday I had planned? That’s going to have to flex.
The contractors? They’ll figure it out.
The puppy in the car? Well, he’s along for today’s adventure. 🐾
And Mom?
She’s right here beside me, and I’m doing everything I can to take care of her.
I think this is one of the strangest parts of caregiving. You can wake up with a perfectly reasonable plan for your day, and within minutes, life grabs the calendar and scribbles all over it.
There are moments when I want to cry. Moments when I’m frustrated. Moments when I wonder how I’m going to get everything done.
And then there are mornings like this when I just have to laugh.
Not because it’s funny that Mom is hurt.
But because sometimes laughter is the release valve.
It’s the moment I realize:
Okay, God. Apparently this is what we’re doing today.
So I breathe.
I adjust.
I take care of what’s directly in front of me.
And I remind myself that I don’t have to manage the entire day right now.
I just have to manage this moment.
A few caregiver reminders for days like this:
– Your plans are allowed to change.
– Not everything that felt urgent this morning is still urgent.
– Take care of what actually needs you first.
– Breathe before jumping ahead to the next problem.
– And when the day becomes so ridiculous that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry… sometimes laughing is exactly what you need.
Can you relate?
Have you ever had one of those caregiving mornings where you thought, You’ve got to be kidding me… and it’s not even 9 a.m.? 😂
Maybe finding calm in the chaos doesn’t mean the chaos disappears.
Maybe it means learning how to find yourself in the middle of it.
I Don’t Want to Pick Up One More Thing
This morning, it was the silverware.
Not the big stuff. Not a major disagreement. Not anything worthy of a relationship crisis.
Just silverware.
I asked my husband, probably with more exasperation than curiosity, “Why aren’t you putting your silverware in the dishwasher? You always used to.”
And then there was the pizza pan.
It was still sitting out.
My husband looked at me and said something that stopped me in my tracks.
“You always jump on me when I leave stuff out. But you leave stuff around all the time, and I never give you a hard time.”
And just like that, we were having one of those ridiculous little marital spats that somehow isn’t about the thing you’re arguing about at all.
Because in my head I was thinking:
I don’t want to pick up one more thing.
I don’t want to pick up after Mom.
I don’t want to pick up after the dog.
I don’t want to keep track of what everyone needs, what everyone forgot, what needs to be scheduled, cleaned, moved, washed, fed, remembered or handled.
And I don’t want to pick up after you, too.
But I couldn’t get those words out.
Instead, they came out as:
“Why aren’t you putting your silverware in the dishwasher?”
There’s a difference.
Maybe it’s not the silverware.
I’ve been thinking about how many women are doing exactly what I’m doing right now.
Caring for an aging parent.
Managing a household.
Working.
Being a wife.
Being a mother, perhaps.
Taking care of pets.
Trying to stay healthy.
Trying to remember everyone’s appointments.
Trying to remember our own appointments.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, our bodies are changing, too.
Perimenopause and menopause don’t exactly send a formal invitation.
They just start rearranging the furniture.
Sleep changes. Energy changes. Mood can change. Stress can feel different. Your body may suddenly have opinions about things it previously tolerated quite well.
And then there’s caregiving.
So I started wondering:
How many women are caring for their parents while simultaneously navigating perimenopause or menopause?
As it turns out, researchers are beginning to ask that question, too.
A 2025 Mayo Clinic study looked at more than 4,200 women between the ages of 45 and 60. Nearly 20% identified as caregivers. And here’s the part that really caught my attention: menopause symptom burden increased as caregiving hours increased.
Among women providing 15 or more hours of care a week, about half reported moderate or worse menopause symptoms in at least one symptom area.
We don’t yet have a reliable number telling us exactly what percentage of female caregivers are simultaneously navigating perimenopause or menopause.
But we do know that the overlap is substantial enough to deserve our attention.
The average family caregiver in the United States is 51 years old.
Sixty-one percent of family caregivers are women.
And nearly a quarter of caregivers report providing 40 or more hours of care each week.
So maybe we need to start talking about this intersection.
Because there is another thing I’ve noticed about myself.
I’m reaching a no-bullshit phase of life.
Not an unkind phase.
Not an “I don’t care about anyone else” phase.
Just a phase where I am much more aware of what costs me.
My time.
My energy.
My peace.
My body.
And maybe that awareness isn’t a problem.
Maybe it’s information.
I used to do it. Why don’t I anymore?
This is where things get tricky.
My husband remembers the woman who used to just do things.
She’d pick it up.
She’d take care of it.
She’d remember.
She’d handle it.
And now, sometimes, I don’t want to.
That can feel confusing to the people around us.
“Well, you always used to.”
Yes.
I did.
But “I used to” isn’t necessarily a lifetime contract.
Sometimes our capacity changes.
Sometimes our responsibilities change.
Sometimes our bodies change.
And sometimes we finally realize that something we have been doing automatically for years is actually something we don’t want to be responsible for anymore.
That doesn’t mean we love people less.
It means we’re beginning to understand the difference between helping and carrying.
And that distinction matters.
Because I can love my husband deeply and still want him to put his own silverware in the dishwasher.
I can love my mom deeply and still recognize that caregiving takes something from me.
I can love my dog and laugh at the ridiculous amount of care a puppy requires while simultaneously thinking, “Seriously? You need me to do that too?”
And I can love all of them without wanting to be needed every minute of the day.
Sometimes what we really want is nobody to need anything from us.
That’s the part I’ve struggled to explain.
There are moments when quiet feels almost medicinal.
No one asking a question.
No one needing a decision.
No one needing a ride.
No one needing to be fed.
No one needing something cleaned up.
No one asking, “Can you just…?”
Just me.
For a little while.
Not because I don’t love my people.
Because I need to hear myself think.
And perhaps that’s one of the lessons of this season of life:
Rest isn’t always about sleep.
Sometimes rest is being temporarily released from responsibility.
Maybe that’s why that silly silverware argument hit such a nerve.
It wasn’t about the dishwasher.
It was about capacity.
It was about the accumulation of a thousand tiny responsibilities.
It was about feeling like I am always the person who notices.
And perhaps most importantly, it was about realizing that I need to communicate that before resentment does the talking for me.
Because my husband can’t respond to what I don’t say.
He can’t know that I’m overwhelmed if all he hears is criticism about a pizza pan.
And I can’t expect him to understand that what I’m really saying is:
“I need you to carry some of this with me.”
Helpful reminders for the woman in the middle
1. Irritation can be information.
Before judging yourself for being “too cranky,” ask what the irritation might be telling you. Are you tired? Overextended? Feeling responsible for too much?
2. “I used to” doesn’t mean “I always will.”
Roles evolve. Families change. Bodies change. Capacity changes. It’s okay to renegotiate what you’ve always done.
3. Say the thing underneath the thing.
Instead of “Why can’t you put your dishes away?” sometimes the deeper truth is, “I’m exhausted from feeling responsible for everyone.”
4. Ask for partnership, not permission.
You don’t need permission to have needs. You do need to communicate them clearly.
5. Build moments where nobody needs anything from you.
Even a small pocket of uninterrupted time can matter. Protect it.
6. Pay attention to your body.
Midlife changes deserve attention, not dismissal. If you’re experiencing significant menopause symptoms, talk with a qualified healthcare professional. You don’t have to simply white-knuckle your way through this season.
7. And finally… put your own damn silverware in the dishwasher.
Because sometimes the smallest acts of shared responsibility create the biggest sense of relief.
Maybe the goal isn’t to stop caring.
Maybe it’s to stop believing that caring means carrying everything.
And maybe that’s where compassion for ourselves begins.
When the Caregiver Becomes the Compass
Finding the Shore Through the Fog of Alzheimer’s
Standing at the water’s edge, I knew the lake was there.
I couldn’t see it. The fog had wrapped itself around the shoreline, blurring every familiar landmark. If someone had arrived for the first time that morning, they might have wondered if there was even a lake beyond the mist.
But I knew better.
I had seen it on clear days. I knew where the shoreline curved, where the water met the rocks, and how the sunlight danced across its surface. The fog had changed my view, but it hadn’t changed the truth.
That’s what caregiving for someone living with Alzheimer’s or dementia feels like.
The disease is the fog.
It rolls in quietly, hiding memories, routines, names, and places that once felt as permanent as the shoreline itself. To your loved one, the world can become unfamiliar and uncertain. But as caregivers, we remember what the fog has concealed.
We become their compass.
A compass doesn’t remove the fog. It simply points toward what is true.
When your loved one forgets which room is theres, you gently walk beside them.
When they can’t remember that breakfast comes after getting dressed, you lovingly guide her through the next step.
When yesterday disappears and tomorrow has no meaning, you become the steady voice that says, “We’re okay. This way.”
As a life coach, I’ve learned that so much of life is spent chasing perfect clarity. We tell ourselves we’ll feel confident once the fog lifts.
Caregiving teaches a different lesson.
Sometimes the greatest strength isn’t seeing farther.
It’s knowing enough to take the next faithful step.
This photograph reminds me that even when the lake is invisible, the path is still beneath our feet. The trees continue to grow. The bench waits patiently. Life hasn’t stopped because visibility has changed.
The same is true in caregiving.
Love becomes less about restoring what was and more about faithfully guiding what remains.
You become the keeper of routines. The holder of stories. The gentle reminder of home. The compass that points toward safety when someone else’s internal map no longer can.
One day, the fog will lift for all of us.
Until then, may we have the courage to walk slowly, speak gently, and trust that what love has built cannot be erased by what memory has lost.
Reflection
If you’re caring for someone with dementia today, remember this: You don’t have to clear the fog. You only have to keep pointing toward love. That’s what a compass does. It doesn’t change the weather. It simply helps someone find their way home. ❤️
