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CAREGIVER’S DOWN-TIME?

June 15, 2022July 6, 2022

WHEN IS A CAREGIVER’S DOWN-TIME?

When listening to advice given to Caregivers, you often hear things like:

“Do something for Yourself during the ‘down time”

“Don’t forget to take care of Yourself!”

“Try to take advantage of the down-time.”

I just have one question and few comments. First of all, when is this down-time of which you speak?”

The Advice Giver then usually states something like, “Well like when you are a Mother to a newborn or young child, you should nap when the baby is taking a nap or take a bubble bath when the baby is asleep!”

Well, No, I don’t know! I am single with no children and so that analogy really does not resonate with me. I refer to the time when my Mother retires for the evening as “Shutdown.” During this time, I attempt to wind down and relax before falling asleep. I usually turn on a Movie and write in my journal secretly hoping that I am not interrupted. Sometimes, I talk on the phone to a friend who is willing to listen to me vent about the gory details of my day as a Caregiver. It takes a while though to relax enough to actually fall asleep. Wine helps.

Another example of the Advice Giver’s version of down-time is the time when my Mother is taking a shower or perhaps a nap.

My Mother doesn’t take naps. Somehow, she has totally missed the fine art of napping. How I long for the days when I could spend the weekend taking naps in between Lifetime movies. Those days are now just a distance memory. There is no down-time provided by my Mother’s non-existent naps.

And about the shower. While she’s in the shower, I am on alert that she does not slip and fall during said shower. Because that has happened. On one occasion, my Mother insisted on taking a shower instead of waiting the 30 minutes I needed to get to Starbucks and back. I returned to find her laying naked on the bathroom floor. Needless to say, she doesn’t shower when no one is home. And by no one, I mean me. No down-time during her shower time.

At any rate, I don’t just need down-time. I need a 10-day vacation in Cancun. And even 10 days might not be enough. Based on past experience, it takes days to detox from the real world in order to fully enjoy the tropical days and relax. And that was when I was escaping from the stresses of the Corporate world.

I knew that I was in a vacation groove when I created, “Cancun in a Bottle.” The first step in the creative process is drinking the tequila in the mini bar. My favorite hotel stocks mini bottle of Don Julio. The Don Julio bottle is the perfect bottle for this project. And then, you must fill the little bottles with a mixture of sand, small shells, and the ocean. Think about how relaxed one must be to sit on the beach filling up tiny bottles with Caribbean sand. The day that I embarked on the Cancun Bottle project, was the day when I knew that I had left the troubles of the world in the Boardroom! And then I was on vacation!

Caregiving brews a special kind of stress. I can’t imagine how long it would take to get into a vacation state of mind.

Down-time just isn’t enough time. And to be perfectly honest, I stand by my original question, just when is this down-time?

Don’t forget the 2-hour curfew that has been imposed on me as a Caregiver.

Let’s take right now for instance. My Mother was in her bedroom presumably watching television. She has just entered the room to find me typing away on my laptop totally engaged in what I am doing. I have also not looked up in her direction. However, she takes this entire scenario as an opportunity to ask me a question. A question of absolutely so little significance that I can’t even remember it long enough to write it down. I believe it had something to do with a refrigerator magnet. What I do know is that this time period—this time period that I thought was downtime and therefore took the time to write this entry—is apparently anything but!

So, I would appreciate it if Advice Giver’s with their well-meaning unsolicited advice on being a Caregiver, would consider keeping it to themselves. The revolving circle of this discussion is interrupting my downtime!