Disappointment goes with caregiving. The funny weird part is when disappointment delivers you to a place you need to be.
In conversation with a student the other day and he noted with surprise that I was working here (a California Community College). Internally I winched a bit but I replied that higher education is a good place to work and that he was worth my sharing of my education and experience. It was the best I could come up with in the moment but upon reflection, there was more. There always is.
Being a caregiver sidetracks a lot of plans.
Back in the day, I had committed to an education and managed to survive graduate school. I had personal baggage I needed to address but after school, the call to return to the family took precedence. Taking care of others always ended up being the priority.
Family health concerns gave way to full blown caregiving. Personal priorities were restructured, renegotiated, and eventually plans had to be released. That tunnel vision of caregiving, where you focus just on the next crisis in front of you and ignore all else, became the order of the day.
In retrospect, I do miss some of the adrenaline of that crisis management mode but so many things are sacrificed for that rush. Better to be bored and experiencing everything around than isolating myself in problems.
To sum up the long journey, I worked through what I needed to and arrived in life circumstances I had never considered. Different career and family circumstances that I had never pictured. Instead of crying in my beer over all of the plans that had not turned out, I found that all of those earlier adventures had actually prepared me for where I have arrived.
I am where I am.
I have arrived in this point of life as I always have arrived – intact and ready to go to work. To start a “what if” query (if I had only done something better or different), will only take away from my “what is”. Disappointments are just part of the trip, not a destination.
So yes, caregiving changes many things – not least of which is where you think you are going. Caregiving also gives us the wisdom to see that we are just where we need to be. If you feel like you are in the wrong place, you know how to make that change to go where you need to be.
-Learning to Fly, Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne
Now some say life will beat you down
Yeah, it will break your heart, steal your crown
So I started out for God knows where
But I guess I’ll know when I get there
Dad's Back 