RouletteWeekend

I know why they say caregivers often die shortly after the person they were caring for dies. It’s because you stop existing as a person and only exist as a “caregiver.” I think the same thing happens to parents, only in a different way.

I also think there is not enough talk about self-preservation through any of these journeys. Sure, there’s a million self-care books, journals, influencers, etc. that you can get your hands on at any given time of day, but I don’t think there is really enough talk about the true act of self-preservation especially if your go to is to save everyone and a lot of women suffer from that plague.

My mom was in a car accident when I was 16 and I helped in nursing her back to some form of normal. I was a mom at 17, then again at 18, and a final time at 25. And when my youngest was almost 18, I met Will and swooped in to save him from himself and his alcohol problem like any good girlfriend would do. And I feel like I’ve been taking care of him ever since and now, I get to take care of my mother in law, too.

And all of those situations reminded me of something a therapist told me once about all the terrible men I used to date, “what do all those things have in common?” The answer has always been me.

I don’t know what it is about this personality trait I have that makes me feel like if I’m taking care of other people I have to let myself fall to the wayside. Not self care. I definitely make time for alone time and massages and sometimes even exercise, but more than that, I’ve never learned self-preservation.

My daughter is really good at self-care and self-preservation. She knows her boundaries and she knows what she is and is not willing to do and I’m so proud of her for that, because at 51, I still struggle with it.

I came to this realization this morning as I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a gallon of sweet tea and poured myself a glass. It was a small thing in the big scheme of things, but it was huge in my self-realization moment.

I’ve never kept sweet tea in the fridge. Maybe when the kids were little I would indulge in sweet tea and kool-aid, but I was also terribly unhealthy then. I was depressed, overweight, ill-feeling with headaches and aches & pains. Kind of like I am now and I realized that the old “can’t beat em, join em” could very easily be the thing that kills me because I don’t practice self-preservation.

Since we got here in January, I’ve eaten more meat than I have in the last decade since I quit eating meat. I’ve eaten more sugar and high fructose corn syrup products than I’ve had in years. I’ve even sipped on a soda here and there and I quit sodas over 15 years ago. And I was quick to ignore it, because I didn’t want to point the finger at myself as the problem, but as it turns out the sugar, the meat, the lifestyle aren’t the problem. I am. I’m lazy. I want to do the easy thing. Skipping the sweet tea is the hard thing. Skipping the high fructose corn syrup is the hard thing. Finding an alternate source of protein when I’ve already cooked one for these two is the hard thing. And I convinced myself that I’m already doing something really fucking hard so why do I have to make things even more difficult?

But it’s an easy answer. If I want to make it out of this situation alive and better yet, healthy, I’m going to have to do the hard thing.

I have to get back to myself.

I have to learn self preservation.

I have to look out for me.

Writing this blog every day was the start of getting back to myself. I’m not sure what it will take to learn self preservation and look out for myself every once in a while, but like they say in AA, admitting you have a problem is the first step.