On getting over it

Or why I begrudgingly accept that being a carer makes me a better writer

We had a hard morning. Really hard. I know that sounds vague and to a non-carer may even be a bit ‘so what, we all have hard mornings sometimes’ but I know the carers reading this will know what kind of hard I’m talking about. One of those ‘I don’t know how I’m going to keep doing this forever’ kind of moments. They happen. They’re awful. And I get over it.

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

I sometimes wonder if people think I have all my shit together as a carer because I wrote a book about it. But I really really don’t. Tender is about the paradox of caring more than anything. That it can be both the worst and the best of life. That it breaks you down and also builds you up. It is mundane and boring, as well as life affirming. I am both good and bad at it, depending on the moment. Depending how you look at it.

There are some aspects of being a carer that I am no better at than when my son was tiny. And in fact, some I am actually worse at, since I’m now the product of 14 years of advocacy and hyper vigilance. I sometimes wonder if I’m not also carrying around a little PTSD when I notice my strange and extreme auto reactions to some situations, almost like an out of body experience. My body has figured out ways to cope in moments before my brain even realises whats happening.

There is one area though that I have improved on and it has made life better for all of us. I’m pretty good at bouncing back. I get over it. I let it go. After my nervous system has calmed, I say, fuck that was horrible and move on. And I’ve realised recently that this has bleed into my creative work life too.

The beginnings of this were long ago in my first experience of caring for my mum when I was a teenager. But it wasn’t until I was a parent of a child with a complex life long disability, that I knew I had to figure out how I was going to live alongside these responsibilities that were going nowhere. I learned tools and techniques to help me through hard moments. I learned how to practice self compassion. And you know what happened? The hard stuff did not get any easier. You could even say that it’s harder now than ever. I’m not great in the moment, but I have got better at letting it go afterwards.

When I think about creative work, it’s kind of the same. Writing doesn’t seem to get any easier the longer I do it. It might even be getting harder in some ways, because I keep challenging myself to go further and my expectations of myself get higher. But I am also good at letting go. I feel all the ugly feelings, have a tantrum about them, and figure out a way to shake them off.

Another paradox of caring then. It makes it both harder to write and I’m a better writer because of it. Argh. The thought annoys me. Of course it does, because I’m still in the throws of shaking off this mornings ‘hard moment’ so I begrudge any sliver lining right now. But perhaps that makes this a good time to reflect on it. Maybe the hardest, shittiest things we do makes us who we are, both good and bad.

Now, I’m going to head out for a walk, with some headphones on, to throw the rest of this mood off. Then I’ll sit back down, and I’ll write. Because that is what I always do.