Caretaking and the maternal urge

The topic of caretaking keeps re-surfacing. First there was my friend Andrea who received care from friends and family and hospice during her final weeks of life. Then my 18-year-old wiped out his knee, followed by surgery, followed by days of not being able to do much but lie on his back. Then there's the book I obsessed over mentioned on Friday by a guy who was the caretaker for his wife during her battle with breast cancer.

It's funny in an un-funny, exhausting sort of way that I've been thrown back into being a full-time caregiver right as I'm also preparing to be an empty-nester-- i.e., my days of being a full-time mom are nearly over. We have a 25-year-old, so I know that you're never fully done. But you know what I mean--the days of having young kids are nearly over.

I had forgotten how exhausting it is, to always be vigilant for someone else's well-being. The situation with MadMax is temporary--he is already way better than he was, and in another week we will be more-or-less back to normal (with the addition of physical therapy). But there were several days right after the surgery when I was having to get up once or twice during the night, fetch and carry every little thing, and worry, worry, worry.

Too many pain pills? Not enough? Post-surgery intestinal activity? lack thereof? (sorry, tried to word that as gracefully as I could.) The schoolwork he's missing, the track season he's missing, he's bored, he's in pain, he's getting better, is he getting better?

Ack. How did any of us survive having babies and toddlers? I am not a naturally maternal person, so that was a hard time for me. I didn't do well with the invasion of my space, the continual demands on my attention, the lack of intellectual activity. My spouse and I had a difficult time navigating how to divvy up parenting chores. Even in one week I found all that re-surfacing.

And I've started having the anxiety dreams. I never, ever had one of those "forgot to drop the class, haven't been there all semester, now I have to take the exam" dreams until after our first child was born, and then I started having them all the time. I mentioned this oddity to a friend of mine who started to laugh. "Well that's obvious," she said. "You're afraid of failing at being a mom."

Oh.

Uh, yeah. Last night I had a dream/nightmare that was so vivid it's stuck with me all day. I was headed off to college, at the age I am now but no one (including the dream me) seemed to find that odd. The daughter of some friends handed me her baby to take care of because she just didn't have time to deal with it. In the dream, I kept losing the baby and forgetting about the baby and then I'd try to find it. I woke up feeling horribly guilty, like I had done something absolutely awful, even though it was all a dream. Nightmare.

I think caretaking is not my thing. I do a decent job at it, but it takes a toll. I guess it does with everybody. But you know, sometimes a situation gets dumped in your lap and you just have to man up (woman up) and do it.

I don't know that I really have any big conclusions or wisdom here (obviously), but it's all I have to post about since it's been taking most of my attention since last Tuesday.

p.s. Ken Wilber, author of that book from Friday's post, wrote an essay about being a caretaker/support person for someone with chronic or terminal illness. It's wise, witty, and practical. Definitely worth reading, even if you're not a caretaker--because you never know when you suddenly will be (take me this past week for an example). You can read the essay here, or find it in a free ebook from Shambhala called Radical Compassion.