Letting Go To Grow

For most of my 50 years, I have been a caretaker. During my childhood, I had a mom who was not very well and I was always told I needed to be a "good girl" so that mom would be okay. I always internalized this to mean if I misbehaved, mom would have another stroke and might die. It took me a lot of therapy and a lot of pounds were packed on from binge eating and stuffing my feelings before I figured that out.

I married very young to escape my childhood home, full of sickness and guilt at never being 'good enough' but went right from taking care of my mom to taking care of my husband and my bills and responsibilities. I was married by age 20, had my first son before I was 24, another son by 26 and a daughter before I was 30. My daughter was born with developmental delays, cognitive and behavioral issues and, ultimately, before she turned 7, given a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum. Before my baby girl was 4 years old, in the midst of my perpetual search to figure out what was wrong with her and 'fix' it, we moved back to my home state and into a home we shared with my mom and my dad, were who both very physically disabled by that time. I again became a caretaker to both parents and my three children. Although my husband thought it was the 'right thing' to care for his in-laws and I love him for the sentiment, it was not good for me to be back under the same roof with the "behave or you'll kill your mother" messenger, my dad. I'll delve into all of that another time.

Over the past 2 years, I have lost both my dad and my mom, my mother-in-law also passed unexpectedly, and I lost a job I'd had outside the home for over 10 years with an amazing boss the likes of whom I'll never find again. I lost some very dearly held illusions about my marriage. It has been a period of many losses. My sons are independent although one is still living at home and my daughter is now graduated out of the special education system and all the advocating I had done for her during her school years is finished. I'm learning to navigate the adult services world with her and it's going to take a lot more advocating. She now attends a day program where she is learning job skills and socializing for six hours, 5 days a week. Back in November, only a few months after becoming unemployed, losing my mom and having my daughter's high school 'graduation' party, I felt fairly lost when she went off to her adult program and I was left at home with no one to care for. I became even more addicted to my computer than I ever was before. Eventually, I allowed myself to truly grieve all the losses I'd gone through over such a short, sad time. Now, I am feeling as if I am emerging into a new, uncharted territory where I can do or be anything I'd like to be. Of course, there are the issues of having no money, going through a personal bankruptcy, trying to save our home and negotiate a modification of our mortgage as we recover from my husband's loss of our primary income for the better part of the last 2 years, and the value of our home becoming less than what we owe on it, but, all that aside, I am feeling as if I am finally letting go of the caretaker role that had been thrust on me for most of my life and beginning to experience a  release and a great relief.  It feels good to stay in bed until I feel like waking up. It feels good to experiment with recipes when I thought I'd lost my talent and my drive for cooking good, nutritious and tasty meals. And, it feels good to know that I can safely let go of my past preoccupation about everyone else's health and well-being, and put that same preoccupation into my own health and well-being and the health and well-being of my marriage. I do not need to feel guilty that I don't have a job right now; I've had many jobs since I was a little girl and I did them as well as I could.  As a good friend said to me recently when I complained of feeling useless and needing to find my true purpose in life.....maybe I've already served my purpose and now is the time to just find me and just BE.  I think I'm truly ready for that now!