The Caregiving Time Traveler
Wouldn’t it be nice to time travel into the past to erase some of the moments that haunt you to this very day? Such as the searing memory of your mom’s pained look that time you couldn’t stop yourself from yelling at her for asking the same question fifteen times or the blow-up you had with your sister about her lack of involvement in caregiving when you each unleased some nasty old grievances that still affects your relationship.
Or even when your caregiving spidey-sense was tingling about the in-home aide that your dad’s neighbor’s cousin’s butcher’s aunt used who was a complete disaster. And then there is the regret you feel about that time you didn’t stand up to your husband’s doctor when you should have, when you knew you were correct about his intermittent symptoms.
These are the moments that play over and over in the wee hours of the night and keep you from falling asleep more often than not. It would be wonderful to be a Caregiving Time Traveler and undo all of these moments. Unfortunately, unless you have a specially equipped DeLorean, there's nothing that can be done to change the past.
However, what you can do is to be a Future Time Traveler. If you ask yourself how you will feel when reviewing, either five minutes or five years from now, any future interactions you have, would that affect the next words that you say? Would it affect the fear you feel when standing up to the medical, insurance or governmental authorities, especially when you are absolutely correct in your assertions?
If you work on not burdening your future self with any more of these regrettable moments, (and we all have them) then you can work on forgiving yourself or your loved ones for any past transgressions in order to increase your already limited hours of REM sleep.
You see, we are all Caregiving Time Travelers in one direction only- the future, but with some well utilized deep breaths, counts-to-ten or well applied questions such as “who is your supervisor,” the road going forward can be a lot less bumpy than the one we already traversed.
Share your time traveler moments in the comments below