I was putting out the recycling boxes at my current client’s house this evening when the thought crossed my mind that I live other people’s lives, albeit briefly.
Due to the nature of my job, I live approximately 2 to 3 weeks of every month living in as a carer in other people’s homes.
I arrive at their home, a complete stranger to them, and they to me. I arrive with a suitcase, my computer and a few items of food that I enjoy. I’m shown to a spare room, the contents of which vary greatly…sometimes the room is sparsely furnished, other times it’s so full of stuff I can hardly move. I either have a single bed or a double, more often the former. Sometimes there’s space for me to hang up my clothes, more often I live out my suitcase.
After a brief handover I spend a few hours, like a voyeur opening cupboards and poking around to see where things are. I learn about their likes and dislikes, what food they enjoy and whether or not they have a good appetite. I memorise their routines, and every home is completely different. I cater to their every whim regardless of whether I feel like it or not. Its what I’m paid to do.
I put out their bins, bring in the mail and most often, answer the phone. I cook – 3 meals a day, clean their rooms and make their beds, do laundry and occasionally ironing, I do their shopping and administer their medications. I help them dress and undress, change their clothes, bath or shower or strip-wash. I sometimes clean bottoms and privates, clean them up and change pads. I ensure they’re safe and comfortable with good food and secure environment. I take them to appointments with doctors or hairdressers and drive them places….
and its very seldom that any of my desires, needs or wants are met. I put myself aside for the duration of my stay, the only respite being my 2 hour daily break.
I don’t have my own life. I don’t have a home. I don’t have my own bed – although I do have a mattress, except for a short period when I lived with my daughter and her husband, its still in storage 4 years after shipping it to the UK.
I don’t have my own space to go home to after each assignment, a place where I can live my life. I either stay at a B&B or in the past year I’ve occasionally slept on my daughter’s couch.
I only really live my own life when I’m on my walks.
I’m always between one place or another living in other people’s lives.
It’s a weird reality…..
Ahh Cindy, it’s often the most difficult to see that which is right in front of you. You may be living in other peoples homes and shifting from here to there and catering to all of their whims, but this IS your life. It’s not anyone else’s. It is yours and yours alone. It is the only life you have and therefore the perfect life for you. You may think about other lives and dream about other things, but this is the life you have lead by the choices you’ve made. And whether known or unknown, this is experience is yours to have, to learn from, to gain your unique perspective of the Universe, to evolve and grow as a person, to observe and interpret this thing we call reality in the way that only you can. And because of this, you make the universe better, more complete, richer experience for all.
This is absolutely your life and you are living it in the most perfectly you way that only you could 🤗
I agree with JC I am just not as good with words as he. Bless you for all that you do and all of those you make life better for. It is true…you are not just a granny, you are way more than that.
Thank you, that’s very kind of you