Let the Adventure Begin!

Welcome – this time for real! After much tweaking, agonizing, hesitation, and procrastination, the time is now to put myself and this website out there for those seeking another perspective to their caregiving dilemmas.

Today is Labor Day 2018. The perfect day to launch caregivingwithoutthecrazy.com. It has been a true labor of love, dismay, excitement, despair, enthusiasm, burn-out. You get the idea. This is my “baby,” which I have labored over, from my estimation, since 2011, when I first started journaling. You should know that, as a journalism major and writer/editor by trade, the expectation was that, of course, I always kept a journal. I NEVER kept a journal, always being prone to edit and rewrite my thoughts as I put them to paper, thus negating the authenticity of the entries. But in 2011 the writing poured out onto legal pad after legal pad. The inspiration behind this sudden tidal wave of journaling? My elderly mother and the increasing worries and concerns I was facing as she continued to age. Being for all intents and purposes the “only” child, I knew that much as I dreaded it, I would in all likelihood have the heavy responsibility for the welfare of another person placed squarely on my shoulders. What I have learned then and since is the true motivation for this site.

I have never questioned the need for a website like this one. It may come off as being remarkably simplistic, with overly commonsense advice and suggestions. That is exactly the intent. Researching other websites drove me crazy with information overload. The energy was usually dark, and the advice was usually canned. Who would want to pursue solutions when you knew you’d end up feeling depressed and hopeless at the end of the day? And you really wouldn’t have a solution anyway because your elderly loved one would not cooperate with financial issues, let you intervene with health concerns, and accept your offers to get involved. This website is simple, practical, and real. It will be especially helpful to families just beginning to contemplate caregiving for an elderly loved one – particularly one with a challenging personality.

So here it is. Obviously there is much more to come. I hope you will do three things: (1) explore the website; (2) sign up for “10 Things You Can Do TODAY to Improve Your Caregiving Life”; and (3) share this website with others you know who may benefit. There is a huge silent portion of the population out there struggling with these issues. Toss them a lifeline and recommend this site to them.

Let the adventure begin!