The Way Home Project

Tag: life

  • 🔧 What Nearly Rolling My 4WD Taught Me About Recovery

    🔧 What Nearly Rolling My 4WD Taught Me About Recovery

    The look on my two Border Collies faces, Loki and Lucy, said it all:
    “WTF, Dad?”

    Let me take you back about ten minutes earlier.

    I was exploring The Gorge in northern NSW near Grafton, parked at the top of the campground, when I spotted what looked like a promising side track — something that might take me closer to the waterfalls feeding the Clarence River. It was a little overgrown, sure, but I figured I could handle it.

    What I didn’t realise until it was far too late… was that I wasn’t on a track at all. I was following two cow paths. Parallel, deceiving, and utterly inappropriate for a vehicle the size of my MU-X.

    A few tense metres later, the car was perched on a 45-degree bank angle, teetering dangerously close to the river’s edge.

    Loki and Lucy had been sleeping peacefully in the back. That is, until the sudden lurch. Loki barrel-rolled across the back seat, almost flattening Lucy in the process. His weight, combined with the vehicle’s lean, made things worse — and for a moment, I genuinely thought we were going over.

    So I did what any calm, rational off-roader would do:
    I climbed out… and sat on the side step like a human counterweight.
    And I waited.

    An hour, to be exact — until a nearby station hand arrived to winch me out of trouble.

    Plenty of time to think.
    Plenty of time to feel sheepish.
    Plenty of time to notice two very unimpressed Border Collies in the back.

    But in that unexpected pause, something shifted.
    Because while I sat on that sidestep, trying not to breathe too heavily and reflecting on the chain of decisions that led me here, I finally had clarity on something else:

    The Recovery Points Conundrum.

    🔩 The Vehicle Problem

    My MU-X came fitted with a factory bull bar. Looks great. Sturdy enough. But here’s the kicker: Isuzu, in their wisdom, designed it so that rated recovery points couldn’t be fitted.

    So for the past year, I’d been stuck in this decision spiral:

    • Do I rip off the perfectly good bull bar and spend $5,000 installing a new one just to add rated recovery points and a winch?
    • Or do I risk continuing my adventures without the right gear, hoping for the best?

    What started as a $500 upgrade had turned into a $5,000 existential crisis — all because the gear didn’t match the journey anymore.

    And in that moment — stuck, humbled, and held in place only by physics and dumb luck — I knew:

    You don’t compromise on recovery.
    Not in vehicles.
    Not in life.

    🧰 What Belongs in Your Recovery Toolkit

    That day forced me to reflect not just on my 4WD setup…
    But on the human recovery points I’d needed through my carer journey.

    So here’s what I now believe should be standard issue — not just for off-roading, but for anyone navigating long-haul care, grief, healing, or rebuilding:

    🏥 1. A Consistent General Medical Practice

    Gone are the days of one family doctor for life. But consistency still matters.
    Find a GP clinic that knows your history, respects your story, and won’t make you retell your trauma every visit.
    This becomes your baseline record keeper — your map of the wear and tear you’ve endured.

    🧠 2. A Therapist (Like You’d Choose a Mechanic)

    When I left home, my Dad said:

    “Dom, make sure you know a reliable plumber, electrician, and handyman.”

    Great advice. But you know what I wish he’d added?

    “And find yourself a bloody good therapist.”

    A therapist who’s in your corner — no agendas, no judgement — is one of the best recovery tools you’ll ever invest in.
    But here’s the key: consistency.
    Stick with one long enough that they know the terrain of your story better than you do.

    🛡️ 3. An Income Protection Policy

    Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
    The carer journey will take a toll on your health — physical, mental, emotional.
    And when it ends (because it always does), your body and mind will collapse in ways you didn’t expect.

    An income protection policy, linked with your GP and therapist, becomes your financial recovery point.
    It buys you space to heal.

    🐾 4. An Active Dog Breed

    Sounds random? Stay with me.

    I got Loki at the apex of my wife’s illness — not because I needed a pet, but because I needed a vice-free companion.
    Something that forced me out of the house without guilt. Someone who didn’t ask questions, just stayed beside me.

    Loki was my anchor. Lucy joined later, forming a team that still knows when I’m spiralling before I do.

    A loyal dog won’t fix your life — but they’ll stand next to you while you pick up the pieces.

    ⌚ 5. An Apple Watch (or Something Like It)

    In the later years, when I couldn’t do anything for myself — not sleep, not cook, not even feel — I could still close my three Apple Watch rings.

    • Stand every hour in the Emergency Room
    • Burn calories carrying dialysis boxes.
    • Walk the farthest car park just to take the stairs to her hospital room.

    Every time I closed my rings, I got a little firework show.
    And for 1,458 consecutive days, I had something that said:

    “Yes, today was hell. But you still did something for you.”

    Those little victories mattered more than I can explain.
    They kept me in the fight — quietly, stubbornly, beautifully.

    🌱 Why I’m Sharing This

    Because I promised myself I wouldn’t tell others how to live or heal.

    But I will share what helped me survive.

    And maybe, somewhere in here, you’ll find a tool, a truth, or a moment that resonates with your own path.

    Because recovery doesn’t just happen.
    It’s not passive.
    You don’t stumble into peace.

    You build it.
    One recovery point at a time.
    One dog walk. One therapy session. One stand ring.
    One moment where you decide not to keep driving toward the edge — but instead… to pause, assess, and gently back your way into safety.

    🛻 This Isn’t the End of the Road — It’s Just a Wiser Way to Travel.

    This story — this moment stuck on a hillside with two grumpy border collies, a tipping 4WD, and an hour to think — wasn’t a crisis.

    It was a pivot.

    The kind where the old wiring might still flare, but now there’s backup.
    Where the lesson doesn’t cost you the car — just the illusion that you could keep pushing without consequence.

    So maybe that’s what recovery really is:
    Learning to drive your life differently.
    With better tools.
    With rated recovery points.
    With companions who don’t ask you to explain, just sit quietly and wait with you — even when they’re giving you side-eye.

    🚧 The Way Home Is Still Being Built

    This reflection might mark the close of one arc — the recovery years, the survival days, the ache of collapse.

    But this project?

    It’s not finished.

    Because I’m not finished.

    There are still pages to write.
    Meals to share.
    Tracks to explore.
    Truths to uncover.
    And a peace to live from — not chase.

    So I’ll keep writing.
    Keep walking.
    Keep building recovery points — not just in vehicles, but in conversations, kitchens, quiet mornings, and moments of presence.

    And if you’re reading this, still wondering where your recovery starts?

    It might be right here — with one honest inventory…
    … and the courage to admit it’s time to install the recovery points you’ve been avoiding.

    We don’t go back to who we were.
    But we can learn to live forward — on our own terms.

    One firework at a time.

    — Dom 🐾🛠️🔥

  • The Cost of Knowing: A Caregiver’s Glimpse Into the Future

    The Cost of Knowing: A Caregiver’s Glimpse Into the Future

    When we’re young, we often wonder what it would be like to see into the future. If you knew what was coming, how would you prepare? Would you even want to know?

    What if I told you there’s a group of people who carry this kind of knowing every single day? Not because they’re psychic or chosen, but because they’ve loved someone whose body has quietly declared war on itself.

    They’re not clairvoyants.
    They’re caregivers.

    I discovered this kind of knowing the day I fell in love with someone already eight years into her kidney transplant journey. Like many, I didn’t realise that a transplant isn’t a forever fix. At best, it buys you 15–20 years. And with that awareness, I found myself holding a kind of emotional time machine — able to see the shape of what was coming. And I had to choose: live day by day, or look deeper?

    I looked deeper.
    To this day, I still don’t know if that was the right thing to do.

    When I looked ahead, I saw two forks in the road.

    One: the transplant path — invasive, high-risk, full of hospital corridors and white-coat decisions. At least twelve months of recovery, with complications, emotional load, and the pressure of being a match in every possible sense.

    The other: dialysis — a slower kind of countdown. Not immediate, but terminal nonetheless. A steady erosion of vitality. A path where I would become a full-time carer, not through sudden collapse, but through gradual necessity.

    So I researched. Not just the medicine. I researched what it would mean. For me. For us. For our future.

    That’s when it hit me:

    Caregivers pay a hidden cost.

    Did you know:

    • A JAMA study found that caregivers under strain have a 63% higher mortality risk.
    • Many experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and chronic stress.
    • Most neglect their own health while managing someone else’s.
    • Burnout is real. So is guilt. Isolation. Financial pressure. Grief before the goodbye.

    Suddenly, this wasn’t about courage.
    It was about survival.

    My choices weren’t about dreams anymore — they were about how to navigate inevitability in a way that wouldn’t destroy me before the end arrived.

    So here’s the hard question:
    If you knew this was your future, what would you do?

    Would you still love them?
    Would you still stay?
    Would you make peace with carrying a grief that hasn’t happened yet — just so they wouldn’t have to carry it alone?

    Because no one tells you this: when love is tethered to chronic illness, it becomes both shelter and storm.

    You become fluent in hope and dread. You plan holidays around lab results. You celebrate stable bloodwork like a lottery win. And you learn to act like everything’s okay — until it isn’t.

    I used to think strength meant being ready.
    Now I know it often just means being there.

    There are no medals for caregiving. No applause. No audience in the wings. Most of it happens quietly, invisibly. Sometimes, even the person you’re caring for can’t see the toll. That’s not their fault. It’s just the strange math of this kind of love: one person gives more than they knew they had, and the other often feels guilty for needing it.

    And still, you stay. Not because you’re a martyr.
    But because this is the person you chose.

    Because even knowing the end — you wouldn’t trade the middle.

    But let me be clear: This path doesn’t make you a saint.
    It makes you human.

    A human who cries in the car before another appointment.
    A human who resents the unfairness but still holds the vomit bag steady.
    A human who wonders, quietly: Who’s going to look after me?

    And sometimes, the scariest part isn’t the illness.
    It’s losing yourself in the slow erosion of the life you once imagined.

  • The Walk I Never Got

    The Walk I Never Got

    Field Notes from the Edge

    Journal Entry — Date Unknown

    Written during a weekend away, when the silence gave me space to feel. What surfaced wasn’t dramatic — it was quiet, and that’s what made it powerful. This isn’t about a loss in the traditional sense. It’s about the things I never got to live. And the grief of that is real too.

    This weekend has stirred something I didn’t expect.

    I gave myself permission to breathe — really breathe — for the first time in what feels like years. A sunrise with freshly brewed coffee. A bike ride from Coolum to Noosa, café stops and all. A slow wander through the Mooloolaba Aquarium. No dialysis machines, no timelines, no guilt.

    And yet… the grief came anyway.

    Not the sharp kind. The quiet kind. The kind that wraps around your chest and whispers, “Look at what you never had.”

    Because I realised this:
    I never got to walk down the beach, carefree, beside the woman I loved.
    I never got to pour a glass of wine, sit on the deck, and just be with her while music played.
    I never got to go on a casual ride, holding space without holding pressure.

    And I don’t know what to do with that.

    I’ve spent so long trying to make sense of the big stuff — the end-of-life support, the systemic betrayals, the collapse of everything I once held steady — that I never let myself grieve the absence of the small. The gentle. The simple.

    What does it say when I could carry someone through medical hell, but not carve out one ordinary sunset together?

    It makes me question everything. If I couldn’t create that — the basics of joy and companionship — how can I believe I’ll ever build something more meaningful? If I failed at simple, what right do I have to dream of complex?

    People tell me I expect too much.
    But are these really high expectations?

    • A relaxed walk on the beach with someone who chooses me
    • A sense of emotional belonging in my own family
    • A quiet life that still makes a difference

    I don’t think that’s asking the world.
    I think that’s asking to live.

    What haunts me is that I did the hard thing — I stayed. I cared. I bore witness. I held the line.
    But I never got the gentle version.
    And it breaks me a little more each time I see others get that without even realising what they have.

    If someone were to ask me the one thing I truly desire, it’s this:

    A relaxed, carefree walk on the beach with someone who loves me, for the rest of our lives.

    That’s all.

    Reflection

    This grief sits in the quiet places — in the absence of something I never fully held. And that deserves space too. I don’t need to justify it, fix it, or turn it into a lesson. I just need to name it. And keep walking

  • The Pumpkin That Broke Me

    The Pumpkin That Broke Me

    ✦ Journal Entry – Grief in the Kitchen

    A simple act of roasting vegetables turned into a grief trigger I never saw coming. What followed wasn’t just sadness, but waves of shame, anger, and collapse. This is the story of the moment I realised healing doesn’t always begin in a therapist’s office — sometimes, it starts with a burnt pumpkin.

    Cucurbita moschata, Kürbis, citrouille, calabaza, zapallo — or simply, the humble pumpkin.

    Karina used to make an effortless dish with it. Fresh pasta, roast pumpkin, sundried tomatoes, roast capsicum, and a light Roma tomato sauce. Simple. Warm. Comforting. It was my favourite meal, and my relationship with pumpkin was rock solid.

    Until the day it broke me.

    Three months after Karina passed away, I decided to throw a pizza party. Something to bring people together, get me back into hosting, and honour the kind of gathering Karina loved. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t use fresh ingredients or homemade dough. So that morning, I did it right. I made the dough, prepped the toppings, and even heard her voice in my head giving gentle instructions.

    Everything was going well.

    Until I pulled the pumpkin out of the oven.

    What I expected was golden, soft, glistening pieces, just like Karina used to make. What I got were withered, partly burnt chunks of vegetable. And something in me cracked.

    A wave of sadness hit first. Deep and hot. It ached.

    Then came the anger. Anger at myself. Not just because I couldn’t cook pumpkin properly, but because I couldn’t save my wife. The shame followed, fast and brutal. What would my friends think if they saw me like this? I couldn’t even cook a simple vegetable, let alone handle life.

    I shut down.

    I hid under the covers for three days.

    Since then, I’ve learned a few things about grief. It doesn’t follow stages. It doesn’t care about timing. And it loves to amplify chaos. I now think of emotions like traffic lights — they’re signals, not threats. They can overwhelm you when they glitch, but they can’t actually hurt you.

    When everything blinks orange, I do what I’d do at a broken intersection: slow down, stop, scan, proceed carefully.

    Sometimes I still emotionally shut down. But I always restart.

    Usually thanks to my two border collies.

    Grief doesn’t resolve neatly. It lingers. But I’m walking the rest of this road with a little more softness, a little more awareness. And with each step, I keep reminding myself:

    Even broken pumpkin is still food. Even a broken heart can keep going. And even collapsed moments can still cook up connection.

    Sometimes, that’s enough to keep going.

  • What the River Showed Me

    What the River Showed Me

    Field Notes from the Edge

    ✦ Journal Entry — Shoalhaven River, South Coast NSW

    Written one week into a solo road trip through places that once felt like home. I didn’t know what I’d find. What I discovered was part grief, part clarity — and part unexpected freedom. This one carries both ache and awakening.

    ⸻

    I’m sitting on the banks of the Shoalhaven River.

    One week into my two-week solo journey along the South Coast of New South Wales.

    When I started this trip, I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with being alone for this long. I didn’t know what memories would surface, or whether I’d feel like a failure returning to my old stomping grounds. I didn’t expect the emotional terrain to be so jagged. Or so revealing.

    The lows? They came from where I didn’t expect.

    Time with my parents felt draining. Their growing negativity, their outdated views — especially around work, mental health, and what they think I should be doing — it hit me harder than I anticipated. Dad went on about how people just need to “get on with it” and return to work when they’re struggling mentally. As if that ever worked.

    Then there was the moment Eva told me, almost guiltily, that they’d booked a trip to Germany and wouldn’t be here for my 50th birthday. No photos of me in their home. Plenty of my sister and her kids. It’s not even the absence of acknowledgment that hurts the most — it’s knowing they discussed it, made the choice, and never thought to ask how that might land.

    Being back in familiar places didn’t help.

    The house I grew up in — run down, unrecognisable.

    The family friends’ house where I played tennis as a kid — abandoned, broken.

    Even the memories seemed tired.

    So yeah, the past wasn’t waiting for me. It had moved on. Or maybe it had always been like this, and I’m only seeing it clearly now.

    But then… there were the highs.

    Walking Loki and Lucy along the beaches of Jervis Bay.

    Swimming in crystal-clear water.

    Fish and chips in a little harbour while dolphins cruised past.

    Dinner with kangaroos hopping nearby.

    Arguing with a kookaburra who refused to laugh at my joke.

    Taking spontaneous detours, following instinct instead of itinerary.

    I felt something return to me — confidence, freedom, presence.

    A trickle of joy where there had only been weight.

    It reminded me of the camping trip I took while working on Lizard Island.

    Unencumbered. Clear.

    It’s the last time I remember feeling that kind of lightness.

    Even in the early days with Karina, camping always came with stress. Chronic illness doesn’t take holidays. Even joy came with conditions.

    But here — now — I could finally just be.

    No roles. No managing. No hypervigilance.

    Just the road, the dogs, the ocean, and me.

    The question I asked myself before this trip was:

    Is this me? Is this something I want to build into my life going forward?

    The answer is yes.

    Absolutely yes.

    ⸻

    ✦ Reflection

    This wasn’t a holiday. It was a reckoning. The past didn’t offer comfort — but the present did. The river didn’t give me answers, but it held space for me to find them. I’m not running from pain anymore — I’m learning to make peace with the parts of life that didn’t turn out the way I hoped. And that peace — even in moments — is enough to build on

  • When I Finally Told the Truth

    When I Finally Told the Truth

    Field Notes from the Edge

    ✦ Journal Entry – Shared During Peer Support

    A moment of reflection during a peer support session triggers an unfiltered truth: how do you go from being driven and high-functioning… to not caring if you live or die? This is the story of what I discovered when everything inside me stopped — and how a 17-year-old cat helped me move again.

    It was my second peer support group meeting. I had my cup of tea, was watching the dogs sleep, and had taken care of all the daily tasks I had set myself. I was calm, not stressed. But when it was my turn to speak, what came out was:

    “I don’t know how I got here. I really don’t. How did I go from being highly functional and ambitious to not caring whether I live or die?”

    It wasn’t said for dramatic effect. It was simply the truth. And it stayed with me long after the session.

    To understand how I got to this point, you need to understand a few things:

    I was raised German. That’s not a nationality, it’s a code. We don’t quit. We solve problems. We keep going. It doesn’t matter what happened — we figure it out, carry on, and keep moving. Efficiency and productivity are proof of character. Emotions are irrelevant to outcomes.

    So when my body started breaking down and my nervous system began to collapse, I didn’t know what was happening. I just thought I was lazy. Soft. Failing. I didn’t realise I was burning through the last scraps of survival instinct.

    The worst part? Everyone around me thought I was doing okay. Even I thought I was doing okay. It was only when I stopped — truly stopped — that I realised I couldn’t remember the last time I felt joy.

    It all hit me the day after my wife died. That night, I lay on the couch beside Pearl, my 17-year-old cat, who had been with me through everything. She stood on my chest, purred gently, and looked at me with those ancient, knowing eyes. I could barely move. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just stared at the ceiling, hollow.

    That was the moment I realised I wasn’t functioning. I was performing.

    I had been surviving on habit, structure, and responsibility. But inside? I was gone.

    And yet, in that moment of stillness, something shifted. Pearl curled up beside me. The dogs snored softly. And for the first time in months, I didn’t feel like I had to do anything. There was no one to impress. No one to fix. Just breath and presence.

    I’m still walking the slow road back to myself. I’m still figuring out what peace feels like when you didn’t grow up believing you were allowed to have any.

    But if you’re reading this and you’ve found yourself asking the same question: How did I get here? — know this:

    You’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re just tired from holding up the sky for too long.

    And there’s a way back. It starts with stopping. It starts with telling the truth.

    Even if it’s just to a cat.

  • The Cost of Going Back

    The Cost of Going Back

    Field Notes from the Edge

    ✦ Journal Entry — Post-Corporate Reckoning

    Written during a stretch of intense internal questioning. This entry holds the weight of everything I feared, everything I was conditioned to believe, and the quiet truth I was beginning to uncover — that survival is not laziness, and peace is not cowardice.

    If there are two words that describe how I feel right now, they’re “overwhelmed” and “defeated.”
    “Exhausted” is not far behind.

    The truth is, I’m still reeling from the realisation that my return to that vocational world — in any form — is officially off the table. It’s not theoretical anymore. There’s no back door. No pivot. No quiet reintegration. That chapter is closed.

    And yes, there’s grief.
    But what’s catching me off guard is how loud the internal questioning has become.

    Am I giving up too easily?
    Am I being lazy?
    Am I just afraid?

    Or — and this is harder to believe — am I actually doing the right thing?

    The emotional toll of even imagining going back into that environment is enormous. I feel it in my chest, in my breath, in my focus. Just thinking about those systems — the metrics, the emotional load, the performance loops — and my whole body tenses like it’s bracing for impact.

    The part that’s hardest to reconcile?

    I used to thrive there.
    And now, it would crush me.

    So I keep circling the core questions:

    • Would going back re-traumatise me?
    • Is walking away an act of failure — or the first real act of self-protection I’ve ever made?
    • Are these the choices of a good man… or someone taking the easy road?

    I’ve sat with all of it — and what keeps rising is this:
    Returning would not be a comeback. It would be a collapse.

    The environment hasn’t changed. The systems haven’t softened. And no amount of nostalgia or loyalty can justify re-entering a space that my nervous system now recognises as unsafe.

    Even those supporting my recovery — medical, personal, professional — have echoed that this isn’t avoidance. It’s discernment.

    So what am I grieving, really?

    Maybe I’m mourning the man who could keep pushing.
    The one who could operate at all costs.
    The loyal one. The high-performer. The anchor.
    He served me well. But he doesn’t exist anymore.

    And in his place is someone quieter.
    More fractured, maybe. But more whole.

    Someone who’s starting to understand that leaving a structure doesn’t mean abandoning integrity — it means returning to it.

    ✦ Reflection

    There’s no blueprint for this. Only presence. Only truth. I didn’t walk away from a job — I walked away from an environment that made wellness impossible. And in doing so, I chose peace over pressure. That has to count for something.

  • How Did I Get Here?

    How Did I Get Here?

    Field Notes from the Edge

    ✦ Journal Entry — Date Unknown

    Written during a week when everything seemed to rise at once — grief, anger, guilt, exhaustion. This is the kind of entry that doesn’t answer anything, but it asks the questions that demand to be honoured. It’s not a breakdown — it’s the surfacing of a long-unspoken truth.

    ⸻

    How did I get here?

    That question has been looping in my head — not once, but constantly. And every time I ask it, I feel a cascade of emotion: disappointment, anger, frustration, guilt. But also something quieter underneath — a kind of shock. Like I’ve just woken up and realised I’ve been sleepwalking through a war zone.

    So what does “here” even mean?

    It’s this state of mind I’m in — fractured, stretched, exhausted. I used to be someone who could regulate emotions. Who could compartmentalise, process, stay calm under fire. I had to be, especially with Karina. She was volatile, unpredictable — often emotionally aggressive. If I didn’t keep myself together, it would’ve all collapsed.

    So I became a master of emotional control.

    For her. For the promise I made. For God.

    But now…

    Now it feels like I’ve lost the map to that control. My emotions are running the show. I get triggered so easily. I’m scared of how fast it shifts — like a pinball machine where every light is flashing and I can’t find the flippers anymore.

    And that makes me angry. Because I prepared for this.

    I had ten years to see it coming.

    I knew the end was going to be brutal.

    So why does it feel like I’m failing now?

    The anger is sharp — but it’s not just about now.

    It’s about every moment I held it together while Karina fell apart.

    It’s about doing everything right and still ending up here — raw, alone, directionless.

    I feel guilty too. Because I know how hard I worked. I know how long I held the line. And still I whisper: Shouldn’t I have done better?

    But maybe the truth is this:

    • The last five years weren’t just difficult — they were unrelenting.

    • Home dialysis, cancer, heart disease… there was no break. No buffer.

    • I was exposed to full-spectrum trauma every day, and I had no room to process any of it.

    That wasn’t preparation. That was survival.

    And survival doesn’t leave you whole — it leaves you spent.

    I’m beginning to see that trying to emotionally analyse my way out of this might be doing more harm than good. Maybe I don’t need to dissect every feeling right now. Maybe I just need to feel it. Let it pass through without trying to diagnose it.

    I’m not spiralling.

    I’m surfacing.

    And yes, it’s messy.

    ⸻

    ✦ Reflection

    This isn’t about emotional weakness. It’s about emotional debt. I carried more than most people ever will — and now my system is trying to metabolise it. Maybe I didn’t fail to prepare. Maybe the preparation was never supposed to protect me from feeling this. Maybe it was supposed to carry me to the other side — and now I’m here