The Way Home Project

Tag: love

  • 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.

  • 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