Sonrise & Soulwork

How being the oldest taught me to care for everyone and how I almost forgot to care for myself!

There are some jobs we apply for.

And then there are jobs we are quietly trained for long before we realize we’ve been hired.

I think caregiving was my first job!

Before motherhood.

Before bills.

Before careers, relationships, heartbreak, healing, or any of the adult responsibilities that would eventually find their way to my doorstep.

I was the oldest.

And somewhere between being a child and being the older child, I learned how to look after somebody besides myself.

I learned to pay attention.

To help.

To anticipate.

To protect.

To make sure everybody was okay.

Nobody necessarily sat me down and said, Your job is to carry everyone.

It was subtler than that.

It was simply the position I occupied in the family.

The oldest.

And when you’re the oldest, sometimes responsibility arrives before you even know what responsibility means.

Before I Knew the Word “Caregiver”

I didn’t call it caregiving then.

It was just life.

You help with your younger siblings.

You know where everybody is.

You become a second set of eyes.

You learn when something isn’t right.

You mature in certain ways because somebody younger than you is watching.

And somewhere inside that experience, I developed a muscle that would become incredibly strong:

taking care of people.

The problem with strengthening one muscle your entire life is that sometimes you forget there are others.

I became very good at asking:

Are you okay?

What do you need?

Did you eat?

Do you have everything?

How can I help?

But there was another question I wasn’t nearly as practiced at asking:

What do I need?

And for a long time, I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about that.

Caring felt natural.

Giving felt normal.

Being needed felt familiar.

Then, For a Little While, I Chose Me

There was a beautiful stretch of my life when the responsibility loosened its grip.

I grew up.

I became independent.

And for perhaps the first real time in my life, I had permission to build a world around me.

My plans.

My career.

My friendships.

My appearance.

My interests.

My money.

My time.

My dreams.

There is a freedom that comes with waking up and realizing the day belongs to you.

If I wanted to go somewhere, I went.

If I wanted quiet, I had quiet.

If I wanted to reinvent myself, I could.

I wasn’t selfish.

I was simply finally experiencing myself as a whole person instead of primarily as someone responsible for other people.

And I liked her.

The woman who chose herself.

The woman who dreamed without first checking everybody else’s calendar.

The woman who could ask, What do I want? and actually have an answer.

I didn’t know then how precious that season was.

And Then Came Motherhood

Motherhood didn’t introduce me to caregiving.

It called an old version of me back to work.

Suddenly, that muscle I’d developed all those years ago was needed again.

Except this time, the stakes were different.

This wasn’t helping here and there.

This was someone’s entire existence.

Someone needed me to eat.

To sleep.

To learn.

To feel safe.

To understand the world.

To regulate emotions they didn’t yet understand.

To advocate.

To protect.

To remember appointments.

To make decisions.

To keep going when I was tired.

And because caregiving was already a language I spoke fluently, I stepped right back into it.

At first, I don’t think I noticed what was happening.

You rarely notice yourself disappearing while you’re busy being necessary.

That’s the tricky part.

There wasn’t one dramatic day when I packed myself into a box and put her in the closet.

I lost pieces gradually.

A postponed plan here.

An abandoned interest there.

A dream moved to later.

Rest moved to when everything settles down.

Personal goals moved to when I have more time.

And somehow later kept moving.

I Almost Permanently Lost Her

That’s difficult for me to admit.

Because women are often taught that loving the people we care for should make sacrifice feel effortless.

And when it doesn’t, guilt arrives.

So we keep pouring.

And pouring.

And pouring.

Until one day you realize everyone around you knows exactly who you are to them—

but you’re no longer completely sure who you are to yourself.

That realization hit differently for me because I’d already met myself once.

I remembered the woman who existed when she had room.

I remembered what it felt like to have dreams that didn’t require coordinating somebody else’s needs first.

I remembered her independence.

Her spontaneity.

Her softness.

Her ambition.

Her curiosity.

Her ability to simply exist without constantly being responsible for another human being.

And I realized:

I missed myself.

Not my younger body.

Not an easier life.

Not some fantasy version of the past.

Me.

Maybe This Started Long Before Motherhood

That’s when the soul work became uncomfortable.

Because I had to stop blaming the most recent chapter and start reading the earlier ones.

Motherhood hadn’t created the caretaker in me.

She had been there for years.

Motherhood simply gave her the biggest assignment she’d ever received.

And perhaps that’s why it became so easy to disappear.

I wasn’t learning a new behavior.

I was returning to something familiar.

Care for everybody.

Handle what needs handling.

Keep moving.

Be dependable.

Figure it out.

And somewhere at the bottom of that list:

Take care of me.

If there’s time.

But I’m Learning Something Different Now

I don’t want to stop being a caregiver.

That’s not the lesson.

There are beautiful things about being someone who loves deeply.

There is honor in nurturing.

There is strength in being dependable.

There is something sacred about helping another human being become who they’re meant to be.

But I can no longer believe that loving someone requires abandoning myself.

Those two things cannot be synonymous.

Maybe the next stage of my life isn’t about escaping responsibility.

Maybe it’s about learning that I belong on the list of people I care for.

Not last.

Not after everybody is settled.

Not when the house is quiet.

Not when life becomes easier.

Now.

Because the little girl who learned to take care of everyone grew into a woman who became exceptionally good at it.

And now that woman has another skill to learn:

how to care for herself without feeling guilty about it.

The Woman I’m Becoming

I used to think finding myself meant going backward.

I wanted to find the woman I was before motherhood.

Before so much responsibility.

Before life became so heavy.

But maybe she isn’t who I’m supposed to find.

I’ve lived too much since then.

I’ve loved too much.

I’ve learned too much.

I’ve survived too much.

I’m not supposed to become her again.

I’m supposed to bring her with me.

Her dreams.

Her confidence.

Her individuality.

Her ability to choose herself.

And combine her with everything this version of me has learned about love, sacrifice, resilience, patience and purpose.

Maybe that’s what soul work actually is.

Not digging through the past trying to recover the woman you used to be.

But collecting all the versions of yourself you’ve had to become…

and finally allowing them to exist in the same woman.

I was a caretaker before I became a mother.

Then I became a woman who chose herself.

Then I became responsible for another life and almost disappeared inside that responsibility.

And now?

I’m learning something I wish I’d understood much earlier:

Choosing myself doesn’t mean I love anyone else less.

It simply means I’ve finally realized,

I am someone worth taking care of, too.

☀️ Sonrise & Soulwork Reflection

Were you the oldest child? The responsible one? The fixer? The sibling everyone depended on?

And now that you’re grown, do you find yourself automatically becoming the person everyone turns to?

Maybe some of us didn’t become caregivers in adulthood. Maybe we’ve been practicing since childhood.

And maybe our next chapter isn’t about learning how to give more.

Maybe it’s about finally learning how to give some of that love back to ourselves.

What role did you learn to play in your family and are you still playing it today?