Have you looked in the mirror lately?

Caregiving for the sick and elderly literally sucks the life out of you.
If you're doing it by yourself, and have no time to rest, renew and replenish, then the result is you're aging and dying prematurely.

Caregiving will totally destroy your life.

Mirrors sorta scare me. I kinda look like my younger sister...and everyone tells me that she looks 10 years older than I am so what does that make me? 12 years older than I really am?
At this point in my life if someone thought I looked like a "movie star" it would have to be Jabba the Hut .....Ok I am being a bit hard on myself. But if we can't laugh that is a sad situation!
Oh and I have to ask(no response really needed) how come everyone that takes a "selfie" looks good when I try it there is an old lady that keeps getting in the way?

I'm 37. I went from people thinking that I look 20 years old, to people calling me "ma'am"... I have gray hairs on the edges of my hair and no desire to dye it. I probably could look like my old self if I took a few days of total self-care, but I also have no desire to do it.

every so often I just say "what the heck" and go and get my hair completely redone,, and maybe a massage.. and it really makes me feel better. Sometimes we just need a break for some "me time"..

My oldest son told me a few years ago that taking care of Grandma had made me old. I don't know if he was referring to my appearance or my attitude about life. I realized then how I was stressed at that time and had been for years. I'm better now that she is in assisted living, but she is still on my mind many hours of every day.

I looked in the mirror one day and my hair was sticking up and I looked a total mess. My mother said to me she loved my hair and it is beautiful. I laughed and said to her she is the beautiful one. I feel like I have aged quite a bit lately. Too much stress and now this virus to add on to all the stress. Worried about the antibiotics and other meds my mom takes with a possible shortage due to meds being made in China. May not look like an old lady, but certainly feel like one sometimes.

New mantra: "Self-care is as important as other-care".

Not only can the stress age the way we look, it can also cause differences when we speak. Even though my folks had passed a couple years ago, I still get people asking me "is everything ok?" when I answer the telephone and speak for a couple of minutes.

My voice has gotten better I think, I don't have that quiver sound quite as much. I was starting to sound like Katherine Hepburn in her later years. And I finally stopped panicking every time the phone rang.... in the past when I saw my parents Caller ID or later on the senior facility ID, I was a total mess.

My brother-in-law's auntie (very sweet lady, but definitely not a candidate for the diplomatic service) wondered aloud at the Christmas dining table which of us was the elder, me or my sister. She guessed wrong; and my sister is eight years older than I am.

I managed to find it funny because, when you think it through, there was no way that question could not have offended one of us.

Plus, aged before my time or not, I am still prettier than her. Ha!!

[Can't think why she's always hated me...]