"Finding My Way Back to Me" by Sara Clime
Summer Season of Letters From A Caregiver
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I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why? I created Carer Mentor to offer heartfelt empathy for Caregivers. It’s a hub of practical tools, resources, and insights. A community support network for all of us human-ing hard. ❤️ Start exploring here.
Letters from a Caregiver.
“Letters from a Caregiver” is a weekly article where a caregiver offers their wisdom, compassion, and hope to their younger self. No one knows us as well as we know ourselves, and even then, we may second-guess ourselves. The choices, challenges and tragedies we’ve faced have forged us in more ways than anyone can understand; in ways we’re still trying to decipher!
Since September 2025, thirty-two letters have been posted over three seasons.
This Summer Season so far
“Caregiving is a continuous evolution of my love, trust and courage.” by Victoria
“You Have to Receive in Order for the Circle of Love to be Complete” by Kaeli Hansen Caregivers Count with Kaeli
“When Wishes Come True” by Cindy Roman, who writes Alzheimer’s Witness
“Accept Caregiving Help When You Can” by Sue Montgomery, RN, BSN, MA
Today’s ‘Letter from a Caregiver’ is by Sara Clime
I met Sara earlier this year. I think I was drawn to her caregiving approach after reading “I live in both sides of my brain simultaneously. I’m analytical one moment, creative the next.” (from her article: The Real, Unfiltered, Slightly Caffeinated Version of Who I Am)
I’ve encountered people who think caregiving is only about hands-on care and support. Of course, that’s part of what carers do, but there’s so much more deciphering, analysing and creative solution finding, or communicating, going on too. There are no one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter solutions, but we all curate a bespoke support scaffolding and care routine over time.
Sara offers practical support and ideas in her publication, along with a lot of grace. Here are a couple of articles I recommend reading:
Many thanks to Sara for this letter sharing her learnings and compassion with her younger self. This phrase has gone into my journal and will stay a while, "
“The love doesn’t have to disappear just because the shape of it changes.”
Author’s Bio: Sara Clime is a caregiver, systems builder, and writer. Her youngest son, T.J., was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy in 2012. She has spent over a decade turning hard-won lessons into practical systems that help caregivers and entrepreneurs reduce overwhelm and reclaim mental space. She lives with her husband, Craig, and writes at Sanity & Systems, where she shares honest reflections on caregiving, identity, and building a life that holds both grief and joy.
Finding My Way Back to Me
Dear 2012 Sara,
It’s fourteen years since we sat in that small room and heard the word Duchenne for the first time. Today you’re standing in the garage. You went out to grab a protein shake. Instead, you found your old hiking boots, buried under old camping gear, covered in dust.
You pick them up. You don’t put them on. You just sit down on the cold concrete floor and cry.
I know why you’re crying. It’s not really about the boots. You’re crying because you don’t know who you are anymore. The girl who used to love the adventure of hiking is gone. The woman who planned a career, an empty nest, and a whole different kind of life is gone, too. Some days it feels like caregiving swallowed her whole.
I’m writing to tell you something you need to hear, even sitting there in the dust. Losing who you were might not be the worst thing that happens to you.
I know that sounds strange right now. Stay with me.
You’ve always been the one who handles things. Even as a kid, you never wanted to let anyone down. You’ll carry that into every hospital hallway and every school meeting for the next twenty years, and it will make things harder than they need to be. There will be a night, years from now, when you say yes to one more thing you don’t have room for, just so nobody has to be disappointed in you. You’ll sit in the car afterward, too tired to even turn the key, wondering why you keep doing this to yourself. So, here’s my advice: let people down sometimes. Skip the birthday party. Say no to the extra volunteer shift. Show up late, or not at all. It won’t make you a bad mom or a bad friend. It will make the road ahead easier on your soul.
You are about to lose a lot, and I won’t pretend otherwise. You’ll grieve the empty nest you pictured with Craig. You’ll grieve the career you thought you’d build. You’ll grieve family hikes, lazy Saturday drives, and a hundred small dreams you never even said out loud, like the vacations you sketched out on napkins or the quiet mornings you imagined having to yourself one day. That grief is real. Don’t rush past it. Don’t let anyone hand you a silver lining before you’ve had the chance to be sad. Grieving a life you haven’t technically lost yet is confusing. Nobody sends a casserole for that kind of loss. You’ll have to learn to sit with it on your own, and that’s okay.
But hold onto this part while you’re crying on that garage floor. Just because those dreams change doesn’t mean new ones can’t take their place. Some of the new ones might fit you better than the old ones ever did.
Take the boots. You won’t hike ten miles again for a long time. But you can still love the trail. Find five minutes near the trees on a hard day. Push TJ’s chair down a paved path and call it a hike. Trade the ten-mile trail for a walk around the block after his bedtime. The love doesn’t have to disappear just because the shape of it changes.
Do this with everything you love, not only hiking. You will lose most of your old hobbies for a while. Some of them will sit untouched so long you’ll forget you ever loved them at all. But keep looking for new ones anyway. You’ll pick up a pen again, even though you swore for years you had nothing left to say. You’ll find yourself building spreadsheets and systems, not because it’s fun exactly, but because it gives your hands something to do while your heart is busy grieving and hoping at the same time. Some of what you find next will surprise you. A few of them will end up mattering more than the things you lost.
Here’s something else worth hearing. Caregiving is going to make you stronger. I know that’s the last thing you want right now, sitting in the dust with boots you can’t wear. But stop fighting it. You are being forged into someone tougher and more resilient than you can picture from here. Let it happen instead of bracing against it.
You will also find out that you gave away a huge piece of yourself as a woman. It won’t ask your permission before it slips away. One day you’ll catch your reflection in a store window and not quite recognize the tired face looking back. You’ll wonder where she went, the woman who used to know exactly who she was. But here’s the good news: you’re already finding your way back. Not back to who you were before. Back to who you were always supposed to be. A woman who sees the world differently now. Who feels the brutal parts and the beautiful parts, sometimes in the very same hour, and doesn’t run from either one.
Let yourself feel both. Don’t let the brutal days steal the joy from the good ones. Don’t let the good days make you feel guilty for the hard ones. Both are allowed. Both are true, sometimes on the very same day.
I want to tell you about the people standing next to you in this, because you’re going to need to notice them.
T.J. will become one of the strongest humans you know, and he’ll teach you that strength was never about muscle. He loves his life. He’s happy. Let that be enough. Most people in this world won’t achieve that goal. Oh, and he’s funny. He’s funny in a way that gets you. It’s a gift that Duchenne can’t ever steal.
You’ve known Craig since you were fourteen years old. You knew him as the dorky teenager. You knew him as the floundering new dad. You’re about to watch him become someone new, a husband who sits up with you at two in the morning without complaining once, who learns medical words neither of you ever wanted to know, who becomes the rock your soul needs on this journey. Watch it happen. Notice it. Say thank you out loud, more than once, even on the days you’re too tired to say much else. Love him for all of it, not just the parts that feel steady.
Watch Connor grow up too. Your oldest will become someone only a sibling of someone with this diagnosis could become. There will be birthday parties he shares the spotlight at without complaint, and quiet nights when he notices you’re struggling before you even say a word. He will grow into one of the funniest, most empathetic, strongest people you know. Some of that will come from pain he didn’t ask for and didn’t choose. Let him have that too. Don’t try to shield him from every hard thing, even when it breaks your heart to watch him carry it. It’s shaping him, the same way all of this is shaping you.
And you will meet new friends. Friends who will walk this journey with you in a way others simply won’t understand. Trust them and hold onto them with everything you have. And take trips with them. Often. They will become something vital to the new you thriving.
Now, back to the boots.
Fourteen years from today, you’ll still be a caregiver. But you won’t be only a caregiver. You’ll have found your way back to a woman you didn’t know was still in there. Turns out, she’s fierce and doesn’t scare easy anymore.
You’ll learn to love bigger than you thought you could. You’ll make friends you would have never met without Duchenne walking into your life. You’ll try things that never would have crossed your mind before this diagnosis. Some days will still knock you flat. Some days will feel like a win just because you made it through the grocery store without crying. Both kinds of days count. Neither one cancels out the other.
So, here’s what I want you to do today. Put the boots back on the shelf. You don’t have to throw them away, and you don’t have to lace them up right now. Just don’t let them turn into a reason to hate what your life became. Let them turn into the start of a new list instead. What do you love now? What could you learn to love, if you gave yourself permission to try? Maybe it’s a shorter trail. Maybe it’s something you haven’t discovered yet. Give yourself time to find out, without any deadline attached.
You are not losing yourself, Sara. You’re just taking the long way back to her.
With love,
Sara
One last question to close the letter from Victoria.
Please share one quote/movie/book that’s inspired you.
“I don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.” — Ariel, The Little Mermaid. (I watched that movie way too many times growing up.)
Caregiving has given me plenty of reasons to be afraid of what’s ahead. But it’s also made some of the most wonderful things in my life. I’d rather keep looking for those.
Prompt for Discussion
Have you ever found an old piece of yourself packed away in a box or a closet, and had to decide whether to grieve it, keep it, or make room for something new?
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