The Little Writing Breaks That Helped Me Hold On

I did not plan on writing anything during this season of my life. It was not a goal or a dream I kept on the side. It happened because my days had gotten so heavy that I needed a small place where my thoughts could land. When you spend every hour looking after someone you love, your own voice starts to get quieter without you even noticing.

My mom has early dementia, and most of my day revolves around helping her move through whatever she is feeling. Some mornings she wakes up calm and remembers more than I expect. Other mornings she is confused before she even sits up, unsure of where she is or what day it might be. I try to meet her where she is, even when it shifts from one moment to the next.

Caregiving takes over in a slow, steady way. You stop thinking about your own time. You stop expecting breaks. Everything becomes measured by her needs, her questions, and the rhythm of her memory. I work part-time from home doing billing for a clinic, but even that job fits into tiny pieces of the day. The rest is care. The rest is showing up.

There was a day, not special in any way, when my mom finally drifted into a nap after a long morning. I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and felt the quiet settle around me. It was the kind of quiet that feels too big at first, like you do not know where to put your hands. I opened a drawer and found an old notebook I had forgotten about. Most of the pages were blank.

I picked up a pen and wrote a few lines about something simple from my childhood. It was not meant to be good. It was not even meant to be writing, really. It was just a breath I needed to let out. But it felt different from anything I had done in a long time. It felt like I was reminding myself I still existed under all the caregiving.

After that moment, I started writing during the small windows of quiet I got each day. Ten minutes here. Five minutes there. Sometimes less. I never knew how long the break would last before my mom needed me again, so I wrote fast. A memory. A fear. Something I missed. Something I did not want to admit out loud. It did not matter what it was. The act of writing helped me breathe.

One night, when the house was finally still, I looked online for simple writing ideas. I was not trying to do anything big. I just needed something to focus on besides the worry that settles into your shoulders after long days. That is when I found a gentle page that explained different ways to start writing. It talked about gentle writing contests in a way that did not feel scary or overwhelming. It made everything feel possible, even for someone who barely had ten free minutes at a time.

A few days later, during one of my mom's naps, I wrote a short piece about a moment that had been sitting inside me for months. I shared it in a small contest. My hands were shaking when I posted it. I told myself it did not matter if no one read it. But the next morning, there were a few kind responses from people who understood the feeling of watching someone change slowly. I sat at the kitchen table and cried in a soft, quiet way that surprised me. I had forgotten what it felt like to be understood.

Writing did not suddenly make caregiving easier, but it changed the way I carried it. It gave me a place to put the things I never said out loud. It helped me see the small parts of the day that were still gentle, even when everything felt heavy. A patch of sunlight on the floor. The sound of my mom humming the same tune she used to sing when I was little. The way she laughed at something she forgot she already said.

Those details used to slip past me. Writing helped me notice them again.

As the weeks went by, writing became a small rhythm in my day. Not a strict schedule or anything planned. Just a gentle pattern that showed up whenever my mom rested. I began to look forward to those moments. They were small, but they were mine. Sometimes all I wrote was a few lines. Other times I wrote a whole page before she called my name again. It did not matter how much I wrote. What mattered was that I had a place to let my feelings land.

Caregiving can make you feel invisible even when you are standing right there in the middle of everything. You spend so much time managing someone else's needs that you forget you have your own. Writing reminded me I was still a person with thoughts worth paying attention to. I did not expect that. I did not even know I needed it until I felt it happening.

There were days when writing felt easy. My thoughts came out steady and clear, like they had been waiting for a turn. But other days, I struggled to put anything down. Those were the days when my mom had trouble remembering simple things, or when she got frustrated with herself and cried. On those days, even opening the notebook felt heavy. Still, I tried to write something, even if it was only a sentence. I learned that one honest sentence can hold more truth than a whole page written on a good day.

One afternoon stands out to me because it taught me something important. My mom had been asking the same question over and over, each time with the same confused look. I answered softly every time, but by the fifth or sixth repetition, I felt myself slipping. My patience was thin, and guilt followed right behind it. When she finally rested, I sat down and wrote exactly how I felt. Not the polished version. Not the strong version. Just the honest one.

I wrote that I was tired. I wrote that I loved her. I wrote that I wished things were easier for both of us. Writing those words on the page made me feel less tangled. It did not fix anything, but it made it easier to walk back into the next moment with more grace than I thought I had left.

Something else happened during those writing breaks. I started noticing small details I had been missing for months. The soft tapping of rain on the kitchen window. The way my mom folded towels slowly and carefully, even when she forgot how many she had already done. The sound of her humming a tune from her teenage years, one she might forget tomorrow, but remembered today. These moments were tiny, but they felt important. Writing helped me see them like pieces of a bigger picture I had forgotten to look at.

People sometimes think writing has to be big or impressive. A novel, a long essay, a perfect story. But that is not true. Writing can be small and still mean everything. It can be a sentence. A memory. A feeling you cannot say out loud. It can be messy and unplanned. What matters is that it feels real when you read it back to yourself.

I realized something else during this time. The more I wrote, the more patient I became with my mom. Not because writing changed her or made the days easier, but because writing gave my feelings somewhere to go. When your emotions stay trapped inside, they build into something heavy. Writing lets them move. It gives them room. And when your heart feels lighter, even a little bit, you can meet someone else with more kindness.

There was a moment one evening when my mom forgot who called earlier in the day. She asked me the same question twice in under a minute. For a second I felt that familiar sting of sadness, but then it passed more gently than it used to. I realized later that writing had helped me make peace with these moments. Not fully. Not perfectly. But enough that they did not undo me the way they once did.

I still write during nap times. Sometimes I use a notebook. Sometimes I write on my laptop. On harder days, I write on scraps of paper I find in the kitchen drawer. It does not matter where the words land. What matters is that they have somewhere to live.

If someone asked me why writing matters, I would not give a complicated answer. I would say that writing gives you a place to stand when the rest of your day feels unsteady. It gives you a moment where you can listen to yourself. A moment where you can breathe.

Caregiving is a full life, but it is not the whole of who I am. Writing helped me see that again.

As the months went by, I noticed something changing in the way I moved through my days. The routines were still there. The medication schedules. The repeated questions. The moments of confusion that hurt more than I ever say out loud. None of that disappeared. But I felt different inside those moments. I felt steadier, like I had found a way to anchor myself even on the days that felt like they were drifting from one long moment into the next.

Writing became that anchor. Not because it solved anything or made the hard parts less painful, but because it gave me a small sense of balance. I could sit with my feelings instead of running from them or stuffing them down where they would come back later as guilt or frustration. When I wrote, I could actually hear myself. And when you spend most of your life caring for someone else, hearing your own thoughts again is its own kind of healing.

There was one day when I sat down at the table after helping my mom through a long, confusing morning. I opened my notebook and waited for the words to arrive. At first, nothing came. I sat there listening to the refrigerator hum and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Then, slowly, I wrote three small lines about wanting to hold on to the pieces of myself I still recognized. It was not much, but it felt honest. And honesty is something caregiving can take from you if you are not careful. You get so used to being strong that you forget it is okay to admit you feel worn down.

I think that is why writing matters so much. It makes room for the truth. It lets you say things you might not be brave enough to speak out loud. It lets you admit that love can be heavy and caring can be lonely, even when you would do it all again without question. Writing does not judge the tired parts of you. It just gives them a place to rest.

Some evenings, after my mom goes to bed, I read back through the pages I have written. There are days where the sentences feel strong and clear. There are days where the handwriting is shaky and rushed. But every page shows me something real. Not polished or perfect. Just honest. And in a life full of tasks and responsibilities, having something honest of your own feels like a gift.

I have learned to look for the small moments that give the day a little softness. The quiet sound of my mom humming a song she barely remembers. The way the afternoon light hits the kitchen counter. The tiny relief I feel when she smiles at something simple. These moments used to slip past me without notice. Now I catch them. Writing taught me how.

If someone else were going through what I am going through, I would tell them this: you do not need a lot of time to start writing. You do not need a plan or a perfect story. You only need a few minutes where you let yourself be a whole person and not just the caregiver. Even one line can make you feel more grounded. Even one thought written down can remind you that your life is still happening too.

Caregiving is an act of love, but it asks a lot from your heart. Writing gives some of that space back. It lets you breathe in a way that does not take anything from the person you care for. In fact, it helps you show up for them with more patience and more gentleness than before.

I do not know what the future will look like. Some days that scares me. Some days I make peace with it. But I do know that writing will stay with me. As long as I have a pen, a notebook, or even a scrap of paper from the kitchen drawer, I have somewhere to place the parts of myself that need care, too.

And for now, that is enough.