After A Month Of Showering My Mother With Love ... Now

We hear it all the time: Cherish your parents. Call your mother. Spoil her while you can.

So, I decided to go all in.

I thought that if I wasn't exhausted, I wasn't trying hard enough. I thought that saying "no" to her was saying "no" to gratitude. But after a month of showering my mother with love, I had forgotten to save any for myself. After a month of showering my mother with love ...

Shower her with love. But leave the bathroom door open. You need air, too. Have you ever experienced caregiver burnout while trying to be "the perfect child"? Let me know in the comments. Let’s talk about the hard part of love.

It didn’t happen in a dramatic fight. It happened on Day 31. My mother asked me to grab her reading glasses from the other room—a two-second task. And I snapped. My voice cracked. "Can’t you get them yourself? I just sat down. I haven’t eaten today." We hear it all the time: Cherish your parents

I drove her to every appointment, even the ones she insisted she could cancel. I cooked her favorite childhood meals (her mom’s chicken soup recipe, which takes three hours). I listened to the same stories about her neighbor’s cat for the 40th time without checking my phone. I bought her little gifts—a soft scarf, a puzzle book, a heated blanket.

After a Month of Showering My Mother With Love, I Learned the Hardest Lesson About Caregiving So, I decided to go all in

The look on her face told me everything. It wasn't anger. It was confusion. She didn't see the 30 days of sacrifice; she saw one moment of cruelty.