Did my last clean this afternoon, posted the keys through the letterbox and walked down that familiar road for the last time.
After three years of freelancing, taking a variety of part time jobs that eventually mounted up to juggling five at a time, I’m ready for a change.
When my caring role suddenly ended three years ago, I was 60 and had lost all sense of thinking about a career – all that goes out of the window when you’re the primary carer for a loved one with complex health issues, especially if you’re an older woman who wasn’t on a conventional career ladder in the first place.
Without a profession to go back to, or any confidence in myself (despite the incredible 360 degree project management skills that carers have to develop) I wasn’t sure what to do next. My Carers’ Allowance finished, and although a pitifully small amount, it was still a regular income. Caring costs, indeed, and after years of propping my brother up financially, I had very little savings to fall back on.
I‘d need to get a job, but who would want a grieving, hearing-impaired 60 year old who’d been out of the job market for several years, with a metre-long CV but no easily explainable skills?
I was super lucky to meet a friend who needed some help with her cleaning and housekeeping business, just at the exact time I needed some work, so serendipity came to the rescue. Not one of life’s natural-born neatniks, I’d developed cleaning and organising as amazing new super-powers while caring for my brother, because his condition involved a hell of a lot of accidents and spillages.
I kept working pretty much through the pandemic and continued to have a lot of lucky breaks and some brilliant freelance roles.
But I know lots of people who haven’t been as lucky. Family carers give up so much, and many never really find their feet back into work; in spite of having lots to offer the world, the world doesn’t know how to value their skills. And please don’t suggest paid care-work. It’s not about being too proud or too squeamish: most of us are so burned out when our loved one dies that looking after anyone else is the last thing we can or want to do.
So many suddenly-ex carers find themselves in this position, recently bereaved and completely out on a limb, not sure who they are or where they fit in, in the world and not of it. And very close to poverty, if not actually there.
That’s part of the reason for me making a change now – after three years of getting by with multi-job juggling, lady luck has smiled on me again and I’m taking on a new full time role and going to work at the Sheffield Carers’ Centre. Where else, really? It’s an organisation that has helped me many times in the past in hours of need, and it's certainly where my heart lies.
It will take a while to learn the role and how best to support unpaid carers in 2022, (especially at a time of recession, NHS on its knees and astronomical heating bills) but I really hope to be able to help – if only as a sympathetic ear at first.
It feels like a good thing to look forward to this Carers Rights’ Day, and even if that doesn’t affect you or even anyone you’re close to, please just remember this – no-one plans for the role. Whoever you are, you may find yourself needing friends and family to care for you, or looking after someone you love. It really can happen to anyone, so please, give a thought to unpaid carers today and if you possibly can, add your voice to the lobby for social care to be finally addressed by the government.
https://www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/carers-rights-day
