Comedy Through The Chaos: Freedom From Past Expectations As a Caregiver

Hello everyone, and happy Thursday to you. If you're watching me live, welcome to the Cadre Sphere. If you've been around here for a while, you know what we do here. We have a variety of contributors that share their perspectives with you. I happen to be one of those contributors. Welcome to Comedy through the chaos. I am Ms. Shannon. I'm coming to you. If you try to pop in what I normally do on Thursdays, I'm a few minutes later than I normally do. Jen. Good to see you, Jen. I'm running a little late today, so I moved everything to 2:15.

I was just explaining it is summer vacation here as it is for a lot of people who are caring for or giving care to someone who is still in school. So sometimes just run a little late. And today is one of those days. It's so interesting. Part of the reason why I picked 2pm Central my time is that during the school year, this is the last bit of adulting time that I have during, during the sprint when my kiddo's normally at school. But that is not the case during summer. And he elected to request sustenance.

How dare he request sustenance at about 1:58pm Central right before I was going to start. And I elected to be able to feed him while we do this, so I had to start a little late. So welcome to my kitchen, everyone. You get to watch me put bratwurst in the air fryer. So that's going to be exciting. I think it's interesting what we do here in the Cadre sphere because there is just a wide variety of people who are sharing their stories and. And what they are. Yes, no school. You are correct. A variety of different scenarios that we have here.

And for me, what I like to talk about is just encourage us to find those moments of laughter and happiness and just really focus on the fact that our lives are going to be chaotic. And last week I was talking about freedom from a different variety of expectations. But part of that is freedom to go ahead and have happiness in the midst of all the chaos. And part of the reason why that came up in my particular life is just reminding yourself that you might have something good that's happening. And then we think back to those old wives tales and you think back to something like, oh, well, I don't want to get too happy about this, it'll just jinx it.

And I'm like, that is not a thing. You deserve to enjoy where you are in your life. And although there will be ups and downs and we have those moments, they are not a one to one. If you enjoy a happy moment, it doesn't mean that you're automatically going to have a sad moment. Those things are part of the inevitability of what is our lives. So today it's been an interesting day and similar to a variety of the contributors that have been talking about things this month. I want to talk about the concept of freedom from something.

And the word freedom I think is one of those ones that has such a wide collection of definitions for each of us. And so for me sometimes it's also that letting go. But I'm changing so much in the season. A better take. Yes, yes, I understand. Isaiah. It is. Yeah, that is. Thank you for sharing that. It is about giving yourself that opportunity, you know, giving yourself that opportunity to better take care of yourself. And that kind of leads to what I was thinking about today. Here's one of the things I think is interesting.

So today started off as many days do, with some text messages coming into our family chat message. And so I have a family chat message that's me and my mom, my mom's husband and my two sisters and we're all in this group. And so one of the first things that was in the chat this morning when I checked my phone was my mom's husband from back in the day had put in a picture of my son and I'm guessing my son was about three or almost coming up on four, trying hard to remember because life is a blur.

So he was, you know, little and the picture is adorable. That's when my kid was weeping. Know he was big for his age but he was we in comparison cuz now he's 17 and I had decided that day to try and put his hair up in a man bun. So he had this very adorable man bun picture. I will put it in the community chat after this conversation. So I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was adorable. I'm like that is the cutest, the cutest thing ever. And he had this man bun and you can see him in the picture with his hand on his head touching the stick thing, like what are you doing woman?

You know, like he was not feeling it. And I think it lasted long enough for me to get the picture in and then he was like, yeah, take this ponytail holder out of my head. Let me move free, let me move free. But it just really makes me think about so many of those. How is that has changed over time? I mean that was two houses ago. That was before I was doing what I'm Doing now this full time single mom with a special needs kid adventure that I'm on. And I think back to all of the expectations that I had, what I thought I needed to be as a mom.

Even if you go back to before I had him, I remember reading this book what to expect when expecting and having this idea or trying to set up this framework of what things were going to be like and then how I was supposed to respond. And so many of those things, although they were at me and Vinnie valuable baseline have turned out to be things that I needed to toss out my pretend, my particular window and do things the way that I need to do and give myself time to learn throughout the process and to figure out what makes sense for me.

And you know, oh, come on now. Yeah. And it's like, it is, I, I'm not going to get into a. I think you're better than that con. But I, I do politely disagree with your, the first part of your statement. So, yeah, I, you know, it's interesting. You know what, buddy? No, no, no, no, no. I look back on some of those things that I was trying to set up and the, the framework that I was imposing upon myself in those situations and now I go, all right, that was the best you could do with the information that you were surrounding yourself with at the time.

But now if I let myself go back into. You're supposed to do it that way. If I let myself rest in the, the world has this expectation of how things are, then I would continually feel like I was failing because those things are made for, for everyone. And no one is the way that I'll put it. They're not made for you. So understanding that you have to be able to put in a situation to go, here's what works for me and that's okay. If I have to do it a little differently, that is all fine. If I'm sitting here making, you know, bratwurst at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, cool beats, you know, I'm glad that he's happy and that he's playing and that we've been having a good time so far.

I hope you guys are air fryer people. I'm an air fryer person. I'm an air fryer person. I think the air fryer was one of the best inventions that I have come across in modern times. So. But releasing yourself from that desire to fall into alignment with other things in the society, releasing yourself from that framework that was created by either a system that was not made for you or a system that was working towards its own ends, not necessarily towards that of that what you need and those that you care for, need, and that's what I try to remind you to do, is that you can, you know, remove all these boundaries, use them for what you need for the framework.

If you need a jumping off point, if you need some place to start, all of that is fine. But other than that, let it go. What matters is my kid has sustenance and he's smiling and he's having a good time. And you know what? I've managed to manage to get get him to do a lot of things and he's healthy and he's happy and he's safe and that's what's most important. So whether I'm doing it in a way that would end up in like one of my mom magazines from back in the day that I used to read, or the Pinterest boards I used to try to put together, or even like the things I would just think about in my own head in the middle of the night, like, oh, you should do this.

None of that matters anymore. But I do have an end goal and sometimes there's a couple of different ways to get there and we got to pick whichever one works for that day. And I have to remind myself that Shannon from back when he was four isn't necessarily the same Shannon that's here right now talking to all of you here in 2025. So if there's something that you're hanging on to that may have been for days, weeks, months or decades, I encourage you to let it go. Give yourself freedom to go here.

That was an expectation that I placed on myself for an improper reason or it wasn't the right. It was the right thing at the time, but it's not the right thing for now. So release yourself from some of that. If you got to be a little bit off kilter sometimes to do it, I totally understand. Obviously, I'm in the same boat as you, as many of us are. So like I said, I will drop the full version of this into our community chat later. And if any of you wonder what a before and after of a my adorable 17 year old son looks like, I'll make sure that I include that as well.

So wherever you are in the journey, that is where you are right now. And we hope that we can support you where you are in your journey right now, whether you are giving care to someone or you being taken care of by someone, or if there's a little bit of both going on, we Appreciate you. We appreciate you and hopefully we're here to continue to support you in whatever way you need us to do that. So thank you for checking in. I appreciate you. Hey, little. I appreciate you. Thank you for being here.

I appreciate you every time you pop in and you know, moms, grandmas, we're all in this boat together, everybody. So I will continue hopefully to check in with you in the next couple of weeks. We always encourage you to go ahead and let us know here in the Cadre Sphere how we can support you. Hello, Doctors John. Hello. Hello. Good to see you. There is an air fryer going on behind me. If you wonder what that slightly wind tunnely noise is, there are some bratwurst or technically andouille sausage, because I'm raising a young pharaoh and he has very particular taste.

So. But I appreciate it. So it's a late lunchtime here, but I encourage you to look back through and if there's anything that resonates with you, if it's something that I do, if it's something that any of our other contributors do, please let us know so we can put more of that type of content into the Cadre Sphere for you. That's what we're here for, is to support you and just to be a place where if a live stream doesn't work for you right now, but it's something that you need later, it's something you put a pin in, or you can save until later and go, you know what?

Today's the day. I remember that that person talked about letting themselves go from the expectation of what they thought it was like to be a mom when they first got into the journey years and years and years ago. And today that relates. Good. That's when you can listen to it. And that's why we keep all of these things here, this app, so you can pop around as the universe encourages you to do so. So everyone, enjoy your day wherever you are, if you are able. If the day continues to be difficult for you, we are still here for you and we understand that that happens to all of us.

You are not alone. So thank you for being part of the Cadre Sphere. We'll see you all soon. Everybody.