Looking After

In case you’ve ever wondered if a car wash could be self care, the answer is yes

The guy behind the counter wears a grubby trucker hat and softly taps his keyboard with two dirty index fingers. He stops only occasionally to ask me for my contact info and to tell me when I can expect the job to be done. “Five, six hours or so,” he says.

I nod with my head down, befuddled by who I have become over the past couple months. There’s been only one thing on my mind. My mom. For anything else I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel. Friends, family, bills, my business—everything has shifted to the back burner.

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It had been months, though it seemed like a forever, of endless giving giving giving without taking any time to look after myself. Sometimes I stopped into a cafe for a brief espresso respite, and I'd even managed to maintain my every-other-day running routine. But neither offered enough pause to reestablish my baseline.

I felt like I’d lost any sense of myself. Managing my mom’s life had become all I knew. I was fully consumed by a task that was slowly ruining me. And ironically, it was a task I wholeheartedly agreed to do.

I regularly found myself wishing I had some sort of vice. Some bad habit that might offer a burst of temporary solace. I could drink—there was a time when that would have been my go-to for self care. But I had no desire to sit at a bar and drown my mind in a few overpriced beers. I also could smoke weed or experiment with controlled substances. But drugs were never my jam and I wasn’t going to start now. I also could eat. Or spend money. But food and retail therapy did nothing for me.

I thought maybe online dating would do the trick, so I created a couple profiles and marked Intimacy Without Commitment and Fun Casual Dates as what I was looking for. I included the words polyamory and ENM in my bio to double down on coded synonyms for hooking-up. I figured it would trigger the algorithm and attract women also looking for a good time with no strings.

Code for let’s get it on

But my efforts amounted to nothing more than a few one-sided, lackluster message exchanges. Ultimately I just figured I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Probably not handsome enough, or young enough, or divorced enough for folks to swipe right. Or perhaps my quirky, albeit vanilla bio somehow exposed the depressing truth of my loneliness. In my darkest moments, I contemplated getting my rocks off at a questionable massage parlor on West Ridge Road. But I chickened out any time I started taking this option seriously.

All these efforts amounted to one thing—I wanted to escape. And in the span when I felt that leaving Rochester was not yet an option, I kicked tires on any other sort of emotional departure I could dream up. The crux—I never really figured out how to successfully self soothe.

But I also never took much time to look inward. I wanted a quick fix. An immediate solution. A hit. The fact that I couldn’t come up with any comfort-inducers likely worked in my favor—because my failure forced me to sit with the funk. This gave me ample opportunities to feel the hard feelings and witness them as they moved scraped through me, head to toe and back. I was sad and mad and upset and tired and impatient and uncertain and ultimately, OK with the exhausting status quo that had become my norm. I didn’t love it, not even close, but as the weeks went by, I accepted it.

Time turned out to be my biggest asset. And as it passed, my mom’s situation, as expected, eventually took a positive turn, allowing me to loosen the death grip I had on my worries. Time also afforded a gradual perspective shift that ultimately let in a sliver of light—a sunrise of sorts—to remind me I don’t live in the Flour City, after all. I have a home. And people. And things I enjoy. This moment is temporary. This too shall pass.

But until that point, my role as my mom’s primary responsible party, her legal POA and health proxy, as protector of her logins and passwords and account numbers and security questions, as initiator of all her medical communique, her scheduler of myriad appointments, and manager of anything else that arose, keeping tabs on her life was my dreaded lot. I lived in a paradox—one in which I felt obligated to offer any assistance I could, while, at the same time, resenting the bulk of it. Care is tricky like this. It’s can be a conundrum even when it’s braided with the deepest sort of love and best intentions.

I lived in a constant state of get-shit-done. And frankly, I enjoyed having a well-defined purpose. My job, in this case, was to look after mom. My marching orders were clear, even if the details of how to make it happen were not. Ironically, look after mom were my dad’s final words to me before he died.

On Christmas Day in 2022 my father was in the hospital, again, for complications with his bladder port. He was allowed one visitor at a time, so my mom and I took turns loitering in his room. “I need you to help me,” he said during my shift.

My dad had never before asked me for anything, and after more than fifty years as his son, I saw this as an opportunity to finally prove my value to him. To make him proud. His request transformed me into me as a little kid. It put me on my knees. At his mercy. I’d have done anything he asked me to do. His fingers fidgeted with the stiff hospital sheets as he followed up his statement with a more specific call to action. “I need, Tom, you to help me look after mom,” he said.

Drawing of an outreached arm found in my dad’s sketch book

For the next two years, I spent a lot of time looking inward as I adhered to my father’s request. I’ve tried and find peace in the midst of my mom’s plight. I’ve desired it mostly for her, but I’ve also learned that the only way to offer quality care is to strike a balance in where and how the care is disseminated. I’ve needed to tend to myself at least as much as I do for her. And the more I do this, the more obvious it is that loving someone else is only truly possible when that love is first directed inward.

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It’s a rare Rochester week of crystal blue skies. My mom is settled into her assisted living community and I am days away from leaving to return to my own, foreign life. I’ve brought my truck to this service station for an extensive detailing because I want to begin my long drive south in a vehicle free of accumulated road salt. I want to scrub away the frenetic energies and worries and concerns, along with the various debris—grocery receipts, parking tags, binge snack wrappers, mud and gravel—that litter the cab after a continuous state of chaotic motion.

And though a carwash isn’t generally considered self care, that’s exactly how it feels to me. It allows me to fully let go of something. And yeah, this something is small—a measly and stupid car wash—but what a relief to have someone else take charge for a change. For what seems like the first time in an eternity, I am not responsible for the outcome. Someone else has to pay attention and make sure all is tended to. This small bit of reality, this relinquishment of burden and care, is worth the small fortune the service will put me back.

“Alright, Mr. Griffen, we’re going to look after you today,” the guy says. And though I’m sure he says this to everyone, his simple words pour love into a forgotten corner of my heart. I tell him thanks, but really, I want to burst out in tears and hug him. I want to give my weight over to him, to anyone, and simply let go. My mind translates his words to, Tom, everything is going to be alright, which, in the moment, I acknowledge are also my words. And in that split second, in that flash of light and good feeling, I know without a doubt that this is true. I know things are working out as they should. This clarity resulting from the station attendant’s kind words is exactly what I need.

I hand over my keys, then exit through the front door and slowly make headway afoot down an unplowed, snowy sidewalk. Each step is a precarious near-slip, and I crack up at how many times I nearly eat shit. I order a Lyft to haul me to a cafe, and when it arrives I say, “Good morning,” to the driver. I ask him how he’s doing. He turns around, dumbfounded, and tells me I’m the first person who’s spoken to him over the last five hours. “No kidding,” I say. “How many fares have you had?” He tells me I’m his seventh ride so far. “Yeah man,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s rare for someone to treat me like a human being.” I ask his name. It’s Chad. We banter for the duration of the twenty minute ride, and upon arrival at my destination, Chad cuts the engine, gets out, and gives me a hug. “Thanks for the love,” he says, but I feel like I should be the one thanking him.

Love is what I am most afraid of. Logically I know that everyone is deserving of it, me included, but I’ve spent the majority of my adult life believing and acting otherwise. I desperately seek out opportunities for love, yet when I encounter it I keep it at arm’s length. This habitual groove has been my cycle. Find love, lose love. Repeat. All this time I’ve been afraid of what might happen if I fully gave myself over to love. I still don’t know how it would look or feel to do so, but it’s precisely how I want the remaining chapters of my life to be themed.

All the love we’ll ever need is within us already. It’s big and beautiful and messy and terrified and sometimes it gets riled up by the most off-the-wall and random things. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to cross paths with someone who triggers in us these feelings of love—someone, as in my case, that service station guy, or Chad, or the nurses and aides who selflessly care for my mom as she ages. Each of my interactions with their displays of love, brief as they may be, suddenly helps me feel my own potential in a bigger way. Each is a reminder that I am, above all else, a loving being. Someone worthy to give and receive love.

To exude love is to mirror what already exists in everyone’s hearts. Our collective purpose is to love on each other in a way that sparks this reminder. We give some of our endless supply to someone else so that they can reunite with their own source, their own abundance. Every word we say and action we make has the power to transform. Every minute we’re alive has potential to positively impact the world.

A gift of love is a gift of hope. And God knows we could all use some more of that right now.

My best favorite buddy hid this note in my backpack for me to find while hiking