I’ve been driving with Lyft for almost 10 years now. When I originally started, it was for supplemental income. I live in the D.C. area in Maryland and drive a 40-foot bus every day for Montgomery County Transportation, but I couldn’t drive as much as I needed to, financially. So on the weekends, if I wanted to do something extra for myself, I’d drive with Lyft for a few hours just to get a few dollars, some crab money. I’m a crab-aholic. I got a PhD in crabology. I’m going to have seafood, period. It’s who I am.

And then we got to the pandemic. And that forever changed my dynamic. I instantly became the caregiver for my mother, my mother-in-law, and my father who is now deceased. And it was a lot. 

My mother had major back surgery, and I literally had to move in with her. She could not go to the bathroom on her own. She could barely walk on her own. I had to cook for her, clean, everything. My mother-in-law was going blind — she was going to two or three doctors’ appointments and eye tests a week. And my father became ill, just as my mother needed a hip and knee replacement. 

I’m one of those people that feels like unless it’s medically necessary, my family’s not going in a nursing home. I’m not doing it. I’m not going to be worried about how you’re treating my mother. You know what I mean? And it was a lot. 

So I ended up taking some time off work. Lyft pretty much became my primary income. If my dad needed bed wipes, my mother needed paper towels, toilet paper, whatever it was, I would get up at five, six o’clock in the morning and go get that stuff. While I’m already out, I’d say, “Let me go ahead and do some Lyft rides.” That was the only way I really had money to do anything for myself.

I knew that if I got Covid, I probably would be OK. But I knew that they wouldn’t. It was crazy. I would come home, take off all my clothes, get in the shower, wipe down with these antiseptic wipes, and then go drop off the stuff. I would leave it at my mother’s door. If I had to go into my father’s, I would literally put the whole hazmat suit on and go, do whatever it was that he needed, come back home, undress again, get back in the shower, get dressed again, wipe down everything. 

That was my life for two whole years.

It has changed, I think, almost everything about me. When you’re younger, you’re kind of reckless. You feel like you can drink the whole damn bottle of liquor. I still will have a glass, but am I going to drink the whole bottle now? Hell no. 

But more so than anything, it’s changed my way of thinking. You can see somebody today, and they’re great, and two weeks later, they could have a massive stroke, and they can’t even talk. That’s real. And it does make you grateful for life.

So everything I say I want to do, I’m going to do it. I plan on going to Dubai next year. I want to jump out of a plane there. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, so I’m going to do it. When I get to my parents’ age, I’ll have done everything I wanted to do. No regrets.