tending sandwich making has been more than a full time job lately.
Being in the kitchen has amde it challenging to post a blog. In it, in the trenches am I.
The elder has required a great deal of care. Her anxiety and fears seem to get the best of her, but there is positive movement and progress .
This is called Better Living through Chemistry.
There are times when we need help; from a hug from another, from pharmaceuticals, from rest.
As a sandwich lady, my days are more than full and not my own. Putting me to my test of walking my talk with regard to my practice and teaching of Yoga.
Staying physically active, focusing on relaxing breaths and finding peace as I need to also transcends to my mother who is unable to create these places for herself. She is trying.
She is trying.
My "lower" part of my sandwich just turned 11 yesterday. As a child with special needs, he pulls me in other directions. some days, the two of them have me so in the middle and it is all I can do not to scream.
and I have.
And I am reminded by my teens to CHILL OUT!
so the yoga breath returns and I am reminded over and over again.
This too shall pass.
it is process not perfection.

hot pockets

it is hot.
they say when it gets too hot, get out of the kitchen.
the kitchen is way too big, the boundaries are endless.the edges of my pockets lean and bend and I am falling out, there are veggies and fillings(thoughts & feelings) everywhere.
how do we deal with infinite?

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle gives me comfort, to a small degree.
...that anything we study changes by the very fact that we are looking at it!
so, if we can effect change by looking, we can effect change by being.
humans being.
human being.
it is hard being a human, being.
to do is to be- Plato
to be is to do- Socrates
do be do be do.-Frank Sinatra.

it is a new day.
every moment, new. A promise, a hope, dream or demand.
Demand!
My mother demands I come over. My mother demands that I help her, she is scared. She is so scared.
To be able to provide her, give her, help her find her peace has been a nearly insurmountable task.
She is so much like a defiant toddler. Asking for help, then refusing it every step along the way.
Patience is called for. Patience has worn thin.
Body wisdom calls for play and laughter, yet parent cannot access. Her fear is quicksand.

Other people's parents

sharing.
would things be different,and how much so, if we switched parents?
Between friends.

I had a interesting conversation with a friend who has a mother the same age as mine, her mom having similar issues of anxiety.
each of us is going crazy with the stresses of their stress.we talked about the dynamics and roles we all play within family structures and tossed around the idea of me dealing with her mom, and vice verso.

what does this tell us?
can we create different dynamic with our own flesh and blood?
perhaps, with detachment, and it takes patience, willingness; to name a few.
i want to hear from you sandwich scouts, sandwich ladies, the paths and the processes by which you find easier connections with your parents.
we all know we "let our hair down at home". so, too it seems, is what occurs with our parents.Yet, they can create an altogether er different image at their doctor's appointments, etc.
Hmmm.

I am reminded of a favorite story I used to share with my yoga students:
today I walk down a street and I see a hole and I fall in.
the next day I walk down the same street, I see the hole, I fall in.
the next day I walk down the same street, I walk around the hole.
the next day I walk down a different street.

let's all learn to walk around the holes and down different streets.
Roja

Taffy Pull

Thanks to MamaDaisy for her insight about taffy pull as a description of our bring torn in many directions.
Also, thanks to author Carol O'DEll with regard to her description of our "place" in life.
At a wonderful graduation celebration for an 18 year old friend last night , Mamadaisy spoke of the lack of joy of raising a parent. How very different it is than raising children.
Joyful. Or lack thereof. I do hope she will reappear here to articulate her feelings.
I think as we all write and share, we share so many similar feelings and thoughts.

Just as the very, very humid and hot air has cleared in this neck of the woods (southern Connecticut), so, too is a window of respite for this caregiver.
For the moment, and that is really all we have, the physical needs of my job are yielding to the phone call, bank coordination, applications, aide hiring, etc, etc.
Physical, no, Exhausting, yes!!
We need to chillax, to quote my 14 year old.
In the moment, unfolding into the here and now.

we are everywhere-the sandwich board

You are a woman.
You are every color, you are every religion, you are every career.
we meet in locker rooms, at the store, at our temples of worship.
we share our place: sandwiched between raising our families, making a living, helping our aging parents. perhaps it is your mother, or your father or both. perhaps they live nearby or you have to schlep to far reaches to assist them.
it is an inevitable place we now dwell in.
Sacred, consuming, revealing, emotional.
The term "SANDWICH GENERATION" is a term for those who read about it.For those of us living it, it carries great responsibility and depth, and new challenges to our lives.
I wish each and every one of you who is in between your upper and lower crust: great patience and good health.
We must carry on!

Greetings sandwich fillings.
well, the sandwich of the week started out with fresh bread, fresh veggies and ingredients: by the day's end all was not as it appeared to be.
Is it ever?
The upper crust began to decay rapidly and all hell or should I say all the spread oozed out and down the sides of my reality sandwich!!

Bring in recruits I say. Can elder Sib's who are not in the daily trenches truly be of value? I can hope and believe. They trust in me and my capabilities ( this could be their first mistake:))so why not some reciprocity?
Stay tuned.
I am open to being surprised and altering my consciousness. Not with mind altering drugs, necessarily, although I will keep my options open.an open mind. now there's an idea.
Mamadaisy talked about loss of freedom. This is huge.
Not just for our parents, but for our lives.
HUGE!

It is Monday.
Beginning of a new week, G-d only knows what tasks need to be done, but rest assured, there will be many!
My mother is coming along, and with this progress comes many decisions about her future.
I feel similarly to the time a little over a year ago, helping my son decide where he would go to college.What's the best place, location, etc, etc.
Now, for my 86 year old mother, I need to create a path that is best for her in her remaining days.
Daunting!I came across the following in a small pamphlet from an organization called LifeLights: Help for Wholeness and Healing.
I hope it can help those of you who are also "sandwich spreads"; or taffy as MamaDaisy wrote in a previous posting.

Caretaker's Prayer by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

Dear G-d: give me the strength to face this day
To deal with the tension, anxiety and dizzying confusion of my life.
Teach me to focus, to prioritize, to see with clarity.
G-d of patience, teach me patience.
Forgiving G-d, teach me to forgive.
Bless me wit the courage to face my parent's illness and pain, amidst my own fears.
Touch me with your spiritual light, your love, your wisdom
So that I can continue my task tomorrow, knowing that You are by my side.

Monday brings a new day of the workweek, and with it new possibilities, questions, the unasked and unsaid needs.
I am enjoying this temporary quiet, before the next storm, because it IS coming.
Roja Chutzpah- Your sandwich lady

Good day.
better day.better moment.
there is something about having your parent ease out of what seems like rapid descension into the vortex of near death and then spring back to a better existence.
the stress of immediate need shifts into daily stresses of inane phone calls.
I am clearly unenlightened and asking G-d or the powers outside and inside myself for strength. I mean, after all, now that she is progressing, shouldn't I be sighing with relief and dancing with exhilaration?
No less exhausted am i, however.
Phone calls, coordination of care, Sib's, family friends. the phone calls and stimulus are enough to drive me to drink
and I am .
me, who gets totally zoned on 2 oz . of Merlot is now experiencing alcohol as a drug. very interesting phenomenon, which I am sure most adults have related to for quite some time now. so, I am a late bloomer.
not sure it is worth the calories. bears a close resemblance to the feeling I get with deep meditation and much dancing.
going the speed of the body. I must remember to go the speed of my body or I will crash and burn and then , sandwich friends, we are not good to anyone!!

upper or lower crust

for those of you in the sandwich generation, let's take this , metaphor a bit farther.
I know that , as of late, dealing with parent in hospital , and then finding short term rehab, I am one crusty kid.
In other words, fried, exhausted, spent, full.
I am lucky enough to have had a dear friend rescue me out of my paralysis from too much to do, after 9 days of coordinating parents needs.
perhaps, in the words of one of my children, we should eat sandwiches.
All I know is, I feel like I am a very oozing jam, spread between my mother and my children.
Sharing coping mechanisms is what I want to hear, as well as how you spend your time when you are not doing "your job" as caregiver.
maybe like that hot taffy, we just need to let it all go!
Roja chutzpah-your sandwich lady

sandwich ladies prologue

Good morning to all.
This is memorial day, a day upon which we remember people who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
Although different in so many ways, I launch this site today because of a sacrifice many of us are making in our lives. We may do it with ease, with love, with resentment, with stress, with laughter; but however we do it, we do it.
We are boomers, we are sandwiched in the middle of taking care of our young children and taking care of our aging parents.
we are sandwich ladies. yes, there are men, too. But statistically, it is the women who bear the brunt of this awesome task.

I hope this blogspot will become a support haven for all of you who are a sandwich lady,spreading yourself between two layers of life that demand your attention.
We must continue to take care of ourselves, not unlike the suggestion on most airlines:
if you are traveling with small children, put your oxygen masks on first.
So it is with each of us: get oxygenated for your demands.
Good luck!
Jenn-your sandwich lady