Make Mine A Guilty Jerk On Wheat

Whoever named my age group the sandwich generation knew what they were talking about.


I am feeling SO sandwiched by my responsibilities of parent AND child this week and I'm not even the one taking all the brunt of the situation!  My poor sister is more like a panini this week since she is the one being pressed on the grill while I sit here 550 miles away moaning about how I want to help my mom AND take care of my child.  My sweet sis is the one running around taking my mom to the ER, cooking soup for her, or running errands for our mom after taking the day off of work.   


My mom fell on Sunday and broke her left elbow and her right wrist.  She's having surgery tomorrow on the elbow but in the meantime she has been in the ER twice this week and in the hospital overnight one night.  I had decided on Tuesday night when I heard about the 2nd ER trip that I would hop on a plane and go up there for a week and take some of the pressure off of my aunts and my sister who are doing everything for my mom.

But. 


 But living where I live you can never just "hop" on a plane and go anywhere.  To make the one hour flight to Chicago I end up spending more than a half day driving in a car to and from airports.  I could actually drive up there and be half way there at that point.


Oh, and my husband is a hail adjuster for crops and we had a MAJOR hail storm in various parts of our state over the past weekend.  So his phone has been ringing constantly to set up appointments with people to look at their wheat.  


So then I looked at my daughter's school calendar for next week (the week I wanted to spend taking care of my mom) and saw that she has 2 track meets and a school concert.  I can't really leave her alone all week to do that when daddy will be who knows where.


But then there is my loyal sister who does everything for my mom when she needs something because she lives close by.  Granted, my mom is very independent and normally needs very little "help".  But right now, she could use a little hand.  Sorry, no pun intended.


And suddenly my little situation looks easy.  My sister teaches at one school, her youngest goes to daycare in one town, her middle daughter goes to school closer to their home and their oldest is in high school in yet another town where my brother in law also works at yet another school.  Talk about sandwiched!!!


Of course, no one lives in a vacuum and we both have other responsibilities on top of our immediate families to which we need to attend.  


Loving people is messy.  Withdrawing from life and ignoring the needs of others is not an option.  But I'm having trouble not feeling awfully bad for not being able to divide myself in two and being in both places at once.


Right this moment, this here blog is my venting outlet.  What sandwich are you this week?