Sandwich

Oh my God it has been a long week. I love my mother but she is a full-time job, and I already have a full-time job. I’m up in the middle of the night checking on her, and hoping she’ll sleep past 8 in the morning to give me time to get ready for work. It’s like having a toddler again. And the TV! My gosh, I’m losing my mind with Lifetime channel stolen baby movies and Desperate Housewives reruns. And if I hear another TikTok video, I’m going to throw her phone in the nearest trashcan. I’m exhausted, and every bone in my body hurts. Still, I like having her here, and I’ll miss her when she goes home tomorrow. 

*****

It's Monday morning, and we're in the car on our way to take her home. Thankfully my husband was able to take the day off so I'm sitting in the backseat. I don't mind driving but I mind not driving even less. 

We had a cookout for Mother's Day. My mom and my husband's family don't spend much time together but they all get along. I was able to persuade my mom to sit outside with everyone, and she had a good time watching my niece and nephew run around and chatting with my mother in law. Despite my mother in law's dodgy English, the two of them always manage to understand each other. It was a lovely afternoon but exhausting. In a Venn diagram of the people at my house yesterday, I'd be in the middle where all of the circles overlap. That is an intense place to be. 

I thought about working for a bit later when we get back home but I don’t think I’ll have the energy. I've been on duty 24/7 for the last nine days, and I need a little break. Whatever people want or need this evening, they can get for themselves. The kitchen is closed for today, and maybe for the rest of the week. 

*****

It’s funny how when your kids move out of the house, you know that they’re out in the world taking all kinds of crazy risks and doing all kinds of crazy things at all hours of the day and night - but they’re out of the house, so you don’t see or hear them coming and going. When they’re not under my roof, I can pretend that they’re in for the evening by 11 and in bed by midnight. 

When they are home for the summer, however, I know when they go out and when they come home - or when they don’t. Let’s say we’re all cozy at home at 10 pm, and then one or the other of them checks his phone and jumps up abruptly and says that he’s “just going out for a quick hour or so.” It might very well be a quick hour or so. Or it might be a very late night, and I’ll lie awake worrying about car crashes and armed robberies and everything else from garden variety tomfoolery to straight-up disasters. And that is why, exhausted though I was on Monday night, I still couldn’t sleep until I heard the car in the driveway and then the door opening and then the kid who ran out the door at 10 coming in and going to bed at 1:30 AM. I mean, it’s nice to be able to tell everyone to feed themselves for a few days, but I sometimes miss the days when I didn’t have to wonder where my kids were at midnight. 

*****

My mother needs help and will need more as she gets older. My children are young adults and although they don’t need hands-on care or supervision, they’re also not quite independent. They’ll eventually be fully on their own, and then they’ll need help with their own children. And I’m looking forward to this. I’ve thought for a long time that taking care of other people is the most important thing in life. Now I think it might be the only thing in life. It’s good to be in the middle of all of this, and to be capable of managing it, even imperfectly. It’s good to be in the intersection of those Venn diagram circles. But that cooking embargo is still in effect, so my family will still need to feed themselves for the next few days. That’s why they call it the sandwich generation, right?