So, as I understand it, we are called "the sandwich generation", we Boomers. That can look so many different ways. It can be a bunch of baloney (technically spelled bologna... then why do we say baloney?) sandwiches or in my case, it can be peanut butter and jelly.
We are busy taking care of, seeing about, fussing over our aging parents (who most of the time are in denial that they are aging or that they need any help) and then we are also looking out for, worrying about and fussing over our children still at home... and even those who aren't anymore (who also believe that they are fine, that we are outdated and certainly don't need any help from us). Thus the sandwich. We ... stuck in the middle with our own needs, wants, dreams, seemingly to be eternally put on hold.
As I said, though, my sandwich is peanut butter and jelly. The peanut butter side is my folks, Dad 78, Mom 73. Dad always said that peanut butter was the staff of life and there is no one on earth who can make a better piece of peanut butter toast than my mom. Seems like a little thing, yet to a little girl sitting in front of the TV watching Captain Kangaroo, it was heaven... creamy luscious heaven. Peanut butter has just the right amount of salt. Hmmm, Dad is an old sailor after all and the two of them have plenty of saltiness, that's for sure. With health issues, hospital scares and times when we thought it was over, they have weathered it all with a dose of wry humor and sassiness that I do believe I have inherited.
And then there is the jelly. That soft sweetness that seems to slip out of the sandwich when you least expect it. My kids. Especially the last one. She is nearly 22, the last of the five and can be every bit as sweet or as tart as a spoonful of raspberry jam. You would think since the rest had left home I'd stop worrying. OK, well I don't worry as much, yet when can you not be concerned? They are my seedlings, yes? And isn't it my job to see to it that they land jelly-side-up? Oh, it isn't? I guess I didn't get that memo yet. Letting go is a process. Fortunately no one has given me a deadline!
Now I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a bit differently. Peanut butter side, nice and creamy (or nutty... which definitely applies!), jelly side sweet, tart and slippery... what else does this sandwich need? Me! I'm the one in the middle after all! And what am I if not salty, crunchy, and definitely at times crumbling. So in go the potato chips, right between the peanut butter and jelly. What a satisfying sandwich that is, a little bit of everything. Now, mind you, peanut butter and jelly alone is good... shades of the past when I was little and the jelly melting into the Wonder bread... yet with the potato chips it becomes my own creation, good to the last crunch!
So perhaps the sandwich thing is ok for all of us, as long as we be sure there is a piece of us, our own life, our own dreams, our own FUN, right in the middle of it all flavoring the other two sides in a way that would never have been there had it not been for us!
