Sometimes I Feel Like a Piece of Bologna

A Smooshed Gen Sandwicher

So, here I am. I’ve wanted to start this blog for months, but I must confess that I feel like a child atop the high dive board. Ready, ready, almost ready, to jump. But not yet. I know that once I jump, I’ll realize it isn’t that hard. But today, as I stand on the edge of the board, I wonder what I’ll say and will anyone care.

And yet, I know that the experiences I’m experiencing and the feelings I'm feeling are common to most of my generation. Increasingly as I talk with other women, and a few men, we’re feeling squeezed and confused, overwhelmed and frustrated. We are parents who are also parenting our parents. We're part of what has become known as the Sandwich Generation. Boomers, smooshed between our kids and our parents. I keep saying, I feel like a piece of bologna!

If you’re of my generation, you probably remember the lunches we packed for school. Two slices of white bread, a smear of mayo, and a piece or two of bologna. Sometimes, but not always, a leaf of iceberg. No tomatoes—they’d leak through and make the bread soggy. And the purpose of all of this? To be consumed. Usually as quickly as possible so we could go out and play. As I’ve thought about being part of the Sandwich Generation, I so often feel like that naked piece of bologna, smooshed.

And thus, this blog. I want to share my thoughts and hear yours on how we manage the complexities of two roles that we’ve never done before and don’t know how to do. Just as each stage of parenting and each child bring new challenges and new requirement, so it is with the issue of eldercare. How do we provide what our parents need? And unlike our children who offer the hope of maturing, becoming less needy, our parents are moving in the opposite direction. The prognosis isn’t good. They will simply become more needy. Will we be consumed in the process?

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my story and you can tell me yours.