An issue we are fac­ing right now is the whole quag­mire and emo­tional roller coaster sur­round­ing aging par­ents.  For­tu­nately, my par­ents, who are 88 years old, are still in fairly good health and in their own home.  They need some care, but for the most part their health and men­tal capac­ity is still allow­ing them to be independent.

On the other hand, my husband’s par­ents are not doing as well.  I’ve watched his fam­ily try to accept the loss of his mother whose delight­ful mind and per­son­al­ity has suc­cumbed to Alzheimer’s and is now in a care facil­ity.  I’ve watched his dad try to adjust to being “home alone.”  I’ve watched the sib­lings try to adjust to their mom no longer being the heart of the fam­ily.  It has been a painful and rocky road.

The role rever­sal of par­ent and child is dif­fi­cult, emo­tion­ally charged and full of pot­holes and mis­steps.  Work­ing through the paper­work and under­stand­ing the gov­ern­ment pro­grams adds another layer of work and stress.

I watched my mother and dad mas­ter the role rever­sal with dig­nity and grace as they took care of my Grand­mother who lived to be 101. Sure there were bumps. Sure there was frus­tra­tion at times.  But what I saw was the love they always shared with my Grandma.   Some­times we don’t appre­ci­ate the gifts we’ve been given or the lessons taught by exam­ple until much later.

Mom and Dad this lit­tle post is a trib­ute to you.  Thank you!

As I think about strength­en­ing the har­mony in my life (and in help­ing oth­ers) one of the first things that comes to mind is the mul­ti­ple “hats” we all wear.

In my life, I wear the hat of spouse, mother, grand­mother (of eight and it is the absolute blast), daugh­ter, sis­ter, busi­ness owner, friend, gar­dener, Great Dane and cat care­giver, bird feeder, vol­un­teer and per­pet­ual learner.  Try­ing to fill the role of each of these can be a daunt­ing task.  Main­tain­ing bal­ance across all of them is dif­fi­cult if not impossible.

The Jug­gling Act

If I try to bal­ance all of them, I find myself becom­ing mediocre at some.  Medi­oc­rity across all the roles does not work for me.   It only causes more stress.  What I’ve learned is there is an ebb and flow to the level of my involve­ment in all these roles.  When I have to focus on cer­tain roles, I  remind myself it is OK to put oth­ers “hats” on the shelf for a bit.  (Obvi­ously, you can­not do this with your chil­dren, although you may like to.)  I’ve also learned that there are ways that I can incor­po­rate just a bit of time in my day for cer­tain roles like life-long learner.  I’ve learned to make use of drive time to lis­ten to audio tapes of things that inter­est me.  My car has a trav­el­ing library of audio tapes that I have to move when I put on my “grandma hat” and trade car seats for audio tapes.  I fill my iPod with edu­ca­tional pro­grams, sub­lim­i­nal tapes and med­i­ta­tion pro­grams and lis­ten at night while falling asleep or while I’m trav­el­ing on a air­plane, or walk­ing the dog.

What “hats” do you wear?.  How do you man­age your “hats?’  What tips or tricks have you learned that could help oth­ers?  Please share your thoughts so we all can learn.