Cruising For The Sandwich Generation

A sandwich, where you’ve got some filling between 2 pieces of bread, is an easy-to-eat portable meal. It’s also the advised way to give feedback (compliment, way to improve, compliment), a way to think about fiberglass work (epoxy, glass fiber, epoxy), and, most applicable to us right now, a description of generations (our kids, us, our parents).

Going cruising before our parents really need us to be with them on a very consistent basis is a choice we’re making. We both feel strongly that we’d like to be there if we’re needed, and I suppose that if grandchildren come along eventually (NOT READY TO BE GRANDPARENTS YET, Bee and Julian, if you read this!) we’d want to make sure they know who we are somehow. Might life be easier if we decided to work longer? Maybe. Nothing is guaranteed, though, except the fact that nobody gets out of this life thing alive. Let’s take life while we still have it.

As I read articles that delineate the “sandwich generation” as caring for young children while simultaneously caring for aging parents, I think maybe we’re not quite in that mix. Our kids are in college, seemingly happy and learning and challenging themselves as is every parent’s dream. They’re taking proactive steps to being independent people. We’re LOVING watching who they are becoming. Our parents, both mine and Jeremy’s mom, are still completely able to live their lives on their own terms. They are setting a fabulous example for us as they age joyfully. Still, it can feel squishy. Where will the kids go for vacation? What about hosting holidays for everyone? We’re used to being a hub of sorts; this will change at least in some way.

Helping my parents move into a new place.

I’ve been extremely lucky in the flexibility offered by the jobs I’m doing now, which can be done remotely or in spurts of in-person presentations. Jeremy too can work remotely, which made working in Vermont all summer possible. When we realized that I was no longer bound by a school calendar, it opened up a lot for us.

This means enjoying a tour of the Capitol with Julian, who’s interning at the Senate Intelligence Committee this semester. It means being able to grab Bee for dinner when I’m on the way to help Mom and Dad move from their home of 20 years into a retirement community in Middlebury. It means being able to say yes to a lot.

Sandwiches have sometimes an undeserved bad rap. The filling can be bland, boring, an excuse for mediocrity. We’re choosing to see our sandwich existence, between active parenting and care taking, between conventional land life and wherever we land when cruising is done, as the unexpected deliciousness between 2 pretty great pieces of homemade artisan bread.