Wolves

There's a point in everyone's life where your parents are no longer the perfect beings that you look up to. It used to be "momma knows best" or " I know pops will have my back!"

Now you're witnessing as your mom is losing her memory and your dad just cussed out this poor restaurant worker for a simple mistake. Now you feel responsible for them. Now it's on you to take care of them.

But wait, these are my parents, they're supposed to take care of me, not the other way around. Wtf is going on?

I remember I had a high school teacher who had a nervous breakdown and told us how he was struggling. He said there's a point in your life in your 30's where you're stuck in between three generations. You're 30 years old, competing with your peers. You want a better job, better car, better relationship than them. You also have parents who are aging and you have to take care of them. On top of all of this, you're a brand new parent and you have to figure out how the fuck to raise a baby. Add all of this together and ain't no way BUT to feel absolutely FUCKED.

Well fuck you Mr. Hardin, that shit doesn't wait til your 30's. I've got a friend whose dad attempted suicide. Cops busted down his door, sent him to the hospital, the whole 9. Meanwhile, my friend was working thousands of miles away, unable to come help the situation. Thank God everything worked out in the end, but how the fuck are we supposed to deal with something like that?

I have another friend who's working hard to support him and his parents. He's working hundreds of miles away and the only way to help his dad with his mentally ill mom is an occasional phone call and visit every couple of months. He talked to me about it and we were able to get both of his parents on Medi-Cal and CalFresh. His dad thanked him and I because his mother was able to get the medical attention she needed and now his dad has been getting the best sleep he's gotten in years. Thank God everything worked out in the end, but again, how the fuck are we supposed to deal with something like that?

I have a post buried somewhere deep in this blog(too lazy to find and link to it) talmbout how maturity doesn't come until you're not ready for it. That absolutely applies here. Me and my friends are in our mid 20's, struggling to get our acts together. Meanwhile, life is hitting us hard and we gotta deal with taking care of our parents. Our parents used to be a symbol of strength, safety, and togetherness. Now we can't look at our parents without seeing a shell of their former selves.

No longer does my mom's advice scare me because I'm scared of how she'll react if I don't follow what she says. Her soon to be 55 year old soul just doesnt elicit the same fear in me that it used to. She used to yell at me and it would physically shake me. She probably stands like 5 foot nothing, but she always commanded this fear and respect from me.

Now that I'm getting older my mom isn't passing off this facade that she's this all wonderful person. She's allowing me to see the more human side of her, and its scary. Now I see why my parents were so quick to make me respect my grandparents. I'll always remember taking my grandpa to his cancer radiation treatments, and my dad would always tell the nurses and doctors, "be careful, he's the only one I got left."

What's cool is that through all of this, I've grown an even deeper appreciation for every little thing I get to do with my family. Any time we take a walk together, any time we get to take time out of our busy schedules to have dinner together, any time we get to spend together period, I'm appreciating it more and more.

My mom's been a manager for years and years and years now. I just had dinner with her at the mall(Genghis Khan all day erryday) and told her about my struggles as a trainer at my job. She was able to listen to me and give me great advice on how to proceed. I'm soooo appreciative of the fact that even though I'm old and grown and the list of things she's able to school me on is getting smaller and smaller, we were able to connect and have another mother-son conversation that I'll always remember.

When was the point that you realized your dad wasn't as strong and sharp as he used to be? My dad died when I was 11, so I never got to see much of that, but I think it's an interesting question to pose to people my age.