Stuck in the middle

I'm about to turn 37 later this month. Oh my God, that sounds so old. It's not an age I ever imagined myself actually being. Yet here I am -- closer to 40 than I am 30, almost through my childbearing years, inching ever so much terrifying closer to the word "mature." I have never had much of a problem with aging... but maybe that's because I wasn't yet aged. I'm starting to take issue with the whole process.

The worst part of all of it is that I am finding myself smack dab in the middle of two generations of maddening, obstinate, unruly people: my kids and my parents.

My kids are... my kids. You know what I am talking about. They are growing up, messily, loudly, and not without a whole lot of laundry. My parents, though, are a whole different steam train that I will confess I never saw coming when I was younger.

My family has had its share of messes and lovely dysfunction. In my early 20s, my parents fell -- hard -- off their pedestals, and the curtains came down and revealed that my "normal, average" childhood was more facade than reality. I dealt with that with some therapy and a lot of hours logging time with the Indigo Girls.

But seeing my parents as senior citizens now -- my mom is 65, my dad 64 -- changes everything. In the past year and a half, my father has collapsed four times. He still works seven days a week and has nary a hiccup in his work performance, but he drives himself into the ground otherwise, and nothing I say or do can stop him. My mom, with her own varied set of health issues, tries to prop him up. They are stubborn, and reckless, and they drive me absolutely batshit crazy. When I raise issues or ask them to take care of health issues, they tell me to step off. Then I get the hysterical midnight or 6 AM phone calls and I have to race to the ER to meet an ambulance. It's wearing on me.

I don't know what the future holds for either of them, but I am filled with dread. I want to shake them and tell them how much I love them and don't want to lose them, but it's not that easy, is it? It never is. Because we have electricity between us, charge in our air that spans the past almost 37 years -- expectations and disappointments and criticisms and sadness -- and I don't know what to say anymore. I force myself to face the fact they they will decline, whether it will be sudden or slow, and I will lose them. How do I want to spend this remaining time together? When will it be time for them to downsize? How will it all go down? And I have no idea. It makes me sad.

Part of me wishes I didn't live two miles away from them so I didn't have to live out every second of this process. Part of me knows I couldn't have it any other way.

With my children, I feel that I gain something of them every single day. With my parents, I feel a daily loss instead. Here in the middle, I just know my mid-section is softer, my knees weaker, my boobs saggier.

... my heart heavier.