"Sandwich" Generation Daughter & Mom

I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just start with this morning.

I woke up around 5 a.m. like I always do now. Not because I’m well-rested, but because it’s the only quiet part of the day. Before anyone needs anything from me.

But it never stays quiet for long.

By the time I got downstairs, my dad was already up. He was standing in the hallway again, kind of just… wandering. Looking for something, but not really sure what. Some mornings he thinks he has to go to work. Other mornings he’s trying to “go home.”

Today he looked at me and asked, “Do I know you?”

And honestly… that one still gets me. Even though I know it’s coming.

I told him I’m his daughter and tried to just keep him calm and moving toward the kitchen.

And right then my girls came running out of their room—5 and 3 years old—already arguing about a stuffed animal. So it went from zero to chaos in about 10 seconds.

That’s kind of how the whole day goes now. No warm-up. Just… everything at once.

Breakfast is a blur. I’m cutting pancakes for the kids, reminding my dad where he is, and trying to stop a meltdown over a “broken banana” (apparently that’s a thing now).

My dad kept trying to leave the house. He said he had to get to work. I told him it’s Saturday and he just got frustrated, like I was the one not making sense.

That part is hard to explain to people. He’s so sure of his version of things. You can’t really argue with it—you just kind of redirect and hope it passes.

By late morning I already felt drained, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

The kids were doing their thing—fighting, playing, crying, then laughing five minutes later. And my dad was pacing again, asking when he could “head out.”

I just keep bouncing between everyone. It’s like being pulled in three directions all day and never really finishing one thought before the next thing happens.

But then there was this one moment in the afternoon that stuck with me.

Everything was actually quiet for like 10 minutes. The girls were watching TV together, and my dad was sitting in his chair by the window. No one needed anything. It almost felt normal.

I sat down next to him, and he just looked over and said, “You’ve always taken care of people.”

And I don’t know why, but that hit me harder than all the confusion stuff.

Because in that moment, it felt like he saw me clearly again.

Evening is always the hardest part because I’m just tired by then. Baths, dinner, bedtime… all of it takes forever.

My dad gets more confused as the day goes on, so I’m repeating things a lot more. And the kids are overtired, so everything is either loud or emotional.

By the time they’re finally asleep, the house is quiet, but I’m not really “done.”

I still feel like I’m listening for something—him getting up, or needing something, or just not knowing where he is in the house.

People tell me I’m strong a lot. I never really know what to say to that.

Most days it doesn’t feel like strength. It just feels like… showing up. Even when I’m tired. Even when I don’t have the patience I wish I had.

Anyway, that was today.

And I’ll do it all again tomorrow.