Welcome to Sharing Insights

I hope this will become an online home for sharing insights, providing support, empathy, consolation, and lighthearted moments that show our hearts are made of/for compassion and love.

Let this be a place for bringing light, fulfilling purpose, and meeting other souls on their journeys, as beauty and sorrow collide and collude.

One focus here will be on my becoming a proud member of the Sandwich Generation. I love the idea of being the juicy, chewy, crunchy, savory layers in the middle of two utilitarian slices of bread. I wonder, though, how much pressure I’ll feel when those slices press down upon me?

Soon, I’ll find out.

In addition to taking care of my 91-year-old mother, I’ll also help my younger daughter by watching her baby when she returns to work. One overwhelms me; the other excites me. They both remind me to be grateful that I’m able to help them. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I’m truly happy that my life has led me to this point of complete availability to others, rather than being engrossed in my own stuff. Oh, well. It is what it is and I’m going to focus on the good it brings, though there will be some wallowing in self-pity (which I find necessary).

As I glide through the events ahead, I anticipate that there will be both frustrations and boundless joy—storms and their rainbows—leading to aha moments. You will learn (because, of course, you will sign up for this reading-ride), I try to find humor and uncover silver linings, even when things don’t smell like roses and they test the vessel of patience I have been forming over a lifetime. Which reminds me, I constantly look for connections and overlappings, where stories seem to be part of a continuum and not separate entities. Sometimes the connections are clear. Just the other day, there was an adult underwear episode with my mother the day my pregnant daughter asked me what is diaper blowout.

Oh, yes! It’s going to be fun! And educational! My writing is for me and for you. Let my experiences help you navigate, accept, and feel less lonely in similar challenges or peer ahead to what may be coming. A source of inspiration. A light-hearted warning. A compendium of what not-to-do’s. And, surely, creative ideas to try (or be forewarned). There will be some exclamations of “Wow, she’s amazing how she handles those challenges with aplomb!” But also, the very basic, “If she can do it, so can I!”

Lest you think that I only exist in these roles of love and service, know that there is more to me, which is why I have the mental and emotional capacity to be here for them.

Recently, I moved from Florida to Oregon (bringing my mother along before she even realized what was happening, flip flops flying) to live near younger daughter. And older daughter is a 2-hour flight away, hurray! Now that I need to create community in a new place, I’m discovering that I’m much more sociable than I thought I was. I’m a retired high school English teacher who lived and taught in Northern Virginia for many years. I’m Jewish and lived in Israel in my 20s and 30s; my ties to both are foundational and will be discussed here, especially critical to me since the tragic events of October 7th.

For those of you interested in what came before this moment, you can read my blog, Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman, which I’ve been writing since 2008. It might be TMI (my divorce was my original focus), but there’s nothing wrong with that!

Welcome to Sharing Insights!

---