Juggling Octogenarians and Millennials, business and family: a woman's guide to living in 2017.

Today, the last day of 2016, started the same as many holiday days (understand that a working day usually means I must work before I can run errands.) I took my late to wake son to work, and rang my mother to see if she needed anything at the shops. Yes please. Can you ring me back though, so I can write a list? she replied. Okay, I will call once I am at the shops.

Needless to say she left the phone off the hook so I drove to her house and collected the list, and then drove back to the shops. Now dont feel too sorry for me, these are not great distances, but its irritating none-the-less.

Standing in front of the bread rolls in the supermarket, the thought went through my head- shall I buy her, my octogenarian mother a roll, and go make her a bacon roll, or shall I just take them home for my family.

Its not like I dont enjoy my time with my mum, most of the time I do...she can be very annoying, but we all can... So, I buy one for her as well as for my husband and daughter, and decide I will wait and see what happens.

Inevitably, I find myself an hour later, munching on a roll across the table from my mother as she delightedly tucked into hers. The words do you want to come to lunch tomorrow? were out of my mouth before I had time to process them.

Balanced living?

Over the last few days I have been reading a great deal, and writing too for that matter, about how to live with balance. It is not an easy thing balance. Life must go on, work must go on. Family life, fitness plans, diets and the endless juggle of responsibility. When there are wars and rumours of wars it is sometimes hard to know what is worth bothering with.

As an English woman I am watching with, not a little trepidation, the political situation being played out in the USA. But the thing is, am I, are you going to let whoever is in power, and however they rule, change how we live?

I know that we all are affected to some degree by political decisions but we can still make choices, but we can still choose to make goals and move towards them.

To be an octogenarian, like my mother is to often live afraid, especially when you are alone. But even the younger generation the millennials, are prone to anxiety. Anxiety about whether they will afford a house, anxiety about work and success. They are anxious about finding the right person to love and trust. Anxious about how successful they will be. Anxious about how popular they are, how many likes they have on Facebook and Instagram.

When someone has lived with war rather than just the rumour of war, you would think that it would make them tough, hardened to lifes difficulties, but this is often not the case. Everyone gets old, and often as they age they become invisible others, including the younger generation, yet they have so much to share with them.

My mother thinks that she has been left behind in the technological dust that has been kicked up, as we supposedly progress in society. But she will not suffer in the same way as Millennials, who measure who they are on the number of likes they get for a picture or post. Who now get their kicks through the addictive thrills of their on line presence. My mother will measure her success on how much time she gets to share with those she loves.

My goals for this year will reflect what my mother and I know, namely that success at work and in relationships is developed in the fire of face to face encounters. So now, as we face a new political climate across the water, one that pitches an outgoing President against an incoming one, we must make some decisions on how we will live a full but balanced life.

Here are my goals:

• Create a space at the start of the day for prayer and meditation.

• Spend time with those you love: millennials and Octogenarians!

• Read...a lot.

• Form new business relationships face to face.

• Laugh and be healthy.

• Be mindful; when washing up, just wash up, rather than thinking about something else that needs doing.

• Put down my phone more often, especially when with my mother.

• Leave phone downstairs at night buy an alarm clock ( already ordered and winging its way here!)

• Be thankful.

• And love...love a lot!

My mothers goals may look like this:

• Use the shower so that the carer will not see me naked.

• Try and use the microwave and oven.

• Take up every offer of a trip out.

• Go to the chiropodist regularly.

• Enjoy moments with my daughter, rather than thinking she will be leaving later.

• Think about what I can do rather than what I cant.

• And laugh, laugh a lot with those daughters who love me so much.

Published with the permission of a mother who has always believed in and championed her children.

susiefj@stay-the-path.org

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