“Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running, too.” – Jackson Browne, 1977

Another one of Jackson Browne’s trademark songs sums up life lately. I’ve been shuttling back and forth between Socal and KY, and on that end  between Louisville and eastern KY (Ashland). Lots of miles, lots of time to think, lots of stress in what’s going on and a ton of work to do. Running on empty.

Basically, we’re moving my dad and stepmom into assisted living facilities. This is one of those points in life that most everyone will experience, so this isn’t exactly a unique situation. You can intellectually understand that it’s a tough time for all, but until you’ve lived through it you can’t appreciate the difficulty.

We have several complications in this transition:

• Trying to assist from long distance (2400 miles, in my case)
• Parents who aren’t ready financially for the transition
• Decades of junk to deal with in the house being vacated
• One parent with problematic health and behavior

All three of my brothers are involved and helping, and I’m sure thankful for that. We’ve made all the hard decisions, and now it’s just going through the steps to make it happen. With any luck at all in ten days my dad and stepmom will be in a safe, clean, healthy and constantly-monitored place, and the rest of the family can breath a little. Fingers crossed…

(Jackson Browne photo taken by me at the Actor’s Gang in Los Angeles, 2019. Front row seats!)