Get help when you can, remember to fill your cup before others, and try to make peace with the fact that you will have very little control over their older years.

I was a caretaker to my grandmother for a while and now am approaching a similar stage with my mother. This is pretty cynical, but at a certain point everything’s a downward slope. Sometimes gentle, sometimes steep, and punctuated by good days but the overall course doesn’t change. Accepting how little control I have and acknowledging the downward slope has helped in some ways. It’s an absolutely brutal journey, but it’s like a rip current. You can fight and swim against it, or you can swim parallel to shore. You might end up further out in the end but you’ll at least have the energy to make it back.