Trakk 08: Sandwich Generation Reality: When You Could Be Your Coworker's Mom
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One day I was chatting with the new girl at work and she mentions her brother just turned 25. Making conversation, I ask, "Oh, is he your younger brother?"
"Yeah," she says, "I'm 27."
And that's when it happened.
My brain immediately went full calculator mode. Like, involuntary math. The kind of mental arithmetic you can't stop once it starts.
27... I'm 48... that's 21 years... I was 21 when she was born... I could literally be her mother.
Not like the other young coworkers where there's a generational gap but we're still in the same general life phase. This was different. This was "I was a fully formed adult human going to bars and making actual life decisions when you entered the world" different.
I've always worked with people of different ages.
When I started in the business world, I was the baby hanging out with 60-year-olds who taught me everything. Now I'm the oldest in my department, which honestly doesn't bother me because I'm not a fan of the alternative.
But this hit different.
The other girls in the office are younger, sure, but I couldn't have technically called any of them my child. The new girl? The new girl could have been my kid. Like, literally. The math doesn't lie.
Standing there, I had this weird moment where I realized I've crossed some invisible line into a whole new level of midlife. I'm not just older, I'm generationally
older. I remember a world before her world began.
The strangest part?
It didn't make me feel old. It made me feel... experienced? Protective? Like I wanted to tell her things like "invest in your 401k NOW" and "that guy who doesn't text back isn't worth your mental energy" and "please wear sunscreen, trust me on this one."