At 8pm on Monday, August 1, 2022, I was wrapping up another item on my “Team Barb” checklist.

Packing up Mom’s apartment was just another piece of the mission I had that summer to take over the management of her life.

This was the trip where I had to go through all of her wares and figure out what to do with it.

I had to go through all of her hardware, cookware, bakeware, drinkware, flatware, silverware, Tupperware, footwear, legwear, torso-wear, furniture-ware, office-ware, software, malware, file-ware, knickknackery-ware, livingroom-ware, and all of the other stuff-ware making decisions on their destiny.

Some of those decisions were well thought out, others not so much.

The problem was that Mom wasn’t there to help, and had involuntarily ceded those decisions to me. 

A thousand miles away, Mom was in my spare bedroom and fully engaged in a mental and physical shutdown.

This was the point where the weight of everything I was trying to do really hit me.

Mom was experiencing cognitive decline and I had stepped in to take care of her.

I was managing her personal affairs.

I was trying to get her to eat more than just ice cream.

I was trying to get her medical care.

I was getting her moved out of her apartment.

I was managing the last year of her life.

After spending a few days at her apartment in Colorado Springs attending to her past, I was on my way back home to San Antonio to attend to her future.

At 8pm on that Monday night, I found myself in the Dallas Fort Worth airport waiting for a connecting flight to get me back home.

Sitting there at the gate, waiting to board, I encountered a fellow passenger.  She never spoke to me directly, but in her own way, she told me that I needed to delegate the items I mistakenly thought I could take care of.

You may be wondering how a perfect stranger told me in an indirect manner that I was taking on too much responsibility.

In essence, she just showed me the absurdity of what it looks like to wear too many hats.

How did I find myself in this position in the first place?

How did I handle the subtle message I received at DFW while waiting for a connecting flight?

The answers to these questions and many more are all in my new book, The Outback Diaries.

The eBook version is available now, and the print version is coming soon.

Click the picture below to get your copy.