I’m no surfer, and I live about thirty-five miles from the Pacific Ocean … but I appreciate and respect the true surf culture, and the related language and mentality therein … maybe thus the idea came to me recently … a concept that seems to fit my life … “living in the swell.”

Don’t think that’s even a surf term, but given it’s reference to the ocean swell, to that natural reality here in Earth well, it seems like this concept is somehow related.

As I’ve shared before, I’m a single dad with three kids. I share custody with the kids’ mom, 50/50 split; that seems like it should leave plenty of solo adult time to be on top of most things, possible to keep things pretty well together. Ha.

Most days I’m chasing neutral . When I have the kids that’s certainly the case; when they’re not here, I’m trying to get things done I don’t attend to when they’re at my house.

I’m also the primary guardian for my elderly mom. She lives in a board and care home close by, so I’m not the primary “caregiver”, per se. I am however responsible for all her affairs, and the first phone call when something comes up. That’s my lot, and I’m happy to be in the role, feel it’s my duty and my responsibility … but that doesn’t make it any easier sometimes.

They might call me one of the Sandwich Generation. Anyway, all this together leaves me feeling like I live in the swell, as it were.

I’m not really in control of all the dynamics of my life on a macro scale. I feel like I live in the swell, responding to the overwhelming natural power of the lives around me, making the best of it.

Mind you, I feel like a make the best of it pretty well most of the time; better than half the time anyway. I also have moments when the scale and scope the swell is beyond me, and I just do my best to keep my head above water.

Main point of living in the swell is just that, I think: Make the most of the ebbs and flows, and keep your head above water.