We are all jugglers.

Let's say you're a mom, married, with two kids, living in a house. You have a job. Or not.

Now let's imagine you're a juggler. How many balls do you have in the air?

1) kids

2) job (or all day at home with the kids, which counts as a job)

3) husband

4) a house.

That's pretty daunting right away. You have four balls in the air at all times. If you read one of the many books on juggling, you'll know that's way too many for anyone but a pro. You should start with two (maybe even one). Work your way up.

But most of us do start with one or two. Maybe a job. We work at it a while, get good at it, and look around for something else. You pick up a second ball. A husband or wife. A boyfriend. A house. A demanding pet.

Over time, you get better at juggling the various obligations in your life, the balls, but suddenly someone offfstage tosses in an extra. Like your parents starting to go downhill and getting more dependent on you. Or a health problem. Or a wreck that totals your car. It could be anything: that extra ball tossed into the mix. You don't know how many balls you have in the air! They're everywhere!

At some point, it almost always seems to be too much. Too hard. Every minute of your time seems to be devoted to keeping all those damned balls in the air. God forbid you drop one! Let your kids go hungry or your husband/wife be mad or the boss think you're imcompetent or the house get foreclosed! It seems like you don't have a minute to yourself.

So what do you do when you hit the breaking point?

Most of us just keep juggling.

We don't always do it well, and we don't always do it gracefully -- and yes, we do sometimes drop a ball (and maybe pick it up again, maybe let it lie). We know that we signed up to do this and that the show must go on. Too many are watching us perform and depending on us to let them down. We may not end up being applauded or appreciated, but we go ahead and do our best, awkwardly and with little confidence, knowing that we were never trained to be jugglers and only start to get good at it when we're too old to put it to use, except as grandparents.

Like any true performer without a script, we improvise. Juggling is an art, not a science.