Somewhere around the third time you moved the eye doctor for your mother, you stopped noticing that the appointment was supposed to be yours. Her pharmacy pickup got a reminder on your phone. Your own annual checkup got a shrug and a note to "do it later." That is the slide, and it almost never announces itself.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
The split week gives Mom's row and the kids' row a place on the page. It rarely gives yours one. So when the week gets tight, your own needs are the first things to be moved, shortened, or quietly dropped, because nobody else is going to ask about them.
Count your row
Open your calendar and look at the last four weeks. Count the entries with your name on them that are not work, not school, and not Mom's. Include the things that are just for you, like a haircut, a walk, a dentist visit, or a lunch with a friend. If the number is close to zero, that is the first thing to notice, and it is more useful than any feeling you have about being tired.
Then list the appointments you have moved more than once. A rescheduled errand is normal. A rescheduled checkup that has moved three times is a pattern. Write down the date it was first supposed to happen, because that date is the one you will want to remember when you finally book it.
Notice the small signals
Most people who are running on empty do not say they are running on empty. They say things like "I'll eat when I sit down," and then the sitting down never comes. Look for these in your own week: lunch eaten standing at the sink, the same two errands you keep forgetting, a habit of saying yes to Mom before you have checked the car, or sleep that you keep trading away for one more task. None of these alone means much. Together, across a few weeks, they are the early shape of a week that has no room left in it for you.
Ask one person who sees you regularly, a sibling, your partner, or a friend from the pickup line, what they have noticed. Ask what they have seen, not whether you are fine. People who love you usually have a better read on the slide than you do, because they are not inside the calendar.
Put your own row on the page
Give yourself a third row, labelled with your name, and treat it the way you treat the other two. Book one thing into it this week. Make it the appointment you have been moving, not a vague plan to rest. When a collision happens, mark it in lemon the way you would for Mom's row, and decide in advance which kind of collision can move your appointment and which cannot. Most people discover that the rule they set for themselves is far stricter than the rule they use for everyone else, and that is worth knowing.
If the tiredness, the skipped meals, or the sense that everything is too much has been going on for a while, bring it to your own doctor. That conversation is about you, and it belongs with the person who knows your health, not with a list in a notebook.
When the afternoon help is the answer
Sometimes the slide is not a discipline problem. It is a time problem. If the afternoon window is the reason your own appointments keep moving, non-medical help at home can take some of the errands and check-ins off your plate, and give you back a block of time you can keep. Look at whether the block will repeat on the same days each week, because a one-time favor will not stop the slide. The local options are described on the Local Help in St. Louis page, and the Start Here reading order is a good place to see how this fits with the rest of the site.
You are allowed to be on the calendar too. Your row is the one nobody asks about, which is exactly why it needs a label.