Ive spent my entire life from teen to age 50 taking care of everyone else. Teen years, helping my parents take care of my grandfather. I spent four years at college studying what people told me I should only to realize in my final semester that there was no way I could do the job. Worked minimum wage for too long before I found a good job and could begin my own life. Only for my father to get sick suddenly. Years of taking care of him. A year after we lost him, we lost my mother's close friend and inherited her husband and his health issues. Then it was just my mother and I. A few good years, then she showed signs of dementia leading to the long slow decline to the end. I worked that good job until I had to leave to care for her, ending a career two years before retirement. Sold the house we co-owned to pay for my mom's care facility and found an apartment close to it. Then she passed just before the house closing.

Now I'm in my 50s and feel cast adrift. No anchor, no purpose, and trying to figure out who I am. Dealing with physical health issues that I ignored for far too long. Things I've always dreamed of doing aren't physically possible or are out of reach financially. The few friends I thought I had, disappeared when I stopped working. Family and family friends are all older. And neighbors treat me like I'm 90 years old.

Welcome to my post-midlife crisis, because God don't leave me here another 50 years.