I am wiped out almost all of the time now.
Part of it is having a five-year-old. But if I’m honest with myself, most of it is the emotional weight of constantly caring for everyone around me while trying to hold myself together too.
Just because you carry it well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.
Over the last year, I’ve found myself fully planted in what people call “the sandwich generation”—stuck in the middle between raising a child, supporting aging parents, navigating my husband’s chronic health issues, maintaining a demanding career, and trying to keep some version of myself intact in the process.
And the truth is: I don’t think anyone fully prepares you for how relentless it feels.
Last April, my aunt underwent hip surgery and unexpectedly needed far more support afterward than anyone anticipated. The day before her surgery, my husband ended up in the ER with a kidney stone.
At the same time, my daughter had a school event the next morning, and my stepdaughter was in Florida with her mom preparing to drive back to North Carolina.
Everything collided at once.
When my stepdaughter and her mom offered to drive through the night to help, I accepted—something that was surprisingly difficult for me to do. Asking for help has never come naturally to me.
Before dawn, they arrived exhausted from the drive, and I immediately shifted into execution mode.
I had created shared notes with instructions for school drop-off, hair routines, lunches, carpool details, event logistics—everything I could think of to reduce friction for everyone else. Clothes were laid out. Lunch packed. Checklists made.
My stepdaughter later thanked me for being so organized.
What she probably didn’t realize was that the organization was survival.
That next morning, I drove across town in silence to bring my aunt to the hospital for her surgery, careful not to let my own stress spill onto her. Once she was taken back for surgery, I rushed back across town to another hospital to check on my husband.
Good news: they found the kidney stone.
Bad news: surgery was now needed.
So I kept moving.
Back to my aunt’s hospital room. Back home. Back to coordinating care. Back to work emails and responsibilities in between it all.
When my aunt was discharged, she refused outside help despite clearly needing it. So naturally, the responsibility fell to me—groceries, bathing assistance, appointments, cleaning, organizing.
And I did it.
Because that’s what capable people do.
They absorb.
They adapt.
They figure it out.
But eventually, I started drowning under the weight of being everyone’s contingency plan.
One of my soccer teammates called and told me she was taking my aunt to an appointment so I wouldn’t have to.
It was such a small gesture on paper.
But when you’re carrying too much, the people who remove even one decision from your plate feel like they’re saving your life.
About a month later, I flew to Long Island to help care for my dad ahead of his heart surgery.
Then my mom landed in the ER a week later.
Then again several months later.
And then again this year—this time with renal failure.
At the exact same time, I had just transitioned from contract work to full-time employment while simultaneously winding down my consulting business. Everything professionally already felt uncertain and emotionally loaded.
Then came another wave.
As my mother was being wheeled back for surgery, my phone started exploding with messages about layoffs happening across the company.
Just a week earlier, there had already been announcements about sweeping workplace changes and return-to-office mandates.
It felt like life had turned into a constant state of emotional whiplash.
And through all of it, I kept working.
From hospital rooms.
From airport terminals.
From airplane seats flying back and forth between North Carolina and New York.
My managers were compassionate and supportive, but I still struggled to step away because I knew my team was small and I didn’t want my work becoming someone else’s burden.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it?
That I can handle everything.
That I’ve become so good at functioning under pressure that people assume I’m fine.
That somewhere along the way, competence became a trap.
My husband is significantly older than me and has always been transparent about his health struggles. I knew that when we got married, and I meant every word of “in sickness and in health.”
I still do.
But life rarely spaces hardship out in convenient, manageable waves.
Instead, everything seems to happen at once.
At the same time I’m trying to support aging parents and navigate chronic illness within my marriage, I’m also raising a little girl who deserves a version of me that isn’t constantly exhausted.
And that part hurts the most.
Because I love my daughter so much it feels unbearable sometimes.
I wanted to savor these years more slowly. I wanted more presence. More margin. More emotional energy left at the end of the day.
Instead, too often, I feel like I’m sprinting through her childhood while trying to keep everyone else afloat too.
I’ve gained weight. I’m chronically stressed. My nervous system feels permanently stuck in survival mode.
And the hardest part is that there’s no real solution.
The kind of support many of us need doesn’t truly exist.
We need flexibility.
Financial breathing room.
Family closer by.
Work cultures that acknowledge caregiving is labor.
Time to recover without feeling like everything will collapse if we stop moving.
But for so many people—especially women—life becomes an endless exercise in endurance.
And still, we keep going.
Because the people we love need us.
Because there often isn’t another option.
Because when you’re the reliable one, the strong one, the organized one, the capable one . . . you learn how to carry impossible amounts of weight without letting it show.
At least not publicly.
So you say your prayers.
You lock the f**k in.
And you keep moving.
What resonated with you?