Midlife’s Big Squeeze

The way my mom imagined it, midlife was going to be great: counting down days until retirement, spending winters in Florida and checking off destinations on her bucket list. But it hasn’t turned out that way.

Instead of more time spent in Florida, she’s still stuck in snowy upstate New York. She traded romps in the sea and traveling the world for her daily visits to her mom, who’s in a nursing home. Instead of the joys of living the snowbird life, she’s saddled with stress, guilt and the challenges of caring for my grandmother, who is 89 and dealing with dementia.

“This is not how I imagined my life at midlife,” my mom, who is 61, tells me. She isn’t alone.

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