I confess that sometimes I wonder if my entire existence has been one long, drawn-out act of proxy living. Not in a sad way, not entirely. It’s just that for as long as I can remember, my identity has been inextricably linked to someone else’s needs. First, a particularly spirited younger sibling, then my own children, and now, in what feels like the grand finale, my aging father. My days are meticulously organized around his appointments, his meals, his medications – a carefully orchestrated ballet of caregiving that leaves very little room for, well, *me*. And honestly, most days I don't even notice. I just do. It’s what we do, isn’t it? The endless chain of humans looking out for other humans, sometimes to the point of forgetting to look in the mirror. But then something cracks the carefully constructed facade. Like watching my dad after his prostate surgery, bewildered and frail, a man who once seemed utterly indestructible. He called me yesterday, all groggy and sweet, and said he wished I was there. And I’m thousands of miles away, stuck in this desert heat with my husband deployed, doing the whole military spouse thing, which is its own special brand of proxy living. I wanted to just drop everything, book a flight, and be there to tuck him in, even though he's a grown man who's tucked *me* in a million times. We spend our lives building these sturdy walls around our emotions, telling ourselves we’re strong, independent, capable. And then a simple phone call from a sick parent just — poof. The wall crumbles. And you’re left with this raw, aching feeling, this primal need to protect the people who once protected you. It's ridiculous, really, this fierce maternal instinct that kicks in when your parent is vulnerable. It’s not even just about him, though it feels entirely about him in the moment. It’s about the absurdity of it all. We spend our youth desperate to escape the orbit of our parents, only to find ourselves circling back, closer than ever, when they need us most. And you think you've come to terms with aging, with mortality, with the inevitable march of time, but then you see the tremor in their hand, the slight slur in their speech, and you realize you haven’t come to terms with a damn thing. You're just as terrified and helpless as you were when you were five and they were giants. So yeah, I’m confessing that I’m 67 years old and still want my daddy, which is kind of pathetic, but also, isn’t that just humanity in a nutshell? We never truly grow out of needing, we just learn to bury it under layers of responsibility and forced adulthood. And sometimes, it all just comes roaring back. What a mess.