I just… I don’t even know what to feel anymore. It’s 2 AM and I can’t sleep because the care facility called. My mother. Again. A minor thing, a rash they needed approval for a new cream, but it just… it sent me spiraling. Why? Why did I feel this insane, crushing inadequacy? Like I’m failing her. I’m three states away, running my own business, which by the way, is doing great – finally – after years of scraping by, of almost losing everything multiple times. And they call me, the daughter, and I’m supposed to be there, immediately, like I can just drop everything and drive seven hours to look at a prescription for antifungal cream. My older sister lives twenty minutes away but god forbid they bother HER. She's got her kids, her husband, her perfect little life. I’m the single one, the one with “more time.” The one who “chose” this life. My mother, she never even *wanted* me to start a business. Always “get a good job, a stable job, marry a good man, have children.” That’s all she ever talked about. Always comparing me to my cousins back home, the ones with their doctor husbands and big houses, their kids in private schools. What would they think? What would *she* think? Now she’s in assisted living, which I pay for, mostly. My sister chips in a little, for appearances. And every time the phone rings, it’s like a punch to the gut. Not because it’s bad news, necessarily, but because it reminds me of everything I’m not. Everything I *should* be, according to them. I’m almost 32, no husband, no kids, just… my business. Which is successful! Objectively! But it feels like a failure when that phone rings. It’s this weird intergenerational guilt, I think. Or maybe just plain old filial obligation amplified by cultural expectations. My mother worked herself to the bone so I could have opportunities she never did, and here I am, using those opportunities to… open a vintage clothing store? It’s not curing cancer, I know. But I love it. And it supports me. But then the phone rings, and it’s always “your mother needs this,” or “your mother said that,” and suddenly I’m eight years old again, being told I’m not smart enough, not pretty enough, not *enough*. And I hate it. I hate that I still feel this way. I don't get it. I’m a grown woman. What is wrong with me that I can’t just handle a simple phone call without feeling like an absolute fraud… a complete and utter disappointment.