Just got off a red-eye. My phone's still on EST. It's 2 AM here. Or 5 AM, wherever I was. Hard to keep track. Missed a family meeting. Again. This one was… significant. About my father. His memory issues. They're not just "issues" anymore. It's escalating. The term used was "moderate cognitive decline." Specific. Clinical. My sister, the doctor, she broke it down. Said it's beyond simple age-related forgetfulness. Said we need to consider "placement options." I was in Zurich. Pitching a new platform for risk assessment. My boss, he was thrilled. Said I "killed it." High praise from him. I felt… nothing. Just the fatigue. That dull ache behind my eyes. I got the texts from my sister. A barrage. All caps sometimes. WHERE ARE YOU. WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING. THIS IS IMPORTANT. I saw them. Read them between slides. During a bathroom break. My phone buzzed in my pocket through the entire dinner with the client. Michelin star place. Fancy. The veal was exquisite. Tasted like ash. I just kept thinking about the time difference. How impossible it was to be in two places at once. Literally. They had a family video call. My mom, my sister, my aunties. The whole diaspora committee. They sent me the link. I saw the missed call notifications. The WhatsApp messages piling up. My sister’s voice message, hushed and stressed, "We really needed you for this, Anon. Dad was asking for you." That last part. That hit. My father. He’s always been… the rock. The stoic immigrant. Never showed weakness. Now this. This degradation. And I'm not there. I’m never there. This job. It demands everything. Always on. Always moving. Is that normal? To feel this constant pull between two worlds, two sets of obligations, and just… fail at both? My parents, they came here for a better life. For *my* better life. The opportunity. The career. The consultant life. Is this what they meant? To be geographically dispersed from the one thing that truly matters? Is this success? This hollow achievement? I feel this… detachment. Like I’m observing my own life from above. Seeing the trajectory. The missed moments. The accumulating absences. My sister, she says I’m avoiding it. The difficult truth. Is that true? Is this a form of psychological defense mechanism? Or am I just… a bad son? I don't know what the appropriate affect should be. Is this weird? Anyone else feel this? Like you’re living a life someone else designed for you? And the consequences are just now… starting to catch up? My father, he looked so confused in the last photo my sister sent. A vacant stare. And I was selling futures. What kind of future is this?