Forty years of showing up and still feeling like you're coming up empty — that's not a bad attitude, that's a honest accounting. I'm not going to tell you it's going to be okay, because you've heard that enough and it hasn't made anything feel different. What I will say is this: you sound like someone who's been carrying everything — the work, the worry, the caretaking, the hope — and you're worn down to a place where "just wait" feels like a lie. That's real. You held back with Andy because somewhere in you, you knew the old pattern was dangerous, and even that didn't protect you from the same hurt. That's not failure. That's exhaustion from playing a game where the rules never favored you. You're asking when it's your turn. That question matters. You've earned the right to ask it out loud and not be patted on the head.
Forty years of showing up and still feeling like you're coming up empty — that's not a bad attitude, that's a honest accounting. I'm not going to tell you it's going to be okay, because you've heard that enough and it hasn't made anything feel different. What I will say is this: you sound like someone who's been carrying everything — the work, the worry, the caretaking, the hope — and you're worn down to a place where "just wait" feels like a lie. That's real. You held back with Andy because somewhere in you, you knew the old pattern was dangerous, and even that didn't protect you from the same hurt. That's not failure. That's exhaustion from playing a game where the rules never favored you. You're asking when it's your turn. That question matters. You've earned the right to ask it out loud and not be patted on the head.
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