Total relief is the way I feel most days. After five years and uncounted hours of stressful thought, I finally closed my eyes and cut the last ties to a prolonged caregiving fiasco by shutting down the last physical reminder of it — a mini-storage full of junk. It’s gone now — the bills, the emails, the reminders, the pressure of the stuff. The whole Gordian Knot experience has been snipped free and is now roly poly pell mell tumble bumble in the rearview mirror, getting smaller and less cataclysmic by the minute. Gah, such sweet relief. It’s done. It’s gone. It is freaking over.

Total relief also is the way I feel about both my parents being gone, too, though the relief I feel about their absence is washed in sadness and regret and nostalgia. I miss them. I love them and am grateful to have known them as my parents. But in a weird way, I am glad we don’t have to look toward their future through the lens of anxiety, illness or impairment. I feel fortunate to not face those kinds of fears anymore. Call me a psycho, but I’m relieved.

I look around now and see peers with parents who are going through some really challenging, super devastating stuff. They are making tough financial, medical and legal decisions — they’re playing the dreaded “What If?” game like their lives depend on it (which it does, btw!) and they’re exploring all the realms of senior care, living and management that will make any sane person’s head spin 50 million different directions at once. They’re wondering what to do with all that stuff in the house and garage — in, the GD mini storage. If you’re a Gen Xer, this is your story! And if it isn’t yet, I promise it will be one day soon.

And here I sit, strangely relieved. I still have two parents in-law rocking life like they’re 18 and Life to Go, but somehow they feel like “someone else’s” responsibility at the end of the day. Because they are actually. Mine are now — gone. Poof. Relief? I’m not even sure that’s the right word. Maybe it’s psycho.