I’m in My 40s and I’m Utterly Exhausted

It’s 2024, and I just turned 41, and I feel like I’m permanently stuck in a hamster wheel.

I’m a working mom of four kids reading the news daily, feeling gut-wrenched about the recent ruling in Alabama, sending women who have undergone IVF into a state of anxiety about the state of their embryos.

We’re in an election year, which means campaign rhetoric and dramatic claims about the future of our democracy run in the background with increasing urgency.  We face a constant struggle to both stay informed and also keep a healthy distance for our mental health.

I work full-time remotely, which has been an absolute blessing, but still leaves me zero time to decompress as I jump from Teams calls to wiping toddler bottoms, or from strategy decks to resetting screen time for Bluey (an absolute gem of a show for both kids and parents—if you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend).

However, the whole “return to office” movement has many of us who work remotely starting to worry that the free days we have from a commute and real clothes may be numbered. For working parents, the extra time and money saved from going into an office daily is often worth more than a higher salary or promotion.

Many of us are still recovering from the pandemic years, and also helping our children recover as well.  Reading and math scores are still recovering among elementary students, and social/emotional growth is still recovering among older kids.

We’re told to limit screen time, yet so many times we have to use it in order to complete the never-ending number of tasks piling up around the house or to keep little brothers and sisters entertained while older kids engage in all the extracurricular activities.

I have an aging mother who was just diagnosed with multiple myeloma and who suffered a heart attack within the last six months. She’s currently undergoing chemotherapy that’s working well, but she can’t be around anyone who is sick. With four kids all in school, we are a magnet for fresh viruses all the time, so our time together gets diminished.

With my mother’s and so many of my friends’ parents’ health starting to decline, questions about who will help support and how are always at the back of our minds.  The guilt that often comes along with not always being available to help is also real.

Our generation seems to be walking an ever-decreasing tightrope—a balancing act when we’re constantly evaluating what’s best for our kids, our aging parents, and our own health . . . .in the face of always-on war coverage, political debates, doomsday climate articles, and the constant barrage of gorgeously filtered social media posts that invite inevitable comparison to a handpicked view into others’ lives.

Most older millennials I know are exhausted, and frankly, it’s no wonder.  These “unprecedented times” are taking a toll, and I’m not sure there’s an end in sight.