I'm hoping to keep my introduction as short as possible, but whew. For the last decade+ I have been a single mom of a girl (now 23), a boy (now 21) and an informally "adopted" daughter (now 24) who has a 5-year-old son. I have also been primary support and care giver for my parents. My dad has had the full surgery (he waited too long for endoscopic) for gallbladder removal, three different colon cancer surgeries, and a small stroke. My mom has moderate mixed dementia, diabetes and underwent open heart surgery in December. I recently moved for a combination of job opportunity/relationship (6-8 months ago) and turned care of our parents over to my brother along with my home (next door to my parents) to my daughter and her husband. I've had many thoughts of my daugther being in an unhealthy relationship, but after my move, it all went from bad to worse. Everything has gone well with my opportunities in a new state and with my budding relationship (of about 16 months now). It's been hectic because he's of similar age range with a 13-year-old son who is having his own difficulties and a difficult relationship with his own parents and family issues. It often does feel like every 5 minutes, there is either an issue with his family or mine, which makes it hard to just be me and him. 

My daughter and her husband had agreed to check on my parents a couple times a day (at least), take care of the property including mowing etc., and pay utilities (well, $200, which is often less than the electric). It was hoped they could help with my parents and property and it'd also help them get out of the debt hole they have been in. It didn't work out. I was constantly getting calls from my dad or my brother or both and when I talked to my daughter, she had her own side of the story. After my brother said he was evicting my daughter (which I had given him power to do as a "landlord" before I left), my new boyfriend and I decided to take a visit. I've never been so heart-broken in my life! My home was just a shell. I had talked to my daughter about them redecorating some stuff, storing some of my stuff etc., but to make a long story short...I don't know where most of my things are. I had to call and my dad had to get threatening for us to have a bed to sleep in when we arrived. They had "loaned" my bed to a "friend" and well, I did get my two big screen TV's back. That's about it. We ended up having to buy my son the basics just to cook and function. Leading to...

About a week before our visit, my son (and his girlfriend) had agreed to come in, fix things and make things a little better. The good news is that so far, they are really doing great! They have been checking in with my parents more than expected, taking care of the property and working on my home to restore it to a home as they can. My mom has been not complying with wound care (from her vein site in her thigh) and my dad just had surgery to remove his toe because of a staph infection he let go. It's not really funny, but I have to kind of laugh because 6-7 months in, my brother is calling going "I'm soooo overwhelmed, I can't do this," and it's everything I had taken on for years. We do have home health/companion care in process now, hopefully, kicking in next week. I am glad of this and think it will be good for everyone.

This didnt even get me to any point in time of so much of everything that is going/has gone on, and especially up to why I was upset this morning (which was actually an email from my boyfriend's mother - who recently visited) and again, whew! I guess we have to start somewhere, so, I'm going to leave it at this introduction into the hell of my midlife crunch, to put it lightly!