{"id":50884,"date":"2025-09-29T19:33:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T00:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=50884"},"modified":"2025-10-03T19:33:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T00:33:26","slug":"i-think-im-entering-that-stage-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=50884","title":{"rendered":"I think I\u2019m entering that stage of life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-50885 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/endgame_quote.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/endgame_quote.jpg 560w, http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/endgame_quote-300x183.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Actually, there\u2019s no thinking that I\u2019m entering it, the reality is that I\u2019ve already entered it, it\u2019s just that there\u2019s a part of me that has been kind of in denial about it, and the reality is that we\u2019re like at, phase 2 or 3 of it now instead of just entering it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">I\u2019m talking about the point in our lives where a parent(s) begin to lose their independence, and for lack of a better term, we\u2019re entering the end game phase of life.\u00a0 It\u2019s been going on with my dad for the better part of the last two years, with an increase of health ailments and incidents, loss of balance and falls, and an increase of medications, doctor appointments as well as just general concern for well-being from my sister and I.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">My dad is getting up there in age, and it\u2019s a tough pill to swallow that with every single medical incident, he\u2019s getting closer and closer to the exit, than rebounding back to the independent and capable hard-working dad that\u2019s been in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Naturally, this is nothing out of the ordinary for most kids who care about their parents, and I\u2019ve bore witness already to many close confidants in my life to have gone through this stage of life themselves.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been to more funerals over the years than I care to admit, but at the same time, such seems to be one of those rites of passage that simply exists on the passage of time, and if we\u2019re being honest here, it\u2019s probably only going to increase as time progresses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">However, it\u2019s different in the sense that it\u2019s now in progress with my own parent now, seeing him gradually deteriorating from the effects of Father Time, he who is undefeated and undefeatable.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just a sense of sadness and melancholy at it being my turn, as much it\u2019s a whole lot of increasing stress at working with my sister to make sure that he\u2019s not being preyed upon by predatory service providers, from home repairs, realtors, to any crook\u00a0 out there hoping to take advantage of vulnerable seniors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">It&#8217;s frustrating, because my sister and I are constantly skating around this line where my dad is struggling with losing his independence and facing his own mortality and making a lot of questionable decisions independently, but then there are times in which the man won\u2019t make a decision to save his life, and is waiting on my sister or I to make them for him, before he inevitably doesn\u2019t like it and then protests it.\u00a0 It\u2019s like dealing with my 4-year old sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">In his perfect world, he\u2019s able to tie up all loose ends, sell his home and seamlessly transition into some sort of senior\/assisted living to where he can live out the remainder of his life comfortably.\u00a0 Obviously, seldom is life that accommodating, so in my perfect world, my sister and I are able to get him out of his house where he\u2019s one really bad slip trip or fall from dying discreetly, into a good senior\/assisted living facility, and then we can close up shop on our own, retroactively.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that we\u2019re dealing with his abrupt changes of mind and quick trigger when it comes to deviating from any sort of plans that have already put into motion, mostly on account of his all-too Korean tendency to listen to friends and peers above his own children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Honestly, I\u2019m trying to get my dad down to Georgia, to get a clean slate and live out the remainder of his life down here closer to me.\u00a0 I have a place in mind that I think would be very ideal, and unlike the money-driven cesspool that Northern Virginia is, rent is not asset-based flexible (read: flexes based on how much liquidity you have), and my dad would probably be able to comfortably sustain his living conditions on his SSI and retirement income without bleeding out financially.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">But the clock is definitely ticking, in that we have to move expediently to get him out of isolated living, and into a facility where he can at least get daily wellness checks to make sure that he doesn\u2019t fall and there\u2019s nobody remotely close to help out with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">All the same though, I feel as if I\u2019m in end game, and I hope to make the best of the time that I do have left with my dad, and bringing him down to Georgia would be a very positive initial step.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actually, there\u2019s no thinking that I\u2019m entering it, the reality is that I\u2019ve already entered it, it\u2019s just that there\u2019s a part of me that has been kind of in denial about it, and the reality is that we\u2019re like at, phase 2 or 3 of it now instead of just entering it. I\u2019m talking &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=50884\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I think I\u2019m entering that stage of life<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,140,100,137,71,41,83],"class_list":["post-50884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-comics","tag-comparison","tag-death","tag-famiry","tag-movies","tag-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50886,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50884\/revisions\/50886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}