I’ve been told all my life about how I’d get a good education, good job, support my family, and retire if I do everything right. Fast forward a couple decades and realize I’ve always had the thought of “well one day I’ll retire” and now know I probably can’t retire for my health. My family and I are all immunocompromised and disabled. Those of us who still work are only doing so because we need the health insurance for our treatments. There’s no cures for us and the treatments only help so much. I just kind of thought oh I’ll get through this and then life will be better when I retire. I just had that idea shattered as I realized no, I can’t have our health treated and maintain a shelter and other needs without a steady job and insurance. The stories from my family of how they came to the US from other countries hoping for a better future and them being so proud I could be the first to get a university degree. I just feel like such a failure knowing we did so much and we’re just Sisyphus waring our bodies down and spending our time and energy just trying to push the damned boulder up the mountain, knowing it’s just there to crush us. I don’t know what I wanted when I wrote this but I needed to write it out. Thank you if you made it this far. I hope there’s always some brightness in your present. Don’t ignore what you have now by chasing a “one day”.