"Smile, they're looking you."

"Fix your hair, don't let people know you were running late this morning."

"Make sure you call so-and-so today, even though you always call them first."

"Don't lash out at people. That's out of character for you."

"Don't cry. Don't cry. Do. Not. Cry."

Those are my daily thoughts. I'm supposed to be this well, put together girl with her whole life planned when in reality...life sucks.

You're already struggling to pay bills because you're in the middle class, so you don't get the benefits of the lower class and most certainly don't get the benefits of the upper class. You can't do things that you want to on the weekends because you don't have money. You have to deal with a dementia patient, so the courts won't let you access your money that the patient owes you anyway.

When you have to take out loan after loan out to pay for someone's care because there's no one else you can count on to help you, even if you're family and blood. When nobody goes to visit your sick relative in the facility since you work 24/7 and live an hour away because of an old vendetta they can't let go of. When people constantly ask how someone is, but don't bother to go see them or call.

When you literally watched your grandfather take his last breath as he looked at the picture of his daughter in the room of the house he built and held her hand until he passed on. When you watch dementia take over the person who you once recognized as your grandmother, now she's a vegetable who can't even remember her own name. When you have to sit and pack up all of the things you remember as doing as a kid with them and the emotions hitting you hard. When you have to let the house that your mother grew up in go because you can't afford it anymore.

When there's nobody to call because they don't know how it feels to struggle and they won't listen. When you have to sacrifice your schooling to alleviate some of the costs running into your single-parent household. When you sit and stare at your parent wondering where dinner is going to come from or if they'll even be enough breakfast for everyone.

"OK, you had your breakdown. Chill out."

"Wipe your face before anyone sees."

"People are coming. Smile."

Life sucks.

But I'm OK. We're OK.

We always make a way to be OK.