Sometimes I feel like my role in life is the same as the guy in the gray jumpsuit at the circus who walks behind the elephants with a shovel and trash can. I no longer have my own path on the journey of life. I now run behind my children on their separate but still close paths, cleaning up the mess and clearing the path so they can move forward. As their needs increased I lost all interests and activities of my own. Without the children’s needs I would be completely lost and adrift. I can accept all of that. They are the future and I am the past. What I didn’t realize until it was gone, was that I have no identity to anyone else either. Nobody cares what I want or need and if I dare to voice anything other than agreement as everyone else tells me what to do, I am gently, then forcefully pushed back into submission. Everyone would be quite pleased if I was replaced by a Stepford look-alike who didn’t ever disagree or have an opinion. Instead of asking what I would like, everyone decides what is best for me. I would be sad about it all, but someone would just tell me I should feel otherwise.