The vibrating phone was almost swallowed by the sterile hum of the hospital corridor, the sound muffled by the stack of discharge papers tucked awkwardly under my arm. I was attempting to schedule the initial physical therapy sessions for my father-the complex, multi-layered logistics required post-op-while simultaneously seeing the blinking notification on my wrist from my 15-year-old demanding I use Venmo for $41 *immediately* because of some sudden, apocalyptic gas station emergency.
It’s an administrative nightmare layered on top of an emotional one, isn’t it? That feeling of being less like a person and more like a human logistics service for the entire family tree. We are the central node, the human API, for everyone else’s immediate, critical needs, and the sheer weight of this responsibility is what breaks people.
The Human API
We are treated as the central node, the API that routes everyone else’s immediate, critical needs. This language is too polite; it avoids the corrosive, internalized element of distributing finite self across infinite demands.
We talk about the “sandwich generation” using comfortable, antiseptic terms: stress, logistical challenges, burnout. We treat it like a complicated scheduling conflict that could be fixed with a better digital calendar or 41 more hours in the week. But that language is too polite, too clean. It avoids the corrosive, deeply internalized element that festers when you spend every waking hour distributing your finite self










