A small voice

It's common to spend time at this age reflecting on the past and contemplating what's left of the future. Perhaps you're looking back at achievements, planning a few more steps along a career path, paying off a mortgage and topping up the pension. Perhaps you're thinking about what you and your significant other will do once you can retire- projects to make the house nicer, adventures to go on, ways of celebrating those big anniversaries.

I don't get to do any of those things as I have no career and a pension that is hardly worth anything. My job pays so little that retirement isn't an option- I need to die in the next 15-20 years really. I have no house and there will be no adventures or holidays or anniversaries together to celebrate. Looking back I see that where I am now is because I've spent almost all my life trying to do right by everyone else, putting other people first because what they were doing or what they needed was more important than me.

Women in particular can find themselves caught between the responsibilities for their children and those for parents who are now ageing, frail, ill or dying. That's where I am now- having to put what others need first. I don't begrudge supporting my children- they need what they need in order to be able to leave home and follow their own paths, and as a parent it's your job to ensure they can do that. How can I not support my dad whilst my mum is slowly dying? No one should have to go through that alone so it's a weekly 500 mile round trip on top of everything else.

I am trying to accept that there will be no time for me- that the choices I made in the past have led me to here. But somewhere inside there's a small voice raging at the waste of me- the potential that was never fulfilled, the love that was rejected. Running a long way doesn't prove anything but it's all I can do to let a bit of that voice free, except that I'm not even sure I can do that now. The time I do have to train I'm just so tired, so demoralised, that it becomes another battle to fight.

The last couple of months have seen me visibly age: there's a bunch of new wrinkles and deeper worry lines than there were at the start of summer, and there are many more white hairs. But despite looking so old, the small voice is still young and still raging to live.