Sometimes I imagine I have nothing to do but listen. Listen to how we make our way from here to there, from one life phase into the next. Slowly and methodically, or rapid fire and unexpected. More likely, some combination of both. What we saw coming, and what we missed. What registered days or weeks later, and what we felt in our bones long before the ground shifted under our feet.

These are your stories of caring. Caring for everyone you are connected to — a partner, children, parents, siblings, friends, a career, a home, a community. And somewhere in the middle of this endless Mode Switching, a self: the one who runs or cooks, reads or cycles, gardens, paints, renovates, spectates or walks, alone — just to think. So much of it brings joy, and it is that same so much that leaves us gasping. The Panini keeps pressing.

So I listen, and I share. Your stories are a gift. They are intimate and powerful, authentic and honest, and they are what I love most about this work — the connection between you and me, and between you and each other.

I am asking you to share yours, and to ask your friends and your family to do the same. We are here, in the Panini Generation: children arriving later, parents living longer, and a woman in the middle caring in both directions inside the same decade, and onward from there.