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Hey everyone, welcome back to Teenage Therapy. I'm Gael. I'm Thomas. I'm Kayla. I'm Isaac.

And welcome back to essentially the first episode of the year. I hope all of you had a good New Year's Eve, a good new start to the New Year, a good New start to the New Year.

I feel like New Year's, we've talked about it a couple of episodes before, but it's always a weird holiday for me because there's a little bit of foam when that comes with it, especially since I spend it at home.

So I'm always with my parents and you see people at events, parties, raves, whatever it might be, spending it with friends and such.

As we all enter our 20s, I wonder what's going to be the last New Year that I spend with my family and not alone, which I feel is a very big step into being independent, I suppose.

I got that. I did feel phoma, but also I don't have much time with my family to begin with because of college and everything.

But I had been hit. I've been slapped in the face with reality the other day when my mom told me that, you know, I have older parents and I've always known that they were older than most, but I never made it a priority to know their ages, which is a bit odd, but also it was just me not wanting to.

I started to burden myself because then I started thinking about time and how much little time I have left. Well, my mom told me that my dad was turning 60.

I was not aware of that. I thought he was, you know, early 50s and my mom was maybe late 40s, but no, my mom's turning 50, my dad is turning 60.

That just, my heart sank when I heard that because I just thought I had a lot more time with them. Not to say that, you know, 60s or 50s old, but that means they're not going to be around when I'm a lot older.

So I talked about this with Kayla and then we talked about this for like an hour where, when do you prioritize your own life and when do you try and make the most with your parents?

And I'll let Kayla take it away from there. Yeah, I think just, and even seeing it in your parents' faces and their bodies and their mannerisms, you just realize that they're becoming older.

It's so sad because you can't do anything to stop it, obviously. And I remember during New Year's Eve 2, my dad was like, he said something long lines of like another year lost, but another year gained.

And I was like, oh, it's just, it surprised me because he doesn't really say those things. So I was like, oh no, why'd you have to say that?

But I just, I really try to savor as much time as I can with them, but it's really hard when they're working all the time.

And the days that they do have off, they don't want to be going out and about. They just want to stay home and rest, which I understand.

But it's just hard because you want to go out of your way to do elaborate things for them, plant trips and this and that, but they don't want to do it themselves. So I just feel sort of stuck in the loop really.

And so far, I just find myself appreciating just the time I have at home, whether it's just me being in the same living room as my mom.

And she's doing her thing and I'm doing mine and that's it doesn't have to be something super big, but just makes me sad because I wish I can do more for them.

But it's frustrating when they themselves don't want to do more for themselves or see more explore more, try new things.

Yeah, exactly. And as you get older too, it's harder to do those things, especially if you have health complications, which is the case with my parents, they have.

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