I'm almost 30, but I was doing better financially at age 21. I made the best career move for my health, and I'm not ashamed.

Courtesy of the author

It has become a bleak ritual. I speak, first, to my mother, who tells me about her week and the deteriorating state of our aging relatives. She passes the phone to my father, and we, too, catch up and maybe chat about football. Then, inevitably, comes the lull in the conversation, the dead air on the line, the intake of breath before the question is posed.