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# The Existential Menace
- URL: https://fessup.mymidnight.blog/the-existential-menace/
- Published: 2026-05-18T16:19:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-07T16:11:11.000Z
- Description: When My Mom Asked Me, “Now What?”
- Author: Jerry Fess
- Tags: ocd, existential, existential dread, wellness, mental health, mom, what now, meaning of life, Newsletter, #Migrated-1791389245739, #Import 2026-10-07 11:10

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Recently my mother was in the hospital for dehydration and some other health issues. They were going to keep her overnight for observation.

I was sitting there with her while nurses moved around the room preparing things. Undoing her IV. Adjusting the bed. That strange hospital choreography where everyone seems busy while time itself feels suspended.

And then she looked at me and asked:

*“Now, what do I think about?”*

Not casually.

Not rhetorically.

She genuinely didn’t know.

And I froze.

Because how do you answer a question like that for someone else?

How do you tell another human being what to think about when they are 86 years old and suddenly confronting the shrinking of their world?

Before I could really respond, the nurse came in and interrupted us because they were moving her.

In some ways I was relieved.

Because I didn’t know what to say.

She’s doing much better now. Back in her apartment. Recovering well. The crisis passed.

But the question stayed behind.

*“Now, what do I think about?”*

I think part of what makes the question so frightening is that it sounds simple until you realize it really isn’t.

It’s not about boredom.

It’s about meaning.

My mother has always had an active mind. An obsessive-compulsive mind that loops and circles and searches for something to land on. And now, at 86, after losing pieces of the life she once had, she’s trying to figure out where to place her attention, her energy, her thoughts.

What do you think about when the future feels smaller?

When your body limits you?

When you can no longer do many of the things that once gave your life structure and identity?

I always try to answer practically.

I tell her:

“Think about your friends.”  
“Think about bingo.”  
“Think about activities coming up.”  
“Think about getting stronger.”

And those things matter. They do.

Small routines and social connection become lifelines as people age.

But underneath her question, I think there is something larger that neither of us fully knows how to answer.

What makes it even stranger is that this wasn’t the first time she asked me something like this.

A long while back, when she was in the hospital after having a stroke, I remember getting ready to leave after visiting her. And as I stood there saying goodbye, she looked at me and quietly asked:

*“Now what?”*

At the time, I tried to answer the best I could. Think about healing. Think about getting stronger. Think about the next step.

But I realize now both questions were connected.

*“Now what?”* 
*“What do I think about?”*

Both are really asking the same thing.

How do you continue being a person when life becomes smaller than it once was?

And if I’m honest, I ask myself versions of the same question now too.

I’m 54, and life is different than it was in my youth. There are things I can no longer do easily. Parts of myself I miss. Dreams that changed shape. Limitations I never expected to negotiate this early.

So sometimes I quietly ask myself:

Now what?

What gives life meaning now?  
Who am I if I can no longer be who I once was?

And maybe that’s why her question unsettled me so deeply.

Because I realized she wasn’t asking something unique to old age.

She was asking a profoundly human question.

Everybody asks it eventually.

Some people ask it after retirement.  
Some after illness.  
Some after divorce.  
Some after losing a dream.  
Some after realizing youth is not coming back.

*“Now what?”*

And finally, I told her the truth.

I said:

*“You’re not alone in asking that question, Mom. I ask myself the same thing sometimes too. Everybody does. Nobody knows.”*

And the moment I said it, I watched relief come over her face.

You could literally see her body relax.

For a moment, the fear loosened its grip on her because she realized she wasn’t uniquely broken or lost.

That question she thought isolated her was actually connecting her to everyone else.

To me.  
To aging people everywhere.  
To younger people secretly carrying the same fears.  
To anyone who has ever sat quietly wondering what life is supposed to look like now that it no longer resembles what it once was.

We spend so much time looking for answers, as if the right words could somehow reverse the shrinking of a world.

But they can’t.

So to answer her question — what now? — I offer the only truth I have left:

*I don’t know.*

Comfort does not come from solving the mystery.

It comes from realizing we are all sitting inside it together.

![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/65dd440b-1847-4872-8ca4-213706424a66_1536x1024-jpeg.jpg)

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