As I face 50, I look at my worth. Income, retirement, home, savings, life insurance, college funds for my son... Personal relationships, my worth I am a commodity. Valued for my utilitarian nature, or enabler, I am not worth much to folks as just "me" Not friends, and definitely not family. Yet 50 is hitting me Half a century gone and I am taking stock in things Planning to die...whenever...but in less than half the time I've lived and my worth... I remember my father's funeral. Empty. No one to honor the brilliance that lived and died alone My mother, however, had a line. A line out back to say farewell to a woman who didn't see value without utility in me I had no function, no use, disposable, unwelcome, an abortion never had and i look at 50. my life has been a string, linear in fashion, of people with holes to fill, and need, and me...disposable "this is about me" I had to say that the day I gave birth, the day they took the cancer away, the day my mother died and i actually asked someone for help