I am looking for input into how others would proceed in my situation. I'm 54 and worked in academia until 2015. For the last 10 years I have been self-employed and worked from home. The work was incredibly flexible and reasonably well paid, which has allowed me to also take on a lot of caring responsibilities for my parents, who are in their late 80s and becoming more and more dependent, as well as my toddler grandson, who I have enjoyed looking after one day a week.
However, unfortunately for me, the field I work in has been decimated by AI and my income has plummeted over the last few months. I have also recently had surgery, which has left me with limited mobility. My brother has temporarily moved in with my parents while I am recovering (luckily, his job is also almost exclusively remote), but lives at the other end of the country and cannot do this long term. DS and DIL are juggling various methods to look after DGC on my day. DH is currently covering all of the bills. He is runs a small company (very small; i.e., me and him) in a trade, which is quite physical work. I am also a director of the company and do admin work for that (bookkeeping, answering the phone, etc.). I have never taken a salary, but do usually get a small dividend payment each year.
When I recover from this surgery, I could either do more work in the business, potentially taking up some of the physical work, so that we can expand, which was the original plan, or look for another job. I'm not sure it's wise to have all of our eggs in one basket though, or if it's fair to let DH do the lions share of the work, which he inevitably will if I continue with my caring responsibilities. I have thought a lot about what sort of other work I can do and not come to any sort of conclusion - I flit from idea to idea and can't seem to settle on anything. I have lost confidence with being out of 'normal' work for a long time - although I have been very busy! I have researched different careers, but can't seem to settle on anything and don't know how it would work with my parents (DGC is fine really - I am sure his parents could sort something, but I'd miss having him). I'm feeling a bit lost and also a bit unemployable tbh, and looking for a bit of MN wisdom to point me in the right direction.