We have lived a different life as young girls than the women who came before us. We were told to not be nurses and teachers- that we were too smart for those jobs, those occupations were not good enough for us. We were told to be doctors and astronauts, hell, we could be President if we really wanted to. It was instilled in us that we should strive for something higher. I embraced that “Free to be you and me” stuff whole-heartedly; I don’t regret it either, because it helped forge my strong independent spirit and helped enable me to believe I could do whatever I put my mind to. (See Marlo Thomas, Free to Be You and Me online for details if you don't know what I am talking about!) I wonder if the ‘women’s lib’ movement is really behind it, or were our well-meaning mentors just trying to make sure we had it in us to shoot high. I don’t know. I know that we didn’t want to let anyone down…we wanted to make sure that whatever sacrifices were made in the name of women’s equality, were protected, that those were not done in vain. I guess it’s kind of like how it would have been disrespectful to the suffragettes to not vote, after they tried so hard to get women the right to vote. And yet, similarly, it was the ‘right’ to vote, not the edict to vote, but somehow we didn’t want to diminish those strong efforts of those who came before us, by not voting. In some ways, our generation didn’t want to let those women libbers down- we wanted to make sure we actualized what they had wanted for us. Problem is, it may have been a world of ‘you can have it all’, when in fact, you really can’t. I remember when I wanted to stay home after I had my kids and thinking that I was ‘wasting’ my education. I recall thinking that it was unfair somehow to have worked so hard in college and in my job to walk away from it to stay home and wipe noses and bums, and play with play-doh and go to the park. (I don’t regret that choice either; I am just trying to figure out what the hell to do now!) I think I now realize that the women’s lib movement wasn’t to push me into a certain ideal- in my mind it was to make those choices available to me- to enable me to choose to work in whichever vocation I would ultimately select. It was to allow the door to be there for me to open- should I choose to do so. It wasn’t necessarily about having it all, it was about being able to make the same choices and have the same access to the world that men had. I was free to choose my own path- which was much broader as a result of their efforts.
Which leads us to the current day issue of myself and my 40-something girlfriends. A good friend said to me about being this age, “You never wish for these years. You don’t spend your childhood pretending to be 45. You dream about being a young bride, about being a mother, maybe even about working and perhaps, retirement, but you never play ’40 somethings’ when you are young.” It’s like you just are supposed to slip over or through this timeframe, jumping from younger more setout years to the so-called golden years of older age. I guess you also hit that mid-life thing head on at this age. Chances are, as a woman, you are finished having children, which brings many mixed emotions. Perhaps it was because we had been infertile, but I never saw myself as the woman who would be feverishly shouting from the rooftops, “I’m done! I’m done! No more babies for us! Wahoo,” although you do reach a point where you realize it probably either isn’t a good idea anymore, or it isn’t likely to happen-which is ok, in that you see it as the start of a new chapter. In my case, I had told myself that if I didn’t become pregnant again by the time I was 40, then I would be ‘finished’ child-bearing. I would have taken on another pregnancy if that was what we both wanted, but I understood that my window was closing. I can’t say I am upset (anymore) about this fact, it just eventually kind of happens. At this age, you do start to realize that there are things on your ‘list’ that you will just never do. For example; I will never be an astronaut, I will (probably) never be the President of the United States, and I will most likely never jump out of an airplane. I don’t know that these items are necessarily things that were on my list, or if so even high on it, but I suppose you start to realize that you aren’t just an open book with the world in front of you anymore- that you understand the mere reality that you just won’t do everything you might have thought you would or could. Again, it comes back to the ‘option’ to do these things- I made other choices in my life-it’s not about regret so much as just more of a realization that my life went down a different path that didn’t include those things. I guess that is the middle age thing- you don’t have to love the idea of limits, but it’s much easier to accept at least some of them as your own reality. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that at middle age you should just sit back and wait to die…I think there is plenty more to do and experience- and I will certainly plan to be in the driver’s seat of that train, but you come to accept that some of your really open-ended dreams will probably never happen. I think I am cool with this concept. What I am not cool with, however, is my seeming loss of confidence or ooommppf to ‘take on the world’. Somewhere in here, I lost something that made me just push and plow and go after whatever I wanted in an unabashed nothing can stop me manner. I wonder if it’s similar to a long love; it starts out fast and furious-you can’t get enough of it-and then as time goes on, it remains constant and is stronger in other ways, but not as frantic. I don’t know, maybe that’s what has happened to my fervor for my professional life. I am very passionate and driven, but to not have that direction for the first time in my entire life is unnerving. Perhaps knowing my kids and my family are a part of the big picture is also part of it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean it like oh I want to ditch my family and join the Peace Corps- screw them- it’s not like that. I guess it’s just that I am not 18 or 25 anymore- but now I have other things to consider, as well as now I have other privileges that I didn’t have then as well. I do know that I have made significant strides in my life- and have skills that are useful and important. I guess it’s just the not knowing piece that is unsettling. Not sure if I am just waiting for the next big thing to come along that I will attach myself to and set the world on fire, or if I will have to invent it myself. My therapist has told me that I am a ‘starter’- I am someone who sees a problem or issue and decides to do something about it, then I set a plan into action and tackle it. I think not having that at the moment has made me unsure about what I am doing. I realize that my kids need clean clothes, and it’s important that I am here for them in so many ways, but I just feel like I should be doing something else too. I just can’t quite figure out what it is or how it fits into everything else in my life. I don’t want to look back in 5 or 10 years and go Holy crap what was I doing? I should have ________ (gone to grad school, or written that book, or whatever…) what WAS I doing with all that time?? So the process to figure it out continues. Those who know me know that patience (especially with myself!) is not one of my strong suits, so I guess I just have to keep trying and hopefully, in time, I will figure it out. I am trying to be patient and kind with myself.
Thanks for reading!
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