It Was The Cost of Having It All, And I Don't Want to Pay

Only in the mirror, okay?

Understand that I am aware we are not all made the same. My experiences, my thoughts-- they imply nothing about any other woman or any other mother.

I have been a married, stay at home mother. I have also been a married working mom, a single working mom and student, a single working mom, and a widowed mom, working and not. I have lived paycheck-to-paycheck, paycheck-to-minor-miracle-to-paycheck, and I have had some disposable income. I grew up in an era when women could "have it all," and it was taken for granted that we all wanted it "all." I could never figure out what was "wrong" with me because I was never really happy. I was tired, and I had hit 40 before, looking back on my twenties and thirties, I saw a pattern, and following that pattern was an epiphany. Gasp! I never wanted "it all."




Always, I wanted to be a writer. I didn't so much want to be a journalist, but my passion was writing and sharing it with people. My education was directed toward my ultimate goal of hunting child predators. Had I known I would end up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I might have gone with journalism because as talented as I was at putting the crime puzzles together, eventually I had lost my ability to detach from the crime scene photos, etc. Every tragedy became my own tragedy. Every child became my own child. That doesn't work for anybody.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have had jobs I loved and ones I hated, but I always took pride in my work. I always took pride in raising my kids. Somehow, I was never able to devote 100% of myself to either. Especially as a single working mother, I was proud of pulling it off -- even when the need for new coats and shoes meant putting off a bill, and then taking months to financially recover from late fees. I had my moments of joy and my moments of pride, and life just wasn't so bad, but I was always tired, and I was always doing, and I was always thinking about what and how next, and I never felt like I was present enough in any aspect of my life. Although I was not unhappy, I was not happy either. Although I was good at what I was doing, I never felt good enough, and I was on constant watch for guilt. My kid/s needed me, my job needed me, I needed me. I could never quite get the balance just right.

In 2010, I was widowed. An officer came to my door to tell me there had been an accident, and I was unceremoniously evicted from the life I knew. Something started then, and it never ended. My children, who had always been my priority, became the most important part of my life in a way I think perhaps only those of us who have lost a spouse or child experience it. The acute awareness of just how temporary life is is one acquired by loss, as is the even more profound importance of time with family. My job was not thee priority, though it was a priority I took seriously because it supported thee priority -- my family. I had a new baby, and I had two teenagers. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with them for some time after our loss. Eventually, I went back to work. Between my full time job, the commute, and necessary bedtime, my youngest and I were lucky to get two and a half hours a night together. I missed him terribly, and I felt so guilty.

This was not what I wanted. At all. And, I couldn't take it anymore.

A-HA!

One day, when I was cleaning fingerprints and other WTF's off my apartment walls, I started thinking about all the opportunities from which I had turned away when I was younger; what did I really want to do with my life? Should I find a way to make money writing? Should I go back to work in animal rescue? Would that even pay enough to be worth it? What did I really want to do, and why had I turned away from so many opportunities to grow in whatever job I had at the time? Why, when I had come so incredibly close to launching a freelance writing career, had I let my then husband, who was so mentally and emotionally abusive, beat me down to the point I sincerely believed I couldn't do it (even though it was right at my fingertips)? Bothering me more, why, at my age -- how! -- did I not know what I wanted to do with my life?.. And then, I realized, I was already doing it. For someone from my time and my gender to want nothing more than a notebook and pen between scrubbing walls and building Batman castles from Legos, it would seem unambitious at best, deliberately selling myself short or being lazy at worst. Noses tend to wrinkle and eyebrows tend to raise when a woman says, "I am perfectly happy being a wife and a mother and not much else."

And what do you have once your children are grown, asks everyone. I have friends who have adult children. I have seen a woman dedicate her life to raising her children and then feel a bit lost when they neared adulthood. I have seen a career woman tormented by the what-ifs: would her children have "turned out better" or different had she stayed home with them? I'm beginning to believe regrets are possible no matter the choices we make. I have also decided I have an answer to that question. I will find something else to do, and I am not at all afraid of not knowing, right now, exactly what that will be. I am not at all afraid of the adventure in redefining myself later in life when I retire from active motherhood. I think it's okay.