where did the time go?

I’ll be 40 in a few months, and while I have a lovely life, I sometimes feel like I haven’t really done anything with this life.

I’ve never had a problem with getting older, and I’m significantly older than the people I socialize with at work, and I’m always telling a friend of mine that she shouldn’t worry about her age. But something clicked in my head a few weeks ago that I’m going to be 40 soon, and I can’t shake the sense of unease that realization gives me.

When I was younger, I had a much different vision of 40 than what my life actually looks like.

I work a job that I’m hoping to become good at but that doesn’t nourish me in any way other than monitarily. And now, don’t get me wrong, I know there are people out there who would love to have a job that does even that, and I am endlessly grateful for this job (and the really good health insurance that goes with it). But between the tension of the people around me and the workload and the people yelling at me on the phone, it’s just so draining some days.

After my draining days at work, I come home to additional draining.

Eliza’s at this odd age where she is alternately completely precious and completely infuriating. Literally, every night she screams at me… she throws these horrible fits. And I try to be patient and kind, but they make me feel like such a wretched mother. Now, logically, I know she’s just struggling with learning and frustrated with the newness of wanting to already be good at her sight words but not just yet. But emotionally, it makes me feel like a less than wonderful mother.

I get yelled at during the day at work and yelled at during the night at home. And I look around as I do the countless loads of laundry and as I cook endless meals which people eat or don’t eat with no particular consistency and as I clean the same rooms over and over and I wonder.

I flip through the newspaper and I cruise Facebook and I am too distracted to read books. I want to sign up for classes and learn new things, but I cannot figure out how to find the time.

And I think… is this all there is? Is this the pinnacle of what I’m doing with my life?

Have I completely given up on my own dreams? My oldest friend, LeeAnn, used to remind me that after Mike finished his PhD, it was my turn to follow my dreams. Turns out, I still am following his. He asked me today what my dreams were, what I would like to do. To be honest, I don’t know.

Is there no excitement any longer? Are there no more adrenaline rush opportunities?

I know that I am at my best, my most empowered and useful, when I am most comfortable being who I am. I am the mama. I am everyone’s mama. I’m the mama at home, the mama at work. I take care of people and make them feel comfortable and safe with me, and I know this is a really wonderful thing. But there are days when I wish I was something else, when I miss the carefree options of youth.

This week, I dug a beautiful coffee table out of the garage and gave it to a young friend who had just bought her first home. I told her that table was the last tangible evidence of my youth. It was all iron and glass and was simple and stunning. I loved it. But it was dangerous with the iron and glass. It had been lingering in storage for a decade now. And while it was good and right to give it away, it was also a little sad to say goodbye to my youth that way.

And even in that act, I was being my best self (as Oprah would say). I was generous and kind. I was the mama, taking care of a friend.

But still, I wonder. Is this what I am? Is this all? This mama person. I’ve always been a community girl, loving having people around me, loving being involved with other people. Odd that I so desperately want to have accomplished something on my own, without anyone else’s assistance.

This family that I am so vested in, so proud of is most likely going to be my shining accomplishment in life, and I will be pleased with that. But I’m still a little disappointed in me.

I never wrote anything that touched someone. I never became successful in my field. I don’t have a big nest egg in the bank. I don’t lead anyone.

I’m not quite sure how it’s possible to be so proud of myself (and Mike, of course) for making this marriage work and for making this family work and yet be so disappointed in myself for not accomplishing something in my own right.

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