Mid-life huh?

The dream deferred can become a physical presence in your life. It becomes a weight in your chest, or a tenseness in the shoulders, teeth grinding in sleep. As Langston Hughes' poem suggests, it can explode. Those explosions take many forms; some are more implosions as people turn to numbing agents to quiet the disappointed soul. Mine seems to be a simmering anger.

Is this what they call a mid-life crisis? This coiled tenseness coursing through me because my "true" self feels I should be doing something important, something publicly noteworthy and my "real" self lives a banal existence as a suburban housewife. What do I have to show for my time on earth? A masters degree (which is barely used), a home, two children a husband? Has my part time business teaching computers been any sort of career? Have the pre-school fundraisers, the involvement in the PTA, the volunteering at synagogue really filled my void in the last 5 years. Who am I kidding? I need more. I need to be in the world doing something that benefits society and not just puts money in my pocket but I am stuck in this upper middle class suburb and I am atrophying as my inability to commit to a course of action causes a kind of stagnation that I cover up by keeping busy. Always busy, running here and there, allowing the self deception to take over. But the truth is in there and it pokes holes in my carefully crafted story of self.

Those of us who came of age in the 80's were sold a bill of goods that have proved to be like a share in the Brooklyn bridge. We were told we could have it all. Career, family, self fulfillment. We weren't told the price we would pay. Have it all? Huh? Women who work full time feel guilty that they aren't with their children and women who are with their children feel guilty that they don't have a career. The legacy of feminism is a bunch of women putting undue pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Men still have it over us. They need to provide, but more often than not they are matched by their wives efforts. That may cause them to help more with household duties but the division of labor still seems skewed towards us girls. Not to mention that we are still getting 60 cents to men's dollar in the workplace and we are expected to look like we're 20 until we're 60.

We need some new philospohers to help guide the next generation away from the exploitation of the feminine self.