New Directions

Today my mood needs lifting and my patience needs lengthening. Outside looks gray and cool, a bit rainy, but the weather actually calms me. No, my problem lies in a frenzied mental state and clenched innards, which register in short, meaningless breaths and quick verbal cuts to the children. Is it hormonal? Vitamin D shortage? Thyroid issues? Or just plain cussedness? The situation seems to warrant a call home to ask mom what age she embarked on perimenopause and then to blame dad for giving me his temperament.

The root of my problem, I know, grows in my head and not in my parents or their genes. Several factors work together these days to depress my mood and ripen my self-doubt. First: I turn forty in March. Intellectually I know this is not a big deal – I have friends five to ten years older than I who can run or walk circles around me, accomplish five times more in a day and remain absolutely beautiful inside and out. But somehow, the echoes of Vogue or Mademoiselle articles (last read in college) whisper in my ear, and I feel old. What should I do now? If the first half of my life is done, what will I do with the second half? I don’t feel like buying a sportscar or getting a facelift, but I wouldn’t mind a sense of my new direction.

Compounding my anxiety is the fact that my youngest child will go to all-day kindergarten in the fall. I will have TIME for the first time in ten years. I often catch myself thinking in terms of Meg Wolitzer’s book about motherhood, The Ten Year Nap. If I’ve been napping for ten years (with a few nightmares thrown in) what do I do when I wake up? My resume is out of date, my transcripts are so old that they probably need to be mounted to photocopy (do schools even accept photocopies anymore?) and I still cling to the hope of being home in the mornings and in the afternoons when my children get out of school. Add to that a less-than-robust economic outlook and you can see how the options shrink before my eyes.

I used to be a businesswoman, then a teacher, then a coach, then a mom. I wonder which title could be complementary to that last one, which is a permanent fixture on both paper and psyche. I’ve enjoyed writing a great deal this past year, but could I do it well and consistently? Could I call it a job? Could I make any money at it? You can see how the questions multiply. If I were patient, I would put the questions aside and keep my eyes open for opportunity over the next year or so. I would work to improve my writing skills, listening to my own voice while simultaneously researching graduate schools and weighing the pros and cons. (The problem with listening to my own voice: which voice will I hear? Will it be a productive voice or will it be a DJ from the radio station in my head that Anne Lamott calls KF****D?) I may yet end up waiting – and faking patience - but in the meantime I want to know NOW, and can anyone clue me in as to how this story ends? If only I could cheat and skip to the last page . . .