That's what I'd like to know, this is me having a midlife identity crisis. I was old when I was young and now I'm trying to balance my desire to be young again and figure out what I want to be when I grow up with my already very real, grown-up responsibilities.
I was accountable before the age of accountability; having had my first child at only 17years old, still a child myself and forced into adulthood. While our post-modern way of living has raised the age of emotional maturity and independence it has not changed the age at which a woman is ripe to bear children and possesses the instincts to do so. Within 3 weeks of birth my infant was thriving off me; our rhythms, spirits, bodies, were harmoniously entwined. There was no turning back; I was a mom.
And as a mom I had an instinct to cling to the father of my offspring, so by the tender age of 20 I became a bride, for a split second, then a wife, for 12 years to come. I threw away my dreams to have a career driven by my creativity and adopted a more practical goal of acquiring a part-time job that paid well so I could be home with my daughter most of the time. I went to college and earned my bachelors in nursing, something I had no personal experience in but that seemed like a practical job for a "mom". I graduated with honors but fumbled through my first year on the job. I realized I didn't much like sick people; they really bum me out. I quickly made the switch to a field of nursing which I did have a heart for; motherhood.
My passion for helping women become mothers lightened my outlook on my occupation, but did not sweeten my taste of the health care system. Hospitals are for sick people and new moms are rarely sick; why do we do this here? Why are these women made to feel scared and hooked up to all this technology just in preparation for a climactic moment that her own body produces; not machines, not doctors. Do we need a doctor to help us have sex, or eat, or shit??
And so I became an advocate of natural childbirth (and walked the talk, having my 2 subsequent children at the birth center I work at), preferably out-of-hospital, but being still practical I took a job at an in-hospital birth center and have the best of both worlds; assisting natural, intervention-free births while securing my health care plan and 401K :) Yes I liked to play it safe, and that is why the next phase of my life would be the very hardest yet; DIVORCE.
Explaining why I felt it necessary only makes me look bad for putting up with it for so long, so lets not go there. I was young, hopeful and determined, but at some point you gotta know when to throw in the towel. I knew I should for several years but was too scared, enter my therapist. A year later I was finally strong enough to file; it was the scariest and most liberating day of my life. I handed the lawyer the check, signed the paper, and walked out feeling like one life was ending, and another being born. There was grieving, and there was celebrating.
They say a baby's brain develops as neurons in the brain start to fire and connect with each other; connecting the dots. This is how I feel now; like I'm a baby in a whole new world, just day by day connecting the dots. I don't know how to be single, on my own, and yet here I am and with 3 daughters depending on me to know what the fuck I'm doing. My new motto in life has become "Fake it till you make it". My kids are NOT to know I have no idea who I am or where I'm going, as far as they are concerned I've got a handle on it all; I've got a plan. Unfortunately I am not able to hide this from my oldest, now almost 17 and refreshingly (and sometimes frustratingly) unlike her mother. Wonder what it must be like to be raising a teenage and 2 elementary school age girls? There's never a dull moment, stay tuned!
Oh and the name comes from an idea I had to start a male escort service... I have lots of ideas, concluded that I should let this one go, but the name stuck :)
