Minkgirl Muses

Wow. It's been 9 months since my last post. What has been birthed during that time? First and foremost, as I rocket toward 40 - I begin my 5th decade six months from today - I am starting to accept the reality of my life for what it is - good and bad - and acknowledge that efforts to change that reality may be less valuable than efforts to enjoy and appreciate it.

I am also trying to accept that I actually cannot do everything that I want to do all at once. As I sink more deeply into this new realm of academia and struggle to ride the work/family balance wave, I find myself realizing everyday that I need to let go of more than I pick up. I can't say I'm happy about this realization. I was raised to think I could do anything I wanted to do. And the feminism I encountered in college iced the female empowerment cake my parents so carefully baked. But now, as a full-time working mother of two small children, I am starting to see myself really fray around the edges. Recovery takes longer than it used to. I get depressed more easily and stay that way longer. I already realized around 30 that I had gotten too old to pull all-nighters. But now, nearing 40, I'm starting to feel my age in a more metaphysical sense. This constant drive to produce, to make, to organize, to gather, to connect, to improve - this drive is part of what make me human and part of what keeps me and my small tribe alive. But it is also killing me - day by sleepless day, month by grueling month.

And so, on this day of Spring Equinox, this day when the earth is equally poised between dark and light, I am saying a prayer for myself and for all the other super-charged women I know that we can balance not just work and family, but joy and despair. There is much that is overwhelming, distracting, disturbing, and downright depressing about the lives we are living. And there is much that is joyful, beautiful, sweet, hopeful, and hysterically funny. We are the generation who is here to do the manual work of building the dream-house from the blueprints our mothers forged with their brave firsts - the first woman who voted in a national election (1920), the first woman to make partner in a law firm (1973), the first woman to be promoted to Dean at the University of California at Berkeley (2000). A house where we can be women, mothers, workers, lovers, artists, activists and anything we choose to be. Maybe just not all at once.

Much love to all of you as we enter the season of light.

Be well.

Labels: Family Life, Rebirth