Lately, thanks to old friends finding me on Facebook, a midlife crisis of sorts has been ignited within me. After all, what better way to be reminded of your own glaring inadequacies than to suddenly have successful friends emerge from your past and find you online? While it’s exciting to hear from them, it certainly has a way of propelling any latent regrets of roads not taken to the forefront of your mind.
In 1981, I was a senior in high school. Things were extremely bad at home. Let’s just say that divorce and parental alcoholism were involved. Author Jack Canfield calls a situation like this “so what?” because most of us invariably face difficult challenges in our childhood yet learn to move beyond them. While it’s true that life goes on, and in essence, you learn to cope with what life has handed you, residue from the trauma remains and stains your life in indelible ink. Childhood tragedies color the type of person you become and may even alter the course of your life.
Even though things were bad at home, I excelled at school. In my senior year, I ranked fourth in my class of over 500 students and there was no doubt that I would go to college upon graduation. In my mind, my plans were in place, the college choices were being narrowed (Juniata or Brandeis?), and the major chosen (journalism or English?). All I needed was support, guidance, and money.
Anyone who has ever been the child of an alcoholic parent knows what an overwhelming, distressing, and hope-stealing existence it is. Daily life is akin to living in a minefield: a single misstep can be volatile. You learn, as a matter of survival, to keep things calm, to compensate, to fade into the background. Essentially, you learn to hide the truth of your hellish situation. When you live with a parent who’s become completely incapacitated by a dependence on alcohol, you find yourself suddenly forced into a role reversal. In spite of, or perhaps because of your critical role at Keeping Things Together, a part of your self erodes, shriveling and dying like an atrophied limb. That’s exactly what happened to me. With no one to advocate for me, as well as no money and even less self-esteem, it felt easier at the time to simply give up on my dreams. I can always go to college later, I reasoned. I made the choice to get a job instead.
Alcoholism tends to fuel instability, and the next few years involved many all-encompassing transitions: unemployment, moving to a different state, more unemployment, losing all possessions, moving back again, and finding a new job. When it seemed as if my situation couldn’t possibly become any more dreadful, a hint of grace appeared, and I met the man who would eventually become my husband. Buoyed by his belief in me, I began to find a tiny bit of faith in myself. After a particularly violent, last-straw kind of moment with my parent, I finally found the courage to leave home.
Once I’d escaped the brutal constraint of alcoholism, I spent the remainder of the 1980s getting married, buying a house, and growing my career. I worked hard, proving myself capable in spite of not having a college degree, and managed to advance successfully within my profession.
In 1990, my first son was born. I had no idea how becoming a mother would change my life. Motherhood defined me and became my new identity. I no longer needed to be known as a writer or seek achievement in the corporate world. Being a mother to my children was good enough. Raising children became my primary interest and I made the choice to quit my full-time job for a less challenging, lower-paying part-time one. I obsessed over figuring out how to be able to work from home in order to have more time with them. In 1994, the aspiration of working from home became a reality for me, and for many years, I truly felt content. Those unrealized dreams from my past didn’t seem to haunt me while I was busy tending my family.
Years pass. My children are older now and need me much less. My identity as a mother is no longer exclusive or as strongly defined. I feel more than a mother and less than satisfied. Like the famous Peggy Lee song suggests, I wonder if this is all there is to the circus. I find myself reflecting upon the person I used to be, grieving for the person I’d wanted to be, and questioning how - if - I can become the person I’d like to be at this late point in my life.
It stings when I discover that people from my past, who’ve enjoyed opportunities that I’ve been denied, have become so accomplished. It makes me ache for another chance. How would my life have turned out if I’d been given a similar opportunity? Who would I be today?
After struggling with the sense of never being quite good enough for most of my life, I’ve had a revelation. Even though the situations of my life necessitated a great deal of sacrifice, I realize now that all of the decisions I’ve made in my life, and all of the paths I’ve chosen have been just that: choices. My choices. Even if it was the only viable choice at the time, in every instance, the decision felt right as I’d made it.
If every decision I made felt right when I made it, I should have no regrets now. My life is how it is because of my choices. To continue to lament them or to long for having made different ones diminishes the good that’s come from the past twenty years. At this point in my life, I can choose to remain captive within my past or I can accept how my life turned out and consider the next direction I’d like for it take.
I finally learned the take-away lesson in all of this: I alone am responsible for my future. I can hardly wait to see what the next twenty years has in store for me.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” - Carl Bard
Comments
I take my son to a world-renowned neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic about once a year. This past year--perhaps b/c of my recent musings about my life and its worth--something profound struck me as I sat waiting in his reception area.
This lovely, kindly, brilliant man of whom the world seeks opinions about Tourette Syndrome works in the shabbiest and tiniest of offices. Everything about the place is dingy, from the out-of-the-way back entrance and elevator up to the cluttered narrow desk area into the worn-out chairs and carpet of the waiting room and finally to his bathroom-sized examining rooms with views from the 7th floor out to the parking lots and construction that's been going on forever. Most of his patients are urban poor and the whole place reeks of disappointment in life. It's kind of a hell-hole, in case I've not adequately conveyed that.
And I sat there and thought, here's man with prestige and money and apparently a good family and happy life. But he's been coming to this same exact place every day for probably 40 years. From 9-5, this is what this man's life has looked like. And mine? All of a sudden, it looked like roses. I thought about the library and museum trips and rain walks and play dates with my kids and their friends. And I worked on Dennis Kucinich's reelection campaign, knocking on doors and meeting people. And I taught an old man how to read through our local adult basic literacy education program, and we even won an award together. And I've been able to develop a fitness program where I had time to really work out and go to Weight Watchers, etc. (down the tubes at this point, but hey, it did happen). The list goes on and on, but all of a sudden, I thought, "I should feel gratitude here." His life is incredibly valuable, but mine is too in its own way, and on a daily basis, it's interesting in a way that people who have been tied to a particular career or office just never had.
But I don't bother to angst about such things. I am satisfied with my life as it is going, where it is going now. And past choices? There are plenty of better choices that I could have made, but - my way is to fuggetaboutit! Water under the bridge. The starting point for my life is NOW.
I had a crappy childhood with an alcoholic father too, though the overt manifestation of his alcoholism was simply to be absent. I don't want you to think that I am trivializing your feelings - but it's always good to let go of old, useless baggage.
The story of the doctor that you visit also illustrates another point: while we see people's success on the surface, we really don't know what their everyday reality is. Going to such a shabby place day in and day out would certainly wear on anyone. We can only hope that he finds his fulfillment in the successes of his patients.
I won't ask you how you're doing in the morning if you don't ask me how I'm doing in February. Living in the northern hemisphere, that's usually when my SAD kicks in pretty fiercely and it's much more difficult to find my gratitude.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment.
As for the next 20 years, I made a huge change of direction once, and I found it helpful to literally write down all of the current options, with the potential pro's and cons of each (in the format of a big bunch of balloons on long strings because these were happy, buoying thoughts) and work through them over and over until the right one became clear. I still have the illustration, and it helps me remember who, what, when, where, how and why I am where I am today. It feels like right where I am supposed to be (by serendipity, not a well-conceived plan!)
Good luck!
I think you nailed it: I was OK with myself until all of these people kept coming out of the woodwork from my past. Good grief, isn't anyone an underachiever any more? Feeling that I've overcome this self-doubt seems to wax and wane with the phase of the moon, PMS, the weather, current finances, but I'm working on getting there once and for all.
Thanks so much for stopping by to read and comment. I truly appreciate it.
Talk about not helpful. After I read your piece, I realized that I need to just shut up, acknowledge that most of the choices I made were the best I could have made at the time (and even those that weren't haven't been catastrophic), and as it all goes, I am pretty lucky, regardless of whether it feels like it on any given day. Different would not necessarily have been better, it would only have been different, with it's own unique set of challenges. The only thing I can control is what I do right now, so today presents an opportunity to make the best choices that I can.
Thanks for helping me reframe back to the positive. You totally rock.
Robin - Your words made my day. It helps to know that I'm not the only one going through this identity crisis. I love what you said: "Different would not necessarily have been better, it would only have been different, with it's own unique set of challenges." I'm going to keep that in my head as a reminder. Taking the other path instead of this one isn't a guarantee that life would have turned out perfectly. Just differently.
Great Post Lisa.
I read it with interest, although I'm sort of on the other side of the divide. As you know, I got somewhat waylaid myself and did not have the usual transition from high school to college to career either.
I met my husband at work, and most days I feel blessed that dear hubby made it a priority to help me through school. So now I have a career. But I was either in school or working or both when my kids were little. Although I (thankfully) never had to go back to work full-time when they were infants, and we managed to have dinner as a family every night, my kids spent the summers at home in front of the television set, "watched" by my grandmother or my sister; and their lives consisted (as mine did) of rushing hither and thither. The work week felt like a marathon, and my husband and I would joke about the “Sunday night blues” that afflicted us as we faced yet another week.
When the kids got to be teenagers, I wondered about the compromises I'd made and whether, in the long run, I'd still believe that the benefits to me of having a career would outweigh the downside for my kids of being raised by a working mother.
The jury is still out. But I agree that I did what I thought was best at the time. I had watched my mother struggle to make ends meet after my parents divorced, and I had learned a lesson about the importance of being financially independent. My salary allowed us to pay for private schools and college for the kids. It also meant that when my husband was laid off, we did not face losing our house or any other serious deprivation.
It’s true that my kids never (and I mean never) came home from school to the smell of just-baked cookies, and birthday cakes came from Safeway (picked up on my way home from work), and I was sometimes tired and cranky. I admit that I’ve been told more than once “You were never there” (though I think they’ll admit that I paid a fair amount of attention to ensuring that they got their homework done), but I don’t doubt that my kids know I love them.
Life is series of compromises, but we don’t have to let it become a litany of regrets. We’ve all done the best we could, and we should be as kind to ourselves as we are to the others on our path.
Thanks for shining some light.
The outcome was not a happy one; and as one of five children; I experienced the choice at the age of 13, to go out into the workforce, and make money. Which I did! I then gave the pay to my mother; who put it towards rent, and food. It was not until I reached my 20's that I attained a place in life that felt 'ok'!
Like you, I married in the 80's, and had a child in 1990~!
20 years down the track; and I've learned so much more about the game we call life; whether we play it to win, how we play and with what `tools' to deal with the emergencies that come (and they always do!) is marked in the heart mind, and body!
I might find some regret here and there; but only if I am not doing what I FEEL I should be doing~ and in the given circumstances; that is simply not possible.
Learning to carry on with head held high has been invaluable to me!
Thank you for sharing this post today; a wonderful complete look at something that might possibly effect us all in some way.
Keep up the great writing!
What I haven't done is reconcile this like you have. I'm impressed. Maybe your post will help. Thanks, Roger
Somewhere along the way, I started noticing the flip side. The kids who had every opportunity (including money) and still blew it. The lottery winners that were broke again in two years.
That's when I figured out that everything we go through teaches us something we needed to learn. The higher your hurdles, the higher you learn to jump.
Before you know it, you'll be leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
:)
I feel a lot better knowing that I'm not alone in this experience. While not everyone came from a dysfunctional home, all of you could relate to making choices that you weren't quite sure were exactly right. We've all wondered if things would be different if we'd chosen the other path instead.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it gives me great comfort to know that I'm not alone. Those who've taken the time to comment here are people that I've come to admire and respect since I've been here at OS. While I might not have it all figured out, or remember these hard-learned lessons every day, at least I know that I'm in very good company with all of you.
Many, many thanks for your kind words.