They told you you could have it all. You just had to follow the plan. First, go to a good school. Then get a good job. After that you meet and marry your handsome husband and then of course you have kids. They told you if you did all of this you would be happy. You would have a perfect house, on a nice street, in a good neighborhood where the schools promised success for your kids. Did it sound like a lot? Not to worry! You could have it all! You could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. That’s what they said. Easy peasy. Everyone was doing it!
And they were doing it better than you.
They loved their jobs - they kept getting promoted. They were happily married and raising beautifully well behaved kids. They only fought sometimes. They volunteered at school and everyone loved them. Especially their husband. Their life was all going according to plan.
You didn’t know why yours felt so hard. Why you felt like a failure. You didn’t have the corner office. You and your husband were fighting. You lived to escape the life you so carefully built. All those business trips to fun, extravagant places where you could fall into a bed that someone else made everyday. You didn’t have to plan, shop and make the meals after working a long, hard, unfulfilling day. You got to drink too much, dance too much and not worry about being judged for failing at everything.
Of course you missed your kids and your husband but when the time came to go home, you couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
Your mistake wasn’t trying so hard.
Your mistake was believing them in the first place.
Abou the author
Bridget Belden is a mother of two and lives in Orange County, CA. Her work explores what it’s like to be a woman in midlife, and more recently, how to cultivate peace in the midst of chaos.
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