I have lived in this skin for 47 years, three months, three days, and an uncertain number of hours.
I have been a wife for 23 of those years.
A mother for 19 years and counting.
I participate in a reading group for women who are fans of C. S. Lewis' writing.
I lead a small group of women in weekly study of the Bible.
I read for pleasure: a mix of relational psychology, classic literature, theology, brain science, and contemporary fiction.
I have structured and facilitated my children's home education for the last 13 years.
I have taught (and am teaching) my children the life skills they will need to be independent.
I cook.
I launder.
I [occasionally] clean.
I put flowers on the table, in season and out.
I meet friends for coffee and mutual encouragement.
I have been (and occasionally still am) a student. A traveler. A teacher. A potter. A blogger. An instagramer. A writer of letters. A photographer. A thinker. A hand-letterer. A student of Scripture.
I crochet.
I [sporadically] garden.
But mostly these days, it seems, I question my identity. I am often among those who are, in one way or another, to greater or lesser degrees, different from me. It unsettles me, depriving me of the "me, too" affirmation I've come to depend on from others. Perhaps it's outgrown me, when I should have outgrown it.
"Am I enough?" "Do I pass muster?" These are questions of a child, a teenager, an emerging young adult. I am 47 years old! Surely I ought to have outgrown such insecurities, such hankerings after approval, affirmation, and gold stars.
Impatiently, I toss truisms toward my angst, defaulting to theoretical safety: “You are God's. What else matters?”
But it does. Surely He made me for some purpose, to some end. Something more than keeping six people clothed and fed? [I blush to realize that it might be the lack of accolades for that particular job, rather than the job itself, that doesn't satisfy...] My peers are going back to school and careers, starting businesses, moving on. Leaving me behind. It used to be we were all in the throes of motherhood together, laundry and supper our most urgent goals. I was happy there, in a way, but now I look up and find they've all left for brave new midlife horizons.
Now I chafe. I compare. I lie on my bed and cry into the linen-covered wool quilt I made by hand ("See?!" I encourage myself - "you've accomplished this!"). I chastise myself for wallowing: “Go outside and clean out your flowerbeds! Do something!!” I exhort myself compassionlessly.
Why must I forever seem to be scrambling to keep up?!
I pick myself up off of my bed. Pop the rousing Georgian Voices album from my college days into the stereo and turn the volume high. Fold laundry and put supper in the oven.
And then I get out my laptop and begin to type.....
…..for writing is cheap therapy, reliable, and maybe somewhere out there is a reader who, seeing these words, will say “me, too!” and take comfort that they are not alone.
