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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Dear Mr. Blue,
I feel embarrassed about writing to you since I am someone who could be described as fortunate. Married, with two great kids, a caring husband, a good job, a comfortable home, but I feel somehow empty and -- I don't know -- I feel that I lack a life. I am a teacher, so is my husband, and we're both involved in community things and I sing in a choir and we do a lot of things with our kids and I work hard at being a good wife and mother and somehow I feel starved. I feel that I have no life of my own. I feel that nobody knows me. I just turned 40 and it hit me hard. I thought, If the next 10 years are like the last 10, I can't bear it. I really can't. What's wrong with me? Any advice?
Lost in the Suburbs
Dear Lost,
It sounds like you're spread a little thin, trying to cover all the bases and be competent on all fronts, and your spirit is languishing in the attempt. Competence is a great good but the capable are ever in danger of getting swallowed up by their work. They take on more and more responsibility and they lose touch with their most fundamental responsibility, the care of the spirit. Americans are hard workers -- to many Europeans, we seem driven, joyless, a nation of drones -- and perhaps you're suffering the inevitable dullness that results from going too hard too long. Don't take on any new obligations for the next six months and retire some of the ones you're carrying now. Conspire to give yourself periods of solitude. Rise early, if possible, to have an hour alone in which to think, read, walk, pray. Somewhere near you is a piece of land that's comparatively wild: Attend it when you can. And put yourself in the presence of great art, whatever moves and delights you. This is what makes a symphony orchestra such a great community asset, or a fine art center, or a dance company, or theater -- because they produce transcendent moments for hardworking people. You walk out of the hall after a great performance and you're walking on air.
Dear Mr. Blue.
I'm a 25-year-old woman who had a sexual relationship off and on for a year with my best friend, a gorgeous and remarkable man. I ended up crazy in love with him, and told him, and he told me he doesn't really like big girls. And now, a year later, he is dating someone from my very close-knit workplace. I introduced her to him and now they're thick as thieves. Now I'm reminded that I'm not good enough for him every time I see her, and it makes me ill. Would you please impart some advice on how to handle this dill of a pickle with some class?
The Afterthought
Dear Afterthought,
Find yourself a new best friend, maybe even two or three of them, and when you do, you can tell them the story of you and Mr. Gorgeous and learn how to tell it for laughs. (It is sort of a farce, isn't it?) Comedy is classy; self-pitying melodrama is not. Comedy puts the painful episode at arm's length, and self-pity accepts it as a lifelong curse. Ignore his new romance, except as you can joke about it.
Dear Mr. Blue,
I am a 30-year-old wife and mother who married young, had my two daughters right away, and now I work 30 hours a week in an office job, which is not too taxing and leaves me with the energy to focus on my family, but it is just a job. I was raised with the expectation that I would have a career. But I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. I love taking care of my family and I am good at it. I have the time to nurture friendships, volunteer at my children's school, write letters to the editor, plan great birthday parties and bake the cake, but I can't shake those internal tapes that tell me that I am wasting my education and my potential.
Whenever I think about pursuing a career, I immediately think about the impact on my family. I wouldn't have the time, energy or flexibility that I do now. And I can't figure out my motivations. Am I using my family as an excuse to not get out there and compete? Or, am I torturing myself with my lack of career because I don't want to admit to myself that I am basically a housewife? Should I listen to my mother and be content to enjoy the fact that my family is a success and our relationships are strong? Or do I listen to the culture at large that says a career is the only way to earn respect as a thinking person? Why must one work 50 or more hours a week to be considered motivated when that takes such a toll on our families? Why isn't 30 hours enough to develop a career and have enough time to make sure your children aren't the ones carrying guns to school or shooting heroin in junior high?
Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Don't worry about the culture and what it may or may not be saying. Enjoy your family and your life and your friends and do what you're doing. You're young yet and if you can keep your equilibrium and have faith in the future, you will surely be struck by a Calling and get a vision of a mission in life so important that you can cheerfully ask your family to sacrifice to make it possible. This calling will come to you with great clarity and you'll see that the world needs you to become a teacher, or an editor, or an entertainer of children, or a baker, or something you haven't thought of yet. Let your calling come to you, don't agonize over psychology -- the question about using your family as an excuse not to compete is not worth thinking about for even a minute.
