I have a friend who is studying up on her ancient history and taking the Praxis to go from being a teaching assistant to a teacher. Another friend is getting her Masters, meanwhile working nearly full-time as a writer. One has decided to continue her love of being a personal chef, but to also go back to college to study counseling.
Half my book club runs marathons. One girlfriend is purging her bookshelves and decided it is okay to get rid of her language studies books from when she learned Italian and Russian. An old college friend left her gig as an editor and is working on her nursing degree.
I'm sitting here writing a blog in my jammies.
I will accept that a number of these life-changing decisions may have been financial--tough economy, new career with a paycheck and all that. But I know these women. These are women of passion and purpose. Girls who love being a mom, but are jumping at the chance to do something for themselves, too.
Is it our age? For the most part, the group I've mentioned is hovering all around the 40 mark.
Is it our kids? Many of our kids are in full-time school--or at least we who are moms are thisclose to having entire days to ourselves. We've got years and years of things we want to do stored up and waiting.
Is it our mindset? We were all raised of a generation who were told we could "have it all!" Some of us have, some of us have chosen to do it in stages, and some of us just flat realized that having it all may not be all that it was cut out to be.
In six months, I turn 40. In two years, my youngest will be in kindergarten and oldest in 4th grade. Before children, I had a busy career, my own PR company, and the knowledge that people actually paid for my opinion.
And after children? Well, I mentioned the jammie thing. My opinion is free to anyone who will listen, which often does not include my children, although kids and marriage have definitely taught me that I don't HAVE to give my opinion just because I have one. And the thing I built a 10-year career on--public relations--is a whole different animal now that newspapers, magazines and television have given way to Twitter, blogs and YouTube.
The good news is that like my friends, I see this time of life as a great opportunity to start a new chapter. If any of those girls just needed money, these college-educated women with years of work experience wouldn't be going back to college. They'd just run on over to the Gap and get a part-time gig while the kids are in school.
Here's what I think. In your 20s you try something new because you have nothing to lose but an aging Volkswagen Jetta with a perpetual oil leak and a one-bedroom apartment that you share with a cranky roommate who keeps eating your Ben & Jerry's.
But now, in my 40s (er--late 30s!) I can try things because I have everything to gain. I have the soft cushion of a husband and children who adore me and rely on me, the knowledge that everything isn't as big a deal as I thought it might be, and 20 or so years of life experience to teach me that even though I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up, it's actually a beautiful thing.
With apologies to Elizabeth Gilbert, I've got the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing figured out, and I didn't need a passport. Although I wouldn't mind the book deal.
I have no problem with the eating, although Italy certainly has perhaps a stronger lure than Carraba's. Like Anne Lamott, I pray often--"Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Some days I have more love than I can stand, which is why I can truly now appreciate those few days all by myself. And all of thoses things, like Gilbert, may lead me to a new phase of my life and perhaps fulfilling a few of those dreams or degrees I have been thinking about for a while.
I have a great life, and whether I want to train for a marathon, go back to college and study graphic design, or even take the recommendation of my fabulous friend Julie and get back on roller skates to work on being a derby queen--I can do it. My accomplished, type-A, overachiever girlfriends, my husband and my kids will be cheering me on, and I know that I can do anything I set my mind to.
Tomorrow I may hit the skate center. But it just so happens that today, I set my mind to not getting out of my jammies. All day long. And you're jealous, aren't you?
