Midlife crisis

I think I'm going through one.

So much has changed and yet so much remains the same. I feel the same emotionally as I did a million years ago, but physically, things don't jive.

I've spent 8, almost 9 years at home raising children. We both agreed at the onset, that I would raise our kids. We didn't factor in a set of twins, so there was an unspoken expectation that I would be free from oppression as of September, when Sarah started grade one. But, that's not necessarily the way it's going to be.

I feel like I don't contribute anything of value to the family. I feel like I play this role of "mother" and she's truly a role. I don't think I'm this impatient and angry and bitter and frustrated...but the character is...and I must wear her each day.
Is she easier to put on because I've allowed myself to become a shadow of my former self?? Was my former self even developed fully enough to survive this foray into selflessness? Would I feel like more of a viable human being and less of a leech if I had a job?? Went to school?? Tuned into my creative side??? Who knows?? Not I.

I feel like my body is deceiving me. I'm much to young and vital to look and feel this tired and spent. I have an expectation when I look in the mirror and it's gone. I'm trying to do what I can to reclaim it, but the lines and grey hairs won't go away no matter how perfectly I follow Weight Watchers plan. I feel like I've lost my sparkle. I think I had a sparkle. I remember a sparkle. I feel like maybe it's been smeared in baby poop and lost at the bottom of a toy box. Or maybe, it's in the lint tray of the dryer after the 13th load of wash.

I just don't know.

I was talking with a friend about deconstructing myself. Chipping away the undesirable bits and pieces until...what was left was a mutilated version of the truth. I did it when I was dating. So desperate to be liked, so desperate to be loved, that I hid away whatever piece of me I didn't think was attractive to homme du jour. Luckily, I had some experiences just prior to meeting Mick that put me back on track. But, now I've realized I'm doing it again. Letting pieces of myself die off because they're not appropriate for a "mommy". Throwing away remnants of my past because I'm ashamed that my daughters might come across Mom's 20-something journals and be disgusted and embarrassed that their mother was ever that desperate or confused or just plain sexual. So, the deconstruction continues. Why can't I just be solid in the fact that I was what I was. I am what I am. This journey continues and it's in the mistakes and the blips and the embarrassments that the most wisdom is realized. If I'm okay with who I was at 8, why not 18, why not 28, 38, 48, 58??
Somewhere peace has to be realized.

I know damn good and well that I was not happy with my reflection at 27. I didn't see the sparkle. I didn't see what was right in front of me because I was too busy looking back at 17. I have to come to terms with the sands of time at some point in my life and start living in the present instead of looking over my shoulder to see if the past has had some sort of differnet ending.

Whoa, this was almost theraputic.