Makeup & Motherhood

Just making it up as I go along!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Existential Disappointment

What an odd phrase...Existential disappointment. I ran across this term in a magazine article about getting older. How does one come to grips with getting older? Do you need to be happy with your life to be content with getting older? Do you need to have accomplished something? And what about the time that has already gone by? Are there things you have missed out on?

That's primarily what I am concerned about lately. Missing out on things. For example, this is one I have thought about for many years. Did I miss out on fun as a child, or as a teenager? I was much too worried about doing the right thing, being the right kind of daughter, to have any fun at all as a teenager. I look at some of the kids I went to school with. The parties, the fun that they had. I didn't. I was a good girl. I didn't drink, or do drugs, or go to wild parties. I didn't think that was the appropriate scene for me. Yet, looking back on it now, I think I missed out on some fun. Carefree teenage fun.

As a young adult I didn't get to live on my own much. Mostly I lived with my parents, until I was 24. I had my own apartment a couple of different times for short periods of time, but always ended up back with them. It might have been nice to live on my own more. That is before I lived with my husband and moved back to the midwest to be with him. What if we hadn't lived together right away? Would I have been so anxious to start our life together? I had some young adult single girl fun, but did I miss out on more? OR would all that partying, drinking, drugging single girl night life have felt empty after awhile?

Now going back to my husband. Did we get married to soon? Or really did we start a family too soon? Did we miss out on having just "us time" without the added responsibility of children?

I guess it all boils down to the question of whether or not I will have lived or died with or without having accomplished my dreams. Were children, marriage and a home in the suburbs a part of that? Even if they weren't, aren't they good enough to have become what I should have dreamed about for my life? I look into my children's faces and think, "how could I dream of anything else?" What would my life be like without them? What if I had missed my chance to have them? Then obviously I think that I am not missing out on anything.

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