Over the last couple of years I have had several conversations with women around my own age about how to maintain a sense of “self” amidst jobs, husbands, kids, friends, etc. The fact that this topic came up more than once in completely isolated and unrelated incidents speaks to the ubiquity of this quandary. (Side note: I don’t think that this issue is necessarily unique to women my own age, or even just women, but that’s another topic to explore entirely.) In each and every one of these conversations I maintained, adamantly, that a woman does not have to give up her self for the sake of her family, her job, or any other outside force. It is, I said, essential to a woman’s happiness that she does not do this, or it will be felt by those that she’s those she’s sacrificing for, thus rendering the self-sacrifice useless. I said these things, and I meant them. But then I thought about myself, about my life, and I wondered if I at all practiced what I was preaching.
In my mind I am an intelligent and cultured individual who spends her free time playing the violin and learning world languages, when I’m not working on my newest novel or catching up on my literature, all the while keeping up with the latest and greatest on this Golden Age of Television. That is the person that I want to be. In reality, I am a working mother of three who has maybe an hour of time each evening to not only have “me time” but also spend time with my husband, catch up on emails, schedule doctor appointments, and the list goes on and on. The truth is that on most nights I choose to just sit and watch TV because it’s nice to relax and just be.
So, does that make me a hypocrite? Have I actually been sacrificing for my family all along without actually intending to? I spent a lot of time thinking long and hard about this, and ultimately I decided that the answer is no. I don’t feel like I’m making self-sacrifices for my family. I chose to have my family, and spending time doing things with them and for them isn’t a sacrifice. My family is my favorite part of my life. My sense of self hasn’t been lost because of my family; my sense of self has grown because of them.
That being said, when it comes down to it, there are only so many hours in a day to realistically do the things I want to do. Choices do have to be made, and I have to admit, the choices I was making weren’t doing much to turn me into the cultured person I wanted to be. So I made a conscious choice in 2017 to change this and add some variety to what I did in the hours of free time I did have. Specifically, I decided to read more. Books were my first love, and I never feel more like myself than when I’m reading.
I read thirteen books in 2017. Twelve of them were new to me, and one was an old friend. I didn’t quite meet my reading goal, and thirteen is nowhere near where I once was, but it’s a step in the right direction.
In 2018 my plan is to keep on with this progress. I was recently interviewed by my school’s newspaper and they asked me my New Year’s Resolution. I told them I wanted to read and write more. It’s taken me a month to actually get around to finishing this blog post, so I’m not sure how I’ll do overall on the writing front. But, I’m trying, which for me is the best choice I could possibly make.
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