I’m 42 years old and I have two kids ages 10 and 7. Since they were born, I’ve been wrestling with conflicting ambitions in regards to the kind of mom I want to be and the kind of career I want to have. Somehow it never occurred to me that it would be so hard.

I started my own business in my late 20’s and had my first son when I was 32. I distinctly remember the feeling of pride and overwhelm as my business and belly grew simultaneously. I was able to move my business out of my home just in time to transform my office into a nursery and welcome my baby boy.

For a brief moment in time, I felt unstoppable. I felt like I had achieved that coveted work-life balance unicorn situation that our culture is so completely obsessed with. I didn’t love the idea of eventually leaving my baby at home with a nanny while I went to my new office, but I figured if it was only part time it would be ok. I could keep my business going and be home in the afternoon to be with my son, fire up my laptop after he went to bed, splitting my time evenly between the two.

As time went on, what once sounded like an ideal set-up turned out to be exhausting and unsustainable. I had successfully divided my time 50/50 only to realize that both business and baby required 100 percent of my attention. I was unwilling to give all of myself to either. I googled “part time CEO”, and “working mom” and all I came up with was unrealistic stock photos of women in front of computers with smiling babies on their laps.

That’s not how this works, we all know that, and yet we’re fed this idyllic image of “working mom” that makes us feel like it is normal and expected that we fill both roles with equal attention and energy. It’s poisonous. This idea of kicking ass at work while being a perfect mom was killing me.

It’s not just that this is impossible, it’s that I’ve set myself up for failure over and over again by demanding too much of myself and ignoring obvious signs that I am in over my head. I think most moms will tell you that even though we know the scales can never be perfectly balanced, we can’t help but torture ourselves trying. It’s not just that we want to be great at everything, we feel like we’re supposed to be great at everything. 

Whether by choice or circumstance, we end up making sacrifices. Maybe we work less hours in order to be with our kids, but that leads to lower pay and a devolution of career opportunities. Or we carry on with our full time jobs in order to make money and advance our careers which leads to less time with our kids, more guilt, and still an endless amount of work to do at home in addition to a full time job.

And no matter how you slice it up, somehow most of us are feeling like we’re letting someone down whether it’s our colleagues, our families, or ourselves. Why are we setting ourselves up for failure? Why are we so hell bent on returning to our pre-baby lives instead of adjusting our expectations and goals to accommodate this major life change? Why do we feel like we should keep working as if we don’t have children, and parent as if we don’t work?

As much as I hate the cliche, it is a crisis, and it is happening midlife. I used to believe that it was inevitable, but the more reflecting on my own life and crises that I do, the more I believe that if I could have been more honest and true to myself from the get go, I could have taken the opportunity to evolve as opposed to trying to force myself to try to succeed in my career as if building a family shouldn’t call for me to pause and reframe my goals.

Am I doing midlife all wrong?

Like many women, I wanted to have it all so badly. But do we really want it all, or are we just programmed to believe we should want to have it all?  There so much alluring language and (often heavily filtered) examples of female excellence that sometimes I think we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that maybe just maybe if we work a little harder, sleep a little less, sacrifice a little more, we can get it right. We can be everything to everyone… and if we’re not, well that’s no one’s fault but our own.

Many of us hit a breaking point (I’ve hit several myself) but instead of analyzing the pieces and taking a moment to asses and explore why we’ve broken (again), we forge ahead with the beating of a feminist mantra in our head: “Women can have it all!” and we carry on, dragging a sack of broken bits on bedraggled bodies wondering why things aren’t getting any easier.

Social messaging tells us things like “You’ve got this mama! Go get it boss babe!” Cute catch phrases that make it seem like women are just adorably climbing the corporate ladder with babies on their hips and perfectly styled beach waves blowing in the wind. Are we really calling this female empowerment? I am a grown ass woman navigating a complicated turning point in my life, not a barbie doll career babe.

This is not empowering because it’s not reality. We’re trying to gloss over a very real transformation by making it pretty and marketable. We are so determined not to have a midlife crisis, that we just dress it up and march on because if we don’t then there must be something wrong with us.

There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s nothing unique about struggling, but there seems to be something unique about the willingness to address it head on instead of trying to power through. I’m tired of powering through. Let me be clear, I’m not tired of working hard, I just feel like I’ve fallen off course and I’m busting my ass down the wrong path. I’m tired and a bit lost and if I’m working this hard and feeling this tired, I want it to be for the right reasons.

I know there is nothing unique about these particular feelings at this specific moment in time… so why does it feel so lonely?  I used to love the quote “Everything you need is already inside”, but damn it, I’ve been digging and searching and I’m sorry but quiet introspection and journaling just isn’t cutting it. Talking to friends who are in the same boat is cathartic, but it doesn’t seem to move things forward.

I can’t seem to get out of my own head long enough to get a clear picture of what I want my life to look like ten years from now, so I’ve become curious about getting inside the heads of women who who have been in this place and found their way through, women whose kids are grown, women who struggled and learned.

I’m looking for women who have faced midlife and turned a crisis into a breakthrough. There’s a fine line between crisis and breakthrough when you think about it, and that’s the very line I’m interested in exploring. I want to have conversations over the fence and share stories and insights from the other side that will help women navigate this stage of life.

If you are one of those women on the other side of the fence, I’d love to hear from you! 

sarahvanstan@icloud.com