Not what I signed up for

I don't mean this to be a rant, or a complaint, nor for it to sound depressed or weary but....

I find I am living a life that seems like "not what I signed up for" in a world that is "not what I signed up for."  I guess that's the essence of a midlife crisis.  I put it off when the kids were little, but I feel it very strongly now.

A young woman who used to be a student of mine in Hebrew school when I was a congregational rabbi is now a young mom, and she signed me up for a facebook group called "What's for dinner?"  I can't bear it.  I spend a good deal of time thinking about what to make for dinner these days, more than I used to, but I cannot bear that this is what young women twenty or thirty years my junior are spending their time doing.

I grew up in the women's movement.  I worked in the battered women's movement, fighting for justice.  All kinds of questions I thought were asked and answered seem to come around on a daily basis.  I frequently wonder, "what were we doing?  did nothing take from all those hours and years of hard work? was there no real change?"

It doesn't help that I live in a country heavily influenced by Orthodox Judaism and hang out on facebook and in person with lots of Orthodox women.  They (mostly) didn't have the upbringing I did or the same expectations. 

I don't know what I was thinking when I moved to Israel, but then as now my life is significantly affected by being shomeret Shabbat, in whatever fashion I am.  I don't naturally move in secular circles and haven't since around 1990.  Certain freedoms aren't available and I am naturally thrown into a culture that isn't naturally mine.  Though I work hard to be involved with Israelis and participate in Israeli culture (study every week in Hebrew with Hebrew speakers, joined a Hebrew speaking choir), I don't mix naturally there either. 

Last year I hit menopause with a bang and with it kind of ricocheted off the career advancement ladder and out of management.  I found I can earn almost as much money working from home 25-30 hours a week doing intellectually challenging work as I earned working 40-45 hours at my management job.  I traded my career identity for the opportunity to be home more for my kids and family.

So I spend more time making dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry and grocery shopping.  And trying every day to value these tasks and believe in them.  Here I am in a tough place.  Gittinomics is the book that made the most sense of this for me - he explains that you will either do these tasks or pay someone to do them for you.  I already pay car mechanics, electricians, plumbers and handymen (note: all male) and now an accountant, but I have never felt that I could comfortably pay someone to clean my house.   And if you can't do that you probably can't work full time, raise kids, etc.  You can't be the middle class executive type I was trying to be for so many years. 

And yet I feel like I am constantly fighting the expectations of Bryn Mawr/my family/my ambitions when I try to get comfortable in my new life.  It's like I am wearing a suit that doesn't fit.  And I didn't slow down and get off the stress track because I "wanted" to.  I had to land in hospital to figure out that what I was doing wasn't working for me or anyone around me.  For the last 4-5 years I was in my job, I went to work every morning feeling like I was underwater and below sea level with all the tasks that were on top of me, never getting to level and certainly not "on top of things".  And no David Allen books or Asana software could fix that. 

I'm not unhappy with my de-stressed life, but I'm not comfortable either.  I have a million questions about gender, and the purpose of life, and what I am doing and not doing.  I don't feel I was "sold a bill of goods" by the women's movement or falsely told that I could "have it all."  I still hold by two sayings - my brother says, "you can have everything you want, but you can't have it all at the same time."  And I heard somewhere, "you can do anything you want in life if you are willing to pay the price."  I decided to pay the price of my career identity and importance in the world in trade for a quieter, happier family, a saner life and better physical and mental health.  But it still doesn't feel like "what I signed up for."