You know, it’s just a huge adjustment being at home all day, whether one has children or not to justify it. I had a hard time feeling good about being home so much for lack of work a few years back…. I eventually came to a better acceptance of my situation and figured out how to both embrace its positives and negatives, and to find other meaning outside of whether or not I worked or how much money I was (not) earning.

Not to say you need a job, either. Just that it’s a real emotional/psychological adjustment, being home, being so depended on. I’m sure you will eventually figure out ways to nurture yourself (and sense of self, sense of accomplishment, all that) within the circumstances. It took me several years, however, and was relatively agonizing. *wink*

To echo some other comments, you are also young enough that you will get more “play time” as your children get a little older. I guess (I hope) I had my play time earlier because by the time I *get* my children and raise them to college age, it’ll be time for me to retire… which still may allow time to play, but it’s not the same as being free and unfettered to take off and do wild and crazy (fabulous) things/adventures.

On the other hand, I know plenty of friends in their 50s and 60s who are having great adventures. One woman is planning to semi-retire to Thailand to teach English, travel and take photographs. Another friend, also in her 50s, has been selling everything so she can travel around the country for a year. Her kids are old enough (mid 20s) that they don’t need her for a while, and her remaining elderly relatives are young and healthy enough that they wouldn’t need her for a while… so she’s going for it in the window of opportunity she has. I think that’s cool, and it gives me hope that “play time” will come around again… Did I mention some of the retiree friends who are now looking at PeaceCorp? So it can be annoying to have friends old enough to call me “just a baby” (yeah, fun. ), but encouraging to have role models for what is possible.

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You are going to see this as a personal attack, but it isn’t. You put it on your blog for all to see, so it is an assumption that you would consider any feedback you generate. This is honestly what I thought and I am giving you a few minutes of my time: The gal who went to Cambodia (etc) was hungry and had the drive to prove herself, to find an identity, to feel the world. This is my take as a long time, yet sporadic, reader.

I, too, have wonder this about women. I am one and I, too, for my own reasons stepped out of the regular world for a while, so bear with me. This is a meditation on women. I know only what you write. If this doesn’t ring true, the reader has been misled. I am not an e-buddy, so I feel no need to sugarcoat, but I assure you that I mean no harm. You asked, perhaps rhetorically, what happened to you and here is what can to my mind.

You had a child, then you got married and had another one. You’re husband, from what you’ve written, is well paid and ambitious. This allows you to stay home, as well as adopt from China. You did many of the risk taking adventures when you were single. Yes, you were in a relationship (or a budding one) during some of it, but you were still single. Being single means one can take more risks. You are married now and have your husband ‘s security. You are no longer hungry for risk type success in your own right. Yet, at the same time the inward identity may be hungry for the time when you could be more of a risk taker and single. This is not about your children or your husband, but about you. Somehow the outward contentment is providing to be an outward shell of security, yet the inward contentment –the past risk taker–is starving for attention that the outward security cannot provide. In other words, outwardly you may have contentment through physical, economical objects, but what really counts, the individual contentment (the old self) is starving.

To me, it isn’t an issue of achieving the American Dream; it is more an issue of inward contentment. Ask around. The American Dream is being successful in your own right, not as a family unit. Americans are more in tune to the individual versus the collective success. To me, you are looking for something that will fulfill you outside of your family. It is not an issue of employment –but for many it has to be, because they have to work– but of personal contentment with your skills, gifts and fulfillment. Find something that makes your soul burn with desire and fulfillment – whatever that means to you.

I wish I could write more, but time is wasting. (I have my own goals for today to achieve.) What you’ve address has wracked my brain countless times. I have written a manuscript that deals with this, but often I had wondered if there would be an audience for it. Yet, reading this, I may decide to e-publish it.

Take care. Take some time each day (whether it be just 5-10 minutes) and write down how you feel, what you want, what you want to accomplish, what digs at you, whatever. Do not publish it on your blog. This is for you, not the audience. You know you restrict what you put out for public consumption. Don’t edit yourself in your evaluation. You would only be cheating yourself.

JS