Mid-life crisis.
I think I caught it. All the symptoms are showing.
In my 20s I was full of energy and was looking forward to what life would bring in the future. Would I get married? Have children? Where would I live? How would I be changing the world? etc. – those were the questions infesting my young excitable mind.
Now I am married, have children, I am getting a lot of grey hair and our neighbors’ children started addressing me with a polite “U” form. It’s like “Sie” in German and “Vous” in French and “Ви” in Ukrainian. “U”, like I am 75 or something.
I am only 38 and I dye my hair regularly!
Currently, things to be looking forward to are my children growing up, getting married, and having babies so that I could help them take care of them.
Pathetic, isn’t it?
I sometimes feel like whatever I have achieved in life is so little and insignificant. Except for still being married to the same man and still having children that are healthy and alive. No small achievement there, I’ll give you that… But what else?
No one was forcing me to make the choices that I have made that brought me where I am in life. Many of those choices were good, actually. But somehow, here I am, – moderately dejected and feeling sorry for myself.
I just can’t stop comparing myself to those people, women that have built great careers, are making money, wear make-up every day and live in their own houses.
My life is making sure my kids get to school and back home safe,
cleaning our home,
thinking about dinner,
buying groceries,
making dinner,
cleaning up,
hanging out with the kids,
reading a book, while Sean is putting the boys to bed.
After that there is not much energy left to do anything, but bemoan my lack of energy, confabulate with Sean, watch some TV shows and go to bed.
When I was 18 by the time I would be 38 I thought I would be moving mountains and making a lot of money. Now I am moving mountains of dishes and what I am making a lot is a mess that I then also have to clean.
Living a dream, guys.
Oh, I also chose the wrong country in which to want to work as an English teacher. I mean, a Ukrainian teaching English in the Netherlands where almost everyone is fluent in Denglish with millions of native English-speaking expats everywhere? No wonder I can’t find a job. No one cares that I am a genius, cute and funny, and with a big heart. People read my CV, they already imagine a thick Eastern-European accent, and then choosing someone from England versus someone from Ukraine as an English teacher for their school becomes a little, charming, whistling-a-nice-tune no brainer.
No, I can’t find a job. The job that I want. To impart the passion of the English language to all those that don’t know they need it (and they do). My mission is failing.
So I’m gonna go bake a cake. At least it is tangible, smells good, and I will hear some satisfactory grunts from my three happy boys that will make me smile and reconsider all those complaints about my unambitious mediocre life.
Gotta count my blessings. And rejections in my mailbox. And my grey hairs. And the days of magical summer that are inevitably slipping into the past.
