Not Alone

Midlife Crisis at 30 - Lia Macko and Kerry Rubin (Plume 2004)

I really wish I had read this 3 years ago, when it first came into my life via a bookswap. Because despite all the differences and things that "make me unique" and whatnot, I often felt like I was reading my life story.

So Macko & Rubin explore what seems the feminist mystique for my generation: that the promise that "you can do anything" turns into the expectation that "you should be everything" ... and inevitably, guilt and panic when we're not. It's a little frustrating to travel back to 2003 and 2004. Man, I wish I were building my career then; I'd happily take that economy over this one.

Anyway, a couple moments of deep identification:

• "a sense of bewilderment about why their lives felt so out of sync with their expectations, as well as a deep fear that the paths they had chosen were leading them in the wrong direction"
• "Despite my best intentions, I ended up exactly where [I did not want to be] at 30."
• "I feel like I just got divorced without ever being married." [This one. So. Much.]

and then the more helpful moments of hearing from women on the other side:

• There's still plenty of time.
• The difference between a B and an A often isn't worth the extra effort and struggle. Sometimes it's okay to settle for that B-plus.
• and from Lt. General Claudia Kennedy: "There are times in your future when you will be more beautiful than you are today; you need to get old enough to be that beautiful."

Anyone who has spent five minutes talking to me in the past 3 months knows that I needed to hear all those things right now. But really, I think just about every young woman I know needs them too. We're a bit younger than Macko and Rubin. Our generational experience is a touch different. But the questions and fears and identity crises we're facing: they haven't changed much over the past decade.