What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?

Recently, few topics have been as scrutinized by my friends as sleep, family and our sense of purpose.  Sleep, or more specifically the lack of sleep is open for discussion among new mothers and older mothers alike. 

New mothers lack sleep for the obvious reasons, but your day will come when your little cherub will sleep through the night!  But, it is another story for those of us going through menopause, and frankly I see no end in sight. 

When we are fortunate enough to nod off to dream land at a normal hour, we often wake, bright eyed at two or three a.m. What is that all about?  I've woken thinking it's five in the morning only to realize it's 1:00 a.m. and Jimmy Fallon is on.  And for those of you who don't have this problem, well good for you.  I bet your children slept through the night at two weeks too.  But, if you ask Maggie Mae, Beverly Adele, Patricia Anne or Annabelle Lee they will tell you otherwise.

 

Worries about family, even when there is nothing to worry about at all, will never end.  That's the price we pay for love.  So, let's not beleaguer the point.

And like the question Barbra Streisand sings, "What are you doing the rest of your life?" we are asking ourselves the very same question now that our children are grown.

Maggie Mae and Patricia Anne are searching for the answer, even though from my perspective, they live very full and purposeful lives. 

Do career women ever feel this way as their families change?  And then there are those women who contentedly lunch and play Mahjong and are perfectly happy.  I don't get it (please don't send me emails). 

So I've been giving this a lot of thought and it has occurred to me that maybe we are never meant to be fully and absolutely fulfilled.  If we were, we would be complete, (as in done) and there would be no reason to motivate ourselves to be more and do more. And how very boring that would be.

 

 

Barbra Singing, "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?"
The Concert 1994
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