Our secret weapon

I know in my bones that nothing life will ever offer me will be as fearsome as my worries are. Not because my worries are terrible, horrifying or gruesome, but because in my worries I underestimate myself.

As a teenager, and even in my early 20′s my greatest fear wasn’t losing my job, being physically attacked walking home in the dark or  getting food poisoning from eating a bad kebab after a big night out. My greatest fear was losing my identity to ‘Wife and Mother’. This, I worried, would be a fate worse than death.

I was plagued by images of an unhappy me. I would be balancing budgets, changing nappies, cooking daily and not working outside the family home. I imagined that this suburban hell would repress my unrepressable spirit. I was sure that if I was to dedicate myself to the role and responsibility of a householder that there would be no return, and my soul would be crushed.

It sounds dramatic, I know, but I would still argue realistic. Girls of my generation were pushed hard as children, told that our brains and careers would be our salvation, our ticket out of domestic subservience. Well, maybe it was worded more like ‘If you work hard you can do anything you want. You could be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a nurse or even an engineer. You have so much potential. Don’t waste it.’ Waste our potential on what? The roles not listed, like wife and mother perhaps?

It turns out though that suburban wife and mother was not enough to repress my spirit. I know that now because I am there. It is no walk in the park either. My fears about the never-ending list of tasks to complete and the remarkably short time to actually do them was spot on. As was my fear that the needs of my partner and especially a small child can at times feel suffocating. What my fears didn’t account for was the strength of my spirit. My spirit is still strong enough to fight for time and space to express my individuality.

I am convinced that this unaccounted for ingredient, my real potential, will bode me well in all of life’s ‘hells’. Because I can’t imagine how high my spirit will fly in the face of adversity, but I can’t help but live it.