…you are a participant.

In this thing called life we are all born innocent and unique. Experiences written on the immaculate slate of our purity. As years of sun leather and freckle our skin, so too does trauma assault our serenity.

We are malleable. We are resilient.

Society gives us all sorts of messages. Many of them are gender specific. Some uplift. Many burden.

I came ‘of age’ in the 1970’s. It was a time of cultural and political upheaval. For all the optimism, there was and is the underlying truth of human frailty and foibles. We live in a world of evil and good. Yet it has been my experience that good eventually prevails.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King jr.

Greater minds than mine recognize the magnificence of the human experiment. Just as our democratic political system is deeply flawed, so to has it proven to be the salvation of multitudes.

In the 1970’s and 80’s the womens liberation movement was in full swing. As is true of many movements, the pendulum of its truths required such intensity to shift the arc toward change, unforeseen and unwanted consequences ensued. Young women of that generation were told they could and should have it all.

A perfume commercial of the era summed it up:

I found myself into the position of being able to have it all but not the time or energy to accomplish it all.

“What do you do?” A familiar party icebreaker of the day.

“I’m a homemaker/mother.”

During that era the facial expression such a reply engendered was often one of disappointment, pity and negative judgement. “Oh (you are JUST a homemaker)” Such conversations were often cut short. The person asking, swam in the cultural times and either saw a woman who stayed home as a simpleton, unmotivated, unqualified to do anything of real importance OR lazy/entitled.

As the years passed and reality of juggling home and outside employment became apparent, such wise women as Oprah Winfrey stated the truth. “You can have it all…just not all at once.” Even that message has taken decades to sink in. Many still don’t believe it.

So I went back to school. Already having earned a B.A. and teaching credential, I found the profession had changed and now required a C.L.A.D. certificate in addition to the aforementioned university work. (Cross Cultural, Language and Academic Development) in order to be considered employable as a public school teacher. I gained the status of ‘having it all’.

As my kids were young I’d run an in home daycare and then taught preschool. Both these pursuits brought in minimum wage or less. I wanted to make my university degree mean something–to assure my father (who footed much of the expense) AND the cultural expectations to bd good enough. I wanted to earn my way AND be a world class mother homemaker.

“You can have it all…just not all at once.” Even though I heard and appreciated that ground breaking message, society did not support it.

I became a human doing. Relaxation and rest faded into the rear view mirror of the times and the stage in life. The mother of children knows she is depleting her internal resources. I knew it. And yet I fell for the story. A truly good woman can do it all.

I became my roles. I ran a home, raised the kids, earned that CLAD and a full time job as a public school teacher. I did it all— except it cost me. Yes, we now had some expendable income (another legacy of the women’s movement–rising prices forcing many women into the workforce to survive). We finally achieved a lifelong dream of mine–to take my kids to experience their European roots before they left the nest. I knew most probably they would not have the perspective enhancing experience of travel until their kids grew up without a similar cost to their mental, emotional and physical health. I wanted more for my kids–a dream of most all parents.

What did it cost for me to survive the tsunamie of that stage of life? Personal exhaustion. Plummeting libido. Less “Us” time. Notice I said ‘less’, not none. Something has to give when children arrive. Usually both parents realize this reality and accept less couples time for the season of childrearing. They consider themselves on the same team and carve out as much together time as they can both manage. Usually (and especially in my era) that required the man to do more at home. Not a little bit more. A chunk more. Balance the domestic scales. Step in when his wife was exhausted by life’s pressures, as she did when his calendar demanded it.

I was not blessed with a healthy husband. Unrecognized by me, I married an addict. A man with deep childhood abandonment wounds and an alcoholic father. A man who felt entitled for the universe to pay him back for all the losses of childhood. A man who did not share his challenges, ask for or give help. Once he began his twenty-seven year affair, both his real and fantasy lives went behind a mask. He could not afford to be truthful and transparent with anyone–and keep his addiction. Unhealthy coping mechanisms built and solidified over the years until he thought he wanted to leave and escape into fantasy 24/7.

Reality smacked him in the face and he realized all he had to lose. He is still afraid to face his grief and so he maintains a role of hiding behind a mask of pretend and silence. This is a continuation and escalation of his abandonment of feeling his emotions or sharing them–thus abandoning me emotionally and physically. He chose false praise and sexual adoration over working on and nourishing the real love in his marriage. What seemed fun fast and easy was actually just another unhealthy coping mechanism which devastated his real marriage, and me. Thus is the way of addiction. Hurt people hurt people. Pain that is not transformed will be transmitted. Secrets and hiding what he considered unlovable–him.

Oh the webs we weave when first we learn how to deceive. First self-deception and betrayal of all he holds true in favor of believing no one could love him as he is. Play the role of the loving committed husband; the attentive hyper sexual lover to his infidelity accomplice. Both lies. Both masks. Both roles played in misguided belief they were the answer to his emotional pain and loss.

So I played the Enjoli perfume woman of the commercial and he played the good guy, Santa dad. Both of us believing a delusion.

Are all roles unhealthy? Carried to an extreme, yes. Played to self detriment, yes. Leaning on one role to the exclusion of balance, yes.

And so he blamed me for not being sexual enough and I resented him for not being present emotionally or physically enough. Expectation gone awry turned into pain and detachment. So sad. So sadly common.

The truth is none of us is a role. None of us is the combination of the roles we play–even the helpful healthy ones. We are all unique and uniquely precious. Even with the best of intentions, roleplaying can be our undoing. Balanced and flexible roles are our happiness and success. Sharing our roles, our struggles, doubts and fears–success. Share the burdens and the joys. Always a work in progress—never perfection.

Participate in roles. They are not you. They are tools to accomplish goals, not life sentences. You are worthy of love, good enough and lovable apart from your roles.