doing it all

While I do not want to take away from Lynn Ruth's busy life elixir, I've been having the uncomfortable feeling lately that my generation (baby boomers) does not want to miss out on anything, does not want its children to miss out on anything and thus becomes overextended in many ways. Some of us have lost the drive to do one thing particularly well, and that means dropping other things. I find myself making choices, I have too many choices, and I have not found out which ones are the best for me. I'm drawn to writing and becoming better as a writer by writing more but I sometimes resent the time and isolation this requires when I have to be a mother, partner, housekeeper and employee at UC Berkeley. I also find writing, however great the highs are, self-indulgent at times, taking time away from the connecting that Lynn Ruth talked about. I let things go to do the things I do better, but I'm still running out of time. I see others who do it all and wonder whether they are more perfect or more dysfunctional. We're a spoiled generation and I fear our kids will be even more so, having us as role models. Realistically I don't think we can have it all and I wish more of my peers realized this, if only to downshift, to take a step back...and take a real vacation from who(m) we're trying to be.