Best by date
One of my favorite things about writing this blog is continuously being reminded how many of us are struggling with the exact same things. While I never want other people to struggle it is comforting to know that we have shared demons. Kind of like how Anessa and her friends share a love of the color purple, unicorns, and a difficulty transitioning from one activity to the next. We share anxiety, trauma, and crippling ambition. Same-same.
Reading the comments posted, one recurring thread stuck with me: the idea that as we age our ambition should wane. Women were confiding in me, albeit on a public forum, that they struggled with *still* being ambitious and competitive in their 50’s or 60’s. Once I came to terms with the fact that there was going to be no hope for me, I questioned why in the world anyone would think that age would lessen a personality trait.
Being competitive and ambitious are part of who I am. Sure there may be ebbs and flows but letting go of these pieces of me (as if I could), sounds an awful lot like settling or giving up and that’s a no-go in the Book of Kelly.
Instead, I hope that these qualities become more clear, more focused. Our ambition is molded by our lived experiences. For example, ten-year-old Kelly dreamt of discovering a new dinosaur species or studying whales. I quickly realized these were probably not realistic career paths since I’m not sure I would ever be able to pass biochemistry, would have an asthma attack at a dig site and would be restless in a laboratory setting.
What we strive for may change, but our drive to achieve shouldn’t have to. When Adelaide’s care became my full-time job, my ambition felt like it had been leashed. Cue some major resentment. But in time I realized that I just needed to redirect that ambition into learning everything I could about the way Adelaide’s body worked. I raised awareness, fundraised for research, and became the best damn advocate possible.
Our ambition is a superpower and the older we get the more we understand the workings of the world and how we can best achieve within it. Our ambition becomes focused on the strengths we have honed through our trials and celebrations as well as the acknowledgement of our weakness (understanding anything beyond high school science), the more powerful we become.
Whether it takes the form of a perfectly packed bento lunch box for our children or running for office, we should not be ashamed of our aspirations. Nor should we listen to society’s expectations that they have a ‘best by’ date.
By the way, this is the same society that is choosing between to octogenarians to run for President. Clearly, no one assumes or expects a man’s ambition to wane with age. Even though we know that women live longer, and studies have shown that “women tend to score better than men of the same age on tests of reason, memory, and problem solving” according to the National Academy of Sciences.
In trying to deduce the source of this double standard, (without doing copious amounts of research because this is a weekly blog I write for free) I assume that it has to do with childbearing and rearing. When a woman becomes a mother the effect on her life and available time is undeniable. The same assumptions, fair or otherwise, are not made for men. A working man keeps on working after a child is born. Paternal leave has only recently become a thing as are the concepts of “mental load” or the “equal division of labor at home”.
To this end, because women who choose to have families have multiple balls in the air at once, it can take longer to see the fruits of our ambition. Where are the 50 over 50 lists? Show me the top 50 people who started a new career in their 40’s or 50’s. The people who found their calling later in life or who finally had time to nurture their ambition once their children were out of diapers and in full-time school. Let’s highlight these successes as well!
I am an ambitious woman.
I will always be an ambitious woman.
Forty years from now I will not be running for president, but I could be publishing another book or perhaps kicking ass in competitive jigsaw puzzle tournaments. Who knows.
P.S. I’m still fascinated by dinosaurs
Photo ID: Kelly at 8 years old wearing a light blue sleeveless dress with white flowers on it and her hair in a pony tail. She is standing next to her dad who is wearing an peachy orange striped polo and khaki’s. He is in his late 30’s has dark hair, glasses and a mustache. They are at the Museum of Natural History in New York City and behind them is the fossil head and neck of a brachiosaurus.
Photo ID 2: Kelly is holding a four year old Jackson on her hip. She is wearing a teal dress and black tights. Jackson is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. They are standing in front of the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil, Sue, at the Field museum in Chicago.
