MomMe TV Blog :: "The Silver Lining"

She is a horse expert who has written two best selling books translated into five languages and is working on a third. She has spent her whole life exploring the relationship between women and horses and has become a celebrity within her circle. (I would like to add at this point that she does not have any children).

After initial introductions, she opened with, "So, are you into horses?"

I don't know why I did this but I launched into a lengthy, defensive and vague, "Well I like horses. I think they're pretty. I mean, I respect them as animals and of course, I recognize their contribution to the history of the American West. But, actually I don't know much about them".

"So, in other words, No" she replied.

Already weakened by my lame opening, she then delivered the knock-out punch to my withering self-confidence by asking, "So then, what is your passion". As if the only possible reason I wasn't into horses was that my passion was directed in another equally single-minded and rewarding direction.

In my head I reviewed a list of possible responses to that question that went something like, "Well I read a lot, and of course I have kids which require a lot of my energy what with all the feeding and clothing and driving I do, and then there are my dogs, and of course I try to eat right and exercise, and I care a lot about the environment, and I write a little and I also do a lot of laundry, and then there is the time it takes to do my hair and nails…"

Outwardly I think I just stared at her for a long ten seconds, while I possibly said something like, "Well, um, well, you know…things. I keep busy".

“Uh huh”, she replied. Which obviously really meant, “What a loser. You are beneath my even responding with a real word”.

She quickly moved on to someone more deserving of her attention and I was left thinking I'd failed the interview for the job of self-respecting woman. Her question brought me back to college where everyone's introductory question was, "What is your major?" At the time I had a major as well as a minor and I could confidently state that I was majoring in Marketing and minoring in Psych and knew exactly where I was going in life. Back then it seemed so simple. Then life happened and the next thing I knew I was a mother of two living in the suburbs.

So what happened to my passion in the intervening twenty years? (Perhaps I put it down somewhere while breast-feeding and forgot where I put it). Surely even contemplating one's passion is the luxury of the modern day middle or upper class. Prior to this time in history and still for those of less fortunate circumstances, the answer to the question, "What is your passion?" would be "Survival". But I was one of those lucky educated ones, and I remember (vaguely) planning to “have it all”.

The next day I took a mental inventory of my life since college. I spent my twenties building a career and enjoying being young. I had plenty of passion back then, as is appropriate for any self-centered twenty-something. My thirties were spent building a family, dialing down my career and trying to get enough sleep. Even then I was not without passion. In fact, I would have to say that it was during that period of my life when my kids were very young that I developed my life long passion for wanting to be left alone for five minutes.

Now I am in my forties with my somewhat self-sufficient family and I finally have the time to revisit the question, "What is your passion" and unfortunately I don't have an answer that roles easily off the tongue.

There are so many options to consider. It's probably too late to become a ballerina, a gymnast or a doctor, but I could still become a gourmet cook, a gardener, a yoga instructor, a fitness buff, a wine connoisseur, a tennis player, an art enthusiast or an entrepreneur. But as a mother, I still don't have a lot of time. Can it still be a passion if you dabble a little here and a little there?

And then an answer hit me and I wished I could have rewound the tape to the moment she asked me, “What is your passion?”

I would proclaim, “I am a student of the human condition, in so far as the human under consideration is an educated, Jewish, suburban mother of two in her forties. And as this is a longitudinal study, my conclusions won't be published for many years to come”.

At least then I wouldn't have been the one with the dumbfounded expression.