Phyllis K.'s Story

Today Is the First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life!

Back in the 1960's when I was a teenager there was a bumper sticker that read, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!".  Reading that, I used to wonder what exactly the phrase meant: Did it mean that everyday was a new beginning? Should people therefore disregard their history? Or, did it mean that henceforth life was new?

At the time, I never figured it out, and would have been surprised to know that I wouldn't really get the answer until forty years later! 

Here is my story:

After high school I attended college, and although I could have been an outstanding liberal arts student, I know I was just average. I blame not only myself but also immigrant parents who didn't know how to provide positive support and encouragement to an American-born teenager. (My parents raised me to be a good Chinese girl, someone who was seen but not heard, who obeyed her father first, then her husband and father-in-law, and finally, when they passed on, her son.) 

I graduated from college, and my crowning achievement at that time was gaining admittance into graduate school, something no other woman had done in my family. When I shared the news with my mother, her reply was "Why do you want to do that? No one will marry you because you'll be too smart."  However, as a member of a pioneering generation of women, I strived to be independent, to make a career for myself, and among other things to retain my maiden name; I didn't allow my mother's comment to deter me.

The career path I chose was gratifying and full of promise. Far away from my native San Francisco, I began in an administrative assistant position at a non-profit, community-based women's health organization, moved "up the ladder", and within five years left as the retiring Executive Director. This allowed me to take a finance position with a major bank on Wall Street, and then become a business manager in a software start-up just as personal computers were emerging into the business world. I knew I was on my way to something BIG, career-wise.

But then I encountered love.

My parents were delighted since this love interest was a perfect fit to the mold I had been strictly programmed to follow since childhood. More specifically, he was of the same ethnicity, was educated, worked as a respected professional, and had already started to pave a sure path to financial security. I couldn't resist the pressure I felt to marry him, no matter how much I wanted to continue to pursue the career and the life I had created for myself thousands of miles away from parents and family.  So, for the sake of love and filial piety I pulled up stakes and headed home.

"Confined" is how I would describe the next twenty years of my life. Constrained by the expectations of others, my life was rote and routine but not absent of joy, growth, or personal gratification.

Settling into a seemingly comfortable life with a nice home, and raising two children in the final decade of the 20th century was anything but leisurely. We Baby Boomers have extremely high expectations for ourselves and our children. No down time for anyone; hence, life was never dull and no one was ever idle.  GO, GO, GO! was the mantra for nearly two decades. My job was that of mother, wife, daughter, school and community volunteer, and to top it all  off, I also had a day job.

Luckily, I found great working environments, with flexible hours: I could pick up the kids from school and drive them from lesson to practice and back, as needed; or escort my aging parents to various medical appointments; or attend school-related meetings; or participate in community volunteer efforts... but my jobs weren't exactly career building! However, they offered as much gratification as I could handle with everything else that moms and care-giver daughters juggle with.

I had so many responsibilities in the twenty years that I was supporting my husband, raising our children, and tending to my aging parents, that I not only neglected to care for myself, but also missed out on the moments that I felt I was supposed to have experienced. I barely remember what the kids were like when they were toddlers, or in preschool. And as much as I tried and wanted to, I couldn't take the time to quietly sit and hold my father's hand as he was taking his last breaths, or stroke my mother's forehead as she was preparing to enter the next world, because my children needed me at home. 

Now, the decades have passed. The children are almost grown; one is in college and the other is almost there. My parents have long gone. I barely recognize the man I married but the relationship has a strong foundation and with more time that we spend together we'll enable a re-acquaintance to what we once had BC (before children). 

As I reflect on this whirlwind of twenty years past, I think:  What about me?  Who am I, and what do I want?  I realize it's now most important to re-acquaint myself with me. This decade, my 50's, is my time. I now understand what that bumper sticker meant. At 57 years of age I've arrived at that, and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have every intention of living it fully.