Remember me?
I barely do.

Four months away from having my third kid (in three years, no less), having just gotten a promotion of sorts from the same Ivy League research outfit where I've been since August 2011, I am loathe to admit that I still feel dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction being driven by the two things that have always made me feel like me. You'll never guess. Oh wait, I am that redundant and obvious: 1) a career in global health and 2) a continuous outlet for my (now waning) athleticism.

1)Global health - I think most people would tell me to get over it at this point. I'm 35 (ugh); with healthy, super kids and husband; a stable, pretty darn, well-paying job; a great house; proximity to my family; yearly trips to Hawaii; a community that cares about sustainability; miles and miles of well-maintained roads for cycling right outside my front door; a decent number of friends; and a takeout counter in a gas station in West Leb that has surprisingly good Chinese food. So what's the problem?

I increasingly feel like I am living someone else's dream, doing someone else's life's work. The contribution I want to be making to the world is not something measured in academic journal articles and pay grade. While I haven't totally sold my data-driven soul to Big Pharma (there was a moment a few years back that that almost occurred...shutter!), I feel unbelievably disconnected from people, from having a true impact that affects real people, in areas of maternal and child health that matter to me. I write papers now about hip fractures and medication use. Really? How did this happen?! I'm not on the front lines anymore, in a way that I had been in Lesotho and Hawaii. And my work just feels empty now. I wish I could be someone who didn't mind just collecting a paycheck and going about the rest of my life contentedly...but I'm not and I never have been. My career - the way I spend most of my waking days - matters as much to me as anything and it's languishing. (Let me not get into a snit about the obstructionist academic hierarchy that I encounter daily that prevents me from trying to even do the work I am now doing. Ugh.)

I know that I am not alone in feeling the burden of compromise for family and kids. And pre-children, I never would have really understood why someone like me couldn't just figure out a way to make it all work. Drag my family to Africa, rent my house, and call it a day. But now I understand. And in understanding, I find the struggle even more challenging. Maybe it'll be different when they aren't babies, but I suspect it will be the same (or harder). Maybe one day I'll be able to move on, to relish in my - admittedly - comfortable/easy life. But that day is not here and the thing that increases this struggle is that my usual mental health safety net is also languishing:

2) Athletics - Well, let's just face it. I'm pregnant with two toddlers. I know there are superwomen out there who are still triathletes through this same life course (and it is KILLING me that I am not one of them). But I am not finding the mental or physical space to accommodate my soul's desire to be the athlete I always have been. Sure, I work out of some kind at least 4 days/ week. But, like my career, it's a lot just going through the motions. The outcome here not being a paycheck, but rather a maintenance of some kind of physique for when (if) I return to some kind of competition. (And let me tell you, the swim workouts I do these days are mighty shy of what I would deem competition worthy.)

As the sun finally makes it's appearance this spring (yes, it took until June!), I imagine myself cycling all around these great New England roads, only to stop off for lunch and then hop in a canoe for the afternoon. Or cleating up for one of countless summer weekends of ultimate, as I spent my entire life for 16 years before kids. (Dare I even mention surfing Cliffs?) But what is the reality. Well, I'M VERY PREGNANT; I have kids who would go insane if I stuck them in a bike trailer and didn't let them explore and run and sit on their own bikes; the post-lunch toddler nap usually kills everything; and honestly...I sometimes find it overwhelming to try to manage the schedules of four people with different desires and developments. Not to mention the fact that spending too much time away from my kids (like regularly on a whole weekend day) would incite so much guilt in me that it wouldn't be worth it anyway. Oh, and did I mention, I'M PREGNANT.

We do manage to get outside though. And while I'd like to be on the Falling Water Trail in the Presidentials, I wind up walking the trails around Storrs Pond because the kids can handle that (and when they get tired, the trails are groomed enough for the stroller).

Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with my kids. They're hilarious and everything else. Zachary just started saying "I love you", and I would never trade that for anything. Ever. I'm just in this weird, in between, place where they are too old too just drag along and they aren't old enough to ride the Prouty with me yet, or come to pick-up. That day will come, I know. And then they'll be less cute and they'll hate me and they'll have their own friends rather than want to spend the whole weekend with me. But, wow, I really look forward to family athletics.

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What is the answer for now, though? I wish I knew. I guess I need to be better at finding (even small) ways to reclaim my self.