Winter of Discontent

I can't watch Mad Men right now. We downloaded (cough*stole from the Internet*cough) the entire first season intending to make our way through the series and ... it's too close. The isolation, the 'whatever you say, Dear,' the anxiety and the malaise; the problem that has no name.

""The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?"" Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique.

Even fifty years on from the first stirrings of what would be the Second Wave of feminism, the problem persists. Naming it is still elusive. I have fulfilling work. I am independent with a marketable college degree and a solid resume. I face no real stigma if I put Baby Savant in day care, if I leave dishes and vacuuming and cooking for Mr. Savant.

And yet, I find myself asking, still, "Is this all?" Of course, it's easy to give in to the crushing weight of this hopelessness with more than four feet of snow on the ground, with only one car (which Mr. Savant takes to work most days) and few friends. And my unborn son and all the related discomforts and symptoms make crawling back into bed and sleeping days away a simple alternative.

I find myself envious of my imaginary sisters on Mad Men. They have a neighborhood. They have a community, a circle. Sure, none of them want or are able to see past the barriers The Problem throws in their path, but at least they share a common delusion. I have no one with whom to share this exile.