When it goes gray, we need to dream again.

Elsewhere, someone wondered if others sometimes feel as she does: that despite all of the good things in life, there is no joy. What the heck is wrong with me?

Nothing is wrong with you, I replied. Sometimes, though, the realization that we have arrived at adulthood and it looks nothing like what we dreamed of when we were eleven or thirteen or even twenty-one can provoke this feeling.

I don't ordinarily spend much time in the company of women; I don't like them much. But my daughters' involvement with the community swim team has thrust me into their midst for the last six months, and I've learned that many women, homeschooling and not, feel all but enslaved to their homes and their families -- even women who are also working traditional jobs!

Simply put, even as they acknowledge that they have good husbands, nice homes, and decent kids, they also admit that they feel like it all falls to them to keep it going. This, I think, is one of those gender-specific issues. I have never met a man, for example, who frets, "How will I get all of the laundry done!?"

Related anecdote: Yesterday, a woman shared that she felt so bad... her daughter had finally learned to dive, but the mother had missed the first successful attempt. "She's still upset about it. I feel so bad. She kept saying, 'Did you see it? Did you see it?' And I hadn't. I feel so bad."

"When that happens to me, I just say, 'No, why don't you do it again for me?'"

"But then she would still be upset. I didn't see the first one."

"Then say, 'Mommy has a life apart from watching your every single move, dear. I'm paying attention now. Would you dive again?'"

"I could nev-- Do you do that?"

"I don't have to. If the kids need my attention, they call to me to ensure that they have it. They've always known that while I'm their biggest fan, I also have a life quite apart from being their mother."

"Oh! Well! That's my problem! She knows I have no life. I have no life! None at all!"

This story seems to run true to the common theme: We women seem to think that it all falls to us. We must see every dive, so to speak. And we become so consumed with the quotidian -- the everyday rituals that keep the house comfortable, the husband happy, and the children well -- that we expend any extra time and talent we might have kept in reserve for our own pursuits.

I don't know how other women escape the malaise that can suck the color from their lives, but I have always clung to the conviction that while I am a wife and a mother, I am also me first. When all is said and done, I must live with me, so I must like me, nay, love me. So I have always made time to pursue those things which contribute to my self-definition, including work, yes, but also things like music lessons, reading (and I don't mean books for the kids), ornithology, and more.

Often when these virtual discussions develop, someone will suggest more personal care or a vacation. I do think that exercise and basic self care are critical to one's mental clarity, but I'm not sure Calgon paints the color back in, if you know what I mean. And a vacation? Well, it's all there -- the house, the husband, and the kids -- when you return. How does leaving it really help you deal with it? I think that when it all goes gray, we've lost sight of the technicolor dreams of what we could be. When it goes gray, we need to dream again.

This is not a call to run away to a Paris cafe, by the way. Just a suggestion that if you feel this way, you might consider that it is all in you to recover some of the "stuff" that makes you you.