Miserable women

Either a lot of books are written about how miserable women are, you know, the types who live for their families and let go of who they are or I am drawn to those type of books. It is one or the other. What is glaring to me each time I read these books is that the women are mostly products of their own unhappiness. They lose who they are. Do not get me wrong, their spouses often time help or encourage them to let go of their own identity, but the women go with it and then end up miserable. Most of them either end up in affairs or losing their spouse for some period of time. I guess I am drawn to them because for a long time I was on that same path. I lost who I was. It started long before I got married and long before I even met my hubby and long before I graduated from high school. My sense of self was stolen very early in my youth. The person I wanted to or hoped to be or dreamed about being was squashed. I was told that person was either unacceptable or not right or not appropriate or not helpful in some form. The tough thing is being 35 and fairly put together and trying to figure out who the hell you are. I have a hard time these days not being a bit bitter. I feel like I lost so much of my youth and I do not only mean when I was a teenager, I mean when my hubby and I first got married. That was the time we should have been living it up. I missed out on that stuff with him. It is tough to not want to go back and do it all over but then again I think part of the reason I am in the place I am in now is because of the kids and maturity that can only come with years of marriage.
So here I am 35 years old and trying to figure out who I am. It is confusing at times. The crazy thing is now that I am in this phase of realizing that I am not who I thought I was, I feel 10 years younger than I am actually am. I went from feeling 65 to 25 in a matter of months. I am ready to live life and not simply exist. I was miserable before. I knew I was. I lived with constant regret. I no longer wallow in regret. The life I have is great and I knew that all along, but the person I was was a miserable individual drowning in fear and regret. What kind of life is that? Certainly not one worth living. The benefit of realizing how miserable I was is a renewed sense of self and one where I know I do not necessarily have to be the person I was raised to be. I can be whoever I want. It has given me the freedom to deeply love my husband in the manner he deserves to be loved. It has given me the freedom to talk to him about things that I am feeling and fears and questions and anything else I feel he needs to know. It has given me the ability to see my kids as separate individuals who have their personalities and problems and that they are simply wonderful in who they are. It has given me the ability to see myself working to be the person I want to be and not be so afraid that I am being judged. It has given me the freedom to say "what the hell" because life is short and I have already wasted so much of it. I do not want to waste another minute. I cannot wait to see where the world and this life takes me, but I am no longer wishing time away. Time goes fast enough without wanting it to be the future.