My hands were full.  I was holding my coat, my husband’s lemonade and the gift bag he had received when he was stopped by someone who asked “can I have a picture with you?”.  Now, I don’t mean to say that my husband gets asked to have his picture taken with people all the time, but it WAS after a concert and he WAS in this nice tux.  Then this student asks me, “would you take our picture?”.  So, I smiled, set everything down, took a couple of pictures and picked everything up while he said thank you to Doug.

I stopped to put on my coat when another family stopped Doug to say thank you and congratulate him on the performance.  I tend to step back a little when this happens because, well, the focus is all on him.  And I’m really proud of him and the hard work he puts into what he does, so it’s fun to see the recognition he gets from students and families.  But it wasn’t always this way.

There’s a picture in one of many boxes of pictures of Doug when he was teaching high school that is the perfect visual for how I used to feel.  It’s a beautiful fall day, the kids are getting ready to perform at a marching band contest and Doug is standing with them, the center of attention in his suit, looking every bit the professional.  And there I am, standing way to the right, my hands behind my back, head slightly down, watching from afar.  There is a sharp contrast between the confidence on one side and the lack of on the other.

You see, Doug was doing what I thought I wanted to do but had failed to achieve.  So instead of figuring out who I was supposed to be, I become this tag-along, someone who was just good enough at teaching visuals for marching band, someone who got to hang out with the staff, instead of trying to figure out what I was meant to do.  And the result was I felt left out, empty, useless.  Not ME. This was not something Doug had done, but I had relegated myself to just being “the director’s wife”.  And so for the first half of our marriage, I felt I had no identify of my own other than wife or mom.  I don’t want to downplay the importance of either of those roles, but for me, I knds I needed more.

Fast forward to 20+ years later and here I am.  Confident in who I am, doing my own thing, finding myself on a daily basis.  Still “the director’s wife” and mom of my three boys, but okay with that, because I know that’s not ALL I am.  What changed?  First of all, I made the decision to go back to school and do my own thing.  Secondly, I ended up teaching at a school where we did some really great things in terms of drama and choral music and what I was doing was beginning to get recognized.  Because we were still in the same district, I remained “the director’s wife” but as luck would have it, my identify changed for a short time because when Doug went back to grad school, I was no longer the band director’s wife.  Now we were in a different environment with a different dynamic.  I was the breadwinner, teaching K-12 music and he was the student, getting home earlier than me, getting dinner ready, taking care of the boys.

They say it’s not what you know but who you know, and I’m fortunate to know a lot of great people who have encouraged me to follow my strengths and passions to do things I would never have dreamed of.  Doug now laughingly refers to himself as “Mr. Judy Bush” and I have to admit I kinda like that.  But the truth is, we’re now two independent, (mostly) competent individuals, pursuing our dreams and passions as a team.  While being his wife is the best decision I ever made, learning how to be me within this marriage has made it even better.

I share this today for all of the young women out there who want this dream of marriage and career and family and I want to encourage them to not forget themselves in this scenario.  It’s easy for women to sacrifice their own passions in order to take care of and nurture their families, and in many cases, it’s expected because they ARE the woman.  These don’t have to be career passions, but passion for anything that makes you who you are – things that make you happy.  There have been times when I felt guilty for pursuing my dreams and dragging the kids with me.  Then, when my youngest got married, the pastor shared with all of us that one of the things our youngest learned from me was to pursue those dreams, to work hard, to make things happen.  He did, and he married a woman just like that.  So maybe, by being ourselves, remaining strong, working to make things better for everyone in their family, including ourselves, is a way to teach men to admire strong women and want to have them in their lives.

So today, I’m proud of the work we’ve put into our relationship and I remain proud to be the band director’s wife, even taking pictures when asked.  And I’m learning how to be proud of myself and my own accomplishments, taking time for myself and continuing the work to be the person I am meant to be.