A midlifer in multiple crisis

Most midlife crisis revolves around money and relationships. But not in my own case. Everything was 'crisised' from a truncated career to issues as obscure as personal identification. I realized I didn't know who I was or whom I wanted to be. My marriage was in great danger when it dawned on me that I had married for all the wrong reasons.
36years of my life would pass by before I would become a mother for the first time with three other babies following in quick succession. Before I knew it I had hit 40 and was still very much engrossed in diaper changing. This wasn't the 40 I had dreamt about. The 40's of my dreams was one of a fully accomplished career woman who knows her onions and has perfected the art of juggling different roles in a gracious and seamless sweet harmony. That was what my mother was or perhaps that was my impression of her. An astute business woman who broke new grounds and had all her ducks in a row. I fell short of that. Careerwise I had reached a pitiable deadend and didn't know where to turn. And my ducks were nowhere close to being in any sensible form, they were all over everywhere, literarily. I sought for excuses that would make me feel I had been dealt the short end of the stick but the truth was obvious. Failure was a dreadful word in my vocabulary which I didn't want to be tagged with. The shame and guilt of not being as successsful as my mother was killing me on the inside. But I remained strong. I wasn't an easy cookie that crumbles at the slightest pressure. My strongest strokes against the formidable current was my rebouncability. At the lowest tide I would hit rock bottom only to surface awhile later with no major discomfiture to my overall well being. If I was putting up an appearance then I was pretty good at it - might as well celebrate that. Only a selected few could tell from the disenchanting sounds from within that all was not what it seemed to be. I was living in a magical world of cinderella and her not so hateful sisters.