My son is almost 10. For the first decade of his life, I was ALL IN on the parenting, often to my detriment. I lost track of my self on the regular. A couple of days ago I watched the movie Nightbitch. It pretty much sums up the process of being a modern mother. If you haven’t gone through it, watch that movie and imagine that process over and over 2-3 times per year for 10 years. If you want to imagine my experience, add in full time, primary breadwinner responsibilities, and make the marital challenges a little spicier than the usual weaponized incompetence and pressure of being the preferred parent.
Suddenly, this year, on the first day of 4th grade, my son just took on his own independence. Just like that, he got ready for bed and school all by himself. I sat there, surprised, dumbfounded, and heart broken. I was also paralyzed with the possibilities. What was I going to fill out this newfound time with?
It hasn’t been the smoothest transition. It’s not like we just cleared a daily 2 hour obligation from my itinerary. He still needs me for homework help on occasion, and we often still play ROBLOX together before bed, but I have been able to spread out chores like laundry and meal planning into a more comfortable tempo. I’m less frequently numb, overwhelmed, and unable to sleep on Sunday nights. I’m reading more.
Earlier this year, a client gifted me a stack of plays. She is retired and enviably spends her days taking university courses in all sorts of things. We have a shared love of theatre. My degree is in theatre, and at one point, I was well connected and almost supporting myself with acting and costume design. We pass the hour of her workout talking about what she’s seen. I was touched by her gift. They were from a course she took on women playwrights. Plays are like candy to me. I can inhale almost anything in an hour or two. Diving into these, I find the candy is still addictive, especially when there is a role I could try on for size.
Another magical discovery of this year is that Danny has started going with me to see plays…..and liking it. By the grace of an old friend, we got free tickets to the Christmas Carol at the Goodman. It felt just like old times: not paying for your ticket and getting the star treatment from a friend. She made the whole thing pretty magical for Danny and I. I hope he doesn’t think all those bells and whistles always come with tickets at the Goodman.
Maybe I’m insane, but sometimes it seems like my life has an author that plants signs at every turn. Call it God. Call it fate. Call it coincidence, but whenever one of these little morsels appears, I can’t help but follow it. Seeing the show and talking about the experience (as well as making a date with Chicago Shakespeare with another client) woke something up in me. I both love and miss the work of being an actor. The vulnerability, the excitement, the chance to make a connection with a story, another actor, a director or an audience who are all just trying to add more meaning to our human condition….I don’t think there is much else in the universe that I love that hard.
Days later, as I’m rotting my soul on social media, a post comes up from the Goodman for an upcoming general audition. My first thought, “I have to do it.” My second thought, “You’re a grown ass woman with a family to care for and a full time, very fulfilling job. You literally don’t have time for anything like that.” I did a deep dive into old files for a recent enough headshot and my old resume anyway.
Days passed, I forced myself to prioritize work at the club. There was a lot of it. I also had Christmas to attend to. I barely got that together. I told my client about the audition, and that I was on the fence about submitting. She reminded me that we are in the yes to everything era of our lives. We had recently had a conversation about how it is so easy to get depressed and in a rut by tapping out of situations, and I was insistent with her that there is nothing to lose by saying yes to most things. She said I have to take my own advice.
Christmas came and went. In the bizarre days that followed, I actually managed to get some major things done. I booked a training course that I have been intending to take for years AND the corresponding travel and place to stay. I did ALL the laundry. I online shopped for things for myself: underwear, a winter coat, and sweet pair of boots. I got a new winter coat from my son who has been rocking a coat that reveals WAY TOO MUCH forearm. In that special window between Christmas and New Years where you don’t know what day it is, how much gravy and sugar you’ve consumed, or when exactly you put on your favorite sweat pants, I did all the things. Yesterday, with yet another hour that was unspoken for, I updated my resume and unearthed my most recent headshot….I had some taken when I started presenting at Pilates conferences so they’re not that old.
And I did it. I submitted my headshot and resume to the Goodman Theatre.
It was so exciting. My heart was racing for at least an hour after clicking submit. I couldn’t believe my own audacity….or bravery. Sometimes, aren’t they just one in the same?
I was a little late. I had it in my mind that the deadline was 12/31. In my tizzy following the clicking of send, I decided to look up the Instagram post. “Please submit your materials to the form at the link in bio by Monday, December 23rd.”
Eff me.
Oh well.
But I did it.
Baby steps.
For years, I have been using teaching group classes, workshop presenting, and lectoring in Church as my outlets for this part of myself. It’s a bizarre thing. Lectoring, above all, is a service, and I should approach it with utmost humility, and definitely not make it about me, and yet, when I serve, I usually can’t make it out of mass without someone complimenting my reading…and it completely awakens my vanity, and I’m embarrassed by that. I try to remind myself that I’m using one of God’s gifts and there’s no harm in taking joy from that, but we are about to wander into an entirely different blog…..as long as I am self aware enough and don’t let it take over, it’s okay, right?
I’ve been shaking things up a lot with this newfound time on my hands.
I dropped my son off at a birthday party and headed to the store. On most days, I would sit in the parking lot finishing off my list so I didn’t buy a bunch of things that I didn’t need. Today, I decided to get something to sip and sit down to finish the list. Now, I sit here in the scruffy Starbucks listening to old school jazz, writing this blog, feeling more myself than I have in a long time. It’s so fucking cliche, but it feels amazing.
Our life sentence on earth is unpredictable and precious and all the things at different times and sometimes everything at once. Sometimes, it feels really amazing to be alive, even if it is drinking an over sweetened Chai latte at the scruffy Starbucks on Dempster where you stopped in for a change of scene and ended up with time and space to be with your thoughts and connect with your own voice.
I typed most of this into the notes app on my phone. Maybe next time I wander off to write, I’ll bring my laptop.
Maybe, I’ll write a little every day.
I kind of like how it feels to break out of this rut.
Lisa Moves 