The Regret We Can Most Live With

I thought I would be the kind of mom to take my kid with me, and fold him into my life. But what happened is the opposite and I’m not sure why…I subconsciously (now consciously) made the decision to make him first in all things. For now.  -Emily Conbere, TCG Circle

Not too long ago, I did something that I’m embarrassed to admit: I dropped a project that I had agreed to produce.

I’m embarrassed for two reasons. One, because I signed on and then backed out. I hate doing that. It’s like putting down books before finishing, or throwing in the towel on a TV series I’ve been hooked on for a couple of seasons—only with consequences. Usually the burning of a bridge you’d hoped to salvage. The only thing that gets my panties in a stitch more than being bailed on is hypocrisy, so you can imagine what a tool I felt like, coming back from the TCG Conference, after which I was supposed to begin work on a downtown show, only to realize something I wasn’t even particularly surprised to realize: I couldn’t do it and be a new mom at the same time. I just wasn’t there yet. I had wanted to be, but I wasn’t.

And to know that and try to plow forward with the project out of a sense of duty would have contradicted golden rule of motherhood: to put my son first. To put my own crap aside if I need to, to disappoint other people if I need to, and to put him first.

I am a multi-tasking heavyweight with my own set of systems that has always worked for me, but I’m convinced that having extracurricular theater projects in early motherhood is for Supermoms. And that brings me to the second reason for my embarrassment: I am apparently not a Supermom.

For a long time I was sure my mom was Supermom. She had a demanding job, but she made time to cook and garden and have a social life, and she was a single mom from when I was a toddler until she married my stepfather right before I left for college. Even as a little girl I understood this juggling act to be a superpower, and I never remember it seeming hard for her, though of course it was.

It seems I didn’t inherit that particular superpower; in fact, just this morning I fell apart in the car when we missed a pediatrician appointment due to traffic. (Note To Self, in case of second child: spontaneous crying thing does not end with maternity leave. Bring tissues everywhere, the ones that are not called Boogie Wipes.)

My good days are still messy as hell, and I still walk through them wondering with nearly every moment when I will be fun again. When I will wear lipstick again. When I will be an artist again.

As for the project I dropped? Thankfully the director of the project, the one who had hired me, was totally understanding, as was my co-producer who became the solo lead producer. The specifics of the project were such that she could easily take over without anyone noticing that I had jumped ship. But I noticed.

My cards were on the table. It had become a question of which choice I would regret more: dropping the play, or being away from my son. Or being distracted in the precious little time we have together during the week. Or missing his first step because I wasn’t paying attention. The question for us always is, I suppose, which regret we can most live with.

Isn’t that heartbreaking?

I can’t put it better than Emily Conbere, a playwright and mother who wrote on the TCG Circle about “breaking up” with the theater. It’s so honest it makes me ache.

Somehow this imaginary border got created and my goal is to learn how to cross back over it. I want my child to see me in the theater world. I want him to be exposed to the vast stories and cultures and beauty that theater provides. I want him exposed to theater people.  Life is boring without it. I can feel that boredom circling around my veins. The boredom is how people get old and dusty. 

Is this how it begins? Do we drop a project here, and a meeting there, until slowly we lose this part of ourselves until our kids are grown…and then one day we dig out a tattered copy of The Artist’s Way or take an improv class to reconnect with ourselves again, hoping it’s not too late? Have so many of us convinced ourselves that it’s an all-or-nothing proposition? That those who make it work are the ones with superpowers, or who live in easier cities, or who have easier children, or who have spouses who support them, or generally have things that we will never have, and so must be people that we will never be?

What I love about Emily’s honesty is that she finds compassion for herself in it. The only thing that makes the choice to wait on a project, to pause in a career, to be with a child instead of a job, regrettable is the act of beating ourselves up for it. So many of us don’t know how to forgive ourselves for our choices.

Emily’s right, not all break-ups last. Sometimes we come back together, having used the time apart to become better for it.