Having it all, just not the way I imagined

From the time that I was little, I wanted to be an actress. I’m a classic middle child: sensitive, feeling deprived of attention, venturing far afield to find it, and loved pretending to be somebody else. Somebody who was having a very different kind of childhood. I begged my parents to let me try acting as a kid, but that was just one on a very long list of wants and needs that didn’t get attended to. So I pined, and waited, convinced that someday I’d be able to use what I was sure was a legendary talent.

As I got older I kept my hand in performing where I could, but things became much more about safety and security than in exploring that dream. I didn’t even have a roof over my head, I couldn’t exactly pay for headshots. Once I met Bear I felt like I had enough of that security to revisit acting, but I only had time to take a couple of drama classes before I graduated. And then we took off for Southern California and a chance to find my big break.

Back then I was far more conservative in how I practiced my religion. I somehow expected to move to LA with no training, no experience, and no contacts, and get an agent and a job while saying I won’t do nude scenes, or love scenes of any kind, or wear revealing clothing, like a tank top, or swear, or take the Lord’s name in vain, or smoke, or drink, or appear to be smoking or drinking, or portray content that might earn an R. What a dum dum.

Very quickly I found myself at a point where I had to reevaluate. For me the question wasn’t what it is for so many women who act – Do I just do what they want me to do and shut up about it? Even/especially if that means showing my boobs? – instead of reexamining my faith or my values I reexamined my desires. I sat down with myself and really asked what I wanted out of life. Did I want red carpets and juicy parts? Or did I want that elusive safety and security? And of those two things, what was I willing to do to get it? I took one look around at the competition and I knew that either answer was going to be costly.

For many women, this doesn’t have to be an either/or. But it was for me. Then. Married at 20 to a wonderful but traditional man who didn’t really get my creative side just yet, I didn’t just have myself to consider. Bear was still in school, we were living in a total craphole apartment, he couldn’t find work, we needed to go back to addressing security. And that’s when I realized that that’s what I wanted more than anything else. More than my dreams of artistic expression and creative fulfillment, I dreamed of having a home. Of not worrying where my next meal was coming from. Of creating a place of peace and safety for myself and everyone I loved. So I let go of my dreams of acting.

But they didn’t let go of me. Every Oscar season has me pining away at what could have been. Every time I’d see a play I’d think about what I would’ve done differently. I’ve never regretted the choice I made, just that I had to make one.

Last week I auditioned for the Sacramento site of the Listen To Your Mother storytelling show. I first discovered it at BlogHer when they held a salon where a bunch of bloggers read posts they were particularly proud of, and it was amazing. Hearing a bunch of women take themselves, their work, their efforts seriously and share it with a roomful of strangers was magical. And I knew I had to be a part of it. Lucky for me they agreed, and on Mother’s Day I’ll be performing my piece at the Crest Theater in Sacramento with a bunch of other awesome women as we discuss motherhood in all it’s hilarious, poignant, troubling, complicated, transcendent glory.

Since I gave up on acting I’ve done some public speaking and a bunch of press, podcasts, and now a couple storytelling performances. It’s not the pretending and imagining I used to love, but it is the performing. And that’s enough. My road has been a lot more circuitous than I would have scripted it myself, but that’s what it takes to have it all in these modern times. Not everything can be the top priority all the time, so we just have to get a little more creative to find ways to cram in all the things we want to do. Getting up on that stage on Mother’s Day will be the way I do it, with my family in the audience, and then I’ll go home to the place I’ve made for us, safe and secure, and happy.