The last couple of years have been a rough go for most of us. I’m not taking a huge leap with that idea, I know. Covid threw everyone for a loop, changed the ways of the world, brought up many issues people had to deal with, and I will also say that on the whole, we are all living in a Post-Covid world now.
For me, this dark period of life started in 2018 with my mother’s death. She felt a lump in her throat in July, and passed away in October. Three months isn’t necessarily a short period of time, but it still feels like it all happened in the blink of an eye. I’m still dealing with her passing, and probably will forever, but I do know that I am in a better place about it.
There are many things that can be said about losing a parent, and have been said many times over and over. What I found was that nothing brought me joy or happiness. I was sad all of the time. Not depressed, or withdrawn – just sad. And this sadness was always just below the surface, and if I felt anything too much – laughed too hard, or lost myself in a movie or a song – then I would start crying. And I would allow it to happen, and it felt cathartic, but it also made me feel like I was unhinged, and not in control. I knew I needed to mourn my mother, but I also needed to go to work, and take care of my kid, and that was important too.
When Covid hit, I still wasn’t in a good place, but I was functional. It was a little strange to be isolated from everyone, but our little family unit clung together. I found that my marriage actually got stronger, and I enjoyed being with my wife all the time. And getting to spend so much time with my kid – playing and teaching her how to read – is a treasured gift that I am so fortunate I was able to take part in. Not that we all didn’t have moments where we needed our space, or got on each other’s nerves; we are human.
And as 2023 started, I started feeling good again. And I started acknowledging that I had changed. I’m not the same person that I was in 2018. It was tough, but I had to admit that I am no longer a theatre artist or a puppeteer. That was a tough one, as that is how I had thought of myself since 2000, all the way back in college. For the last five years, I hadn’t done a show, and I didn’t have a desire to go back. Same thing with my career in arts management. Though I know I don’t want to go back to it, I also know that I do have some anger with the way I was treated in my last two jobs, and I need to take responsibility for the way I behaved as well. That’s an issue I am still working on.
What I have changed into is a stay at home dad; that’s my role in the family. It took me a bit of time to come around to it. There is still a pull in me to go get a job, as it is stuck in my head that the only “real” way to contribute to my family is by bringing in money. There is a good chance that I will do that, or need to do that in the near future, but as of now – I got a kid, a home, and a financial future that I am responsible for.
But I still have to do something creative, which is what you are seeing/reading right now. I have always written something – in a journal since high school, plays, an article for a rock zine, college lit journal, and several on and off blogs. There was a five-year period after high school when I tried my hand at getting published, but other that a handwritten from an editor at STORY Magazine telling me to “keep at it, don’t get discouraged,” nothing ever came of it. This blog that you are reading now, was started back in 2017, back at the tail end of my performing days, so writing has always been hanging around in my life. Sure, in the middle of the Pandemic, I had this crazy notion that I was going to “earn money” through writing… And I have re-assessed this idea. If it happens – great! But I am not counting on it. I’m writing because it makes me feel good, gives me a purpose, and is something to work at that is for me. And right now, that’s what I need most in my life.
Like I said, with all of these changes, I started feeling good about myself, my place in the world. I started feeling grateful for the like I share with my wife, and kid, my family and my friends. I have a good life – filled my struggles – but it is a good life that I am proud of.
And then I saw a picture. It was a simple, picture of seven people standing in front of a theatre upstate. One of the people in the picture was a friend of mine, who got tagged in the shot, and it was from an organization that he was working for this summer developing a new theatre piece that involved mime and physical theatre – all the stuff I used to do.
And that picture made me feel like shit. I was shocked at how awful I felt by looking at it. I wasn’t upset with my friend, nor was I jealous of what he was doing, as he’s been taking part in camp, workshops, and art commune things like this since I met him. I felt like shit looking at that picture because the thought that crept into my head was, “That could have been you if you didn’t quit.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had given up on myself, and that nothing mattered.
I feel that I have a normal level of anxiety and self-doubt. Normal level meaning that I have to work to overcome my anxiety and self-doubt, but it is never so great to keep me from getting out of bed in the morning, or to stop me from trying. But this feeling was more like I had wasted my life – that I could have been doing the cool stuff, creating works of art. That I was just one step away from it, and I was the loser who quit.
And it was like all the progress that I had made over the past year – working through my mom’s passing, my new role in my family, leaving my career, and working on a new form of expression – was meaningless. It had the added effect of making me feel totally alone and isolated. One picture triggered all of that in me.
You have to make a choice in a moment like that, and I did what any healthy, well balanced person does – I ate potato chips on the couch while playing video games trying very hard to act like I didn’t feel what I felt. Because I felt ashamed at who I am, and for trying to grow into something else.
But it passed – all those feels. It passed because I talked to my wife about it. It passed because I took my kid to the community pool on a hot Summer day in Harlem, and we swam and talked about music and going away to camp. It passed because I talked to my partner about it, and it passed because I spent time with my daughter – the person I am trying to better myself for.
It passed but it still lingers in my mind. It’s there because I still need to take the time and mourn the passing of who I used to be. That’s not to say that I won’t find my way back to a theatre, but if I do return, I won’t be the same person doing it for that old reason. It lingers because I am human, and I will always wonder to some degree if I made the right choice. I wish I was so completely confidant in my decisions that I never look back. That’s not me, and I know that about myself.
I know a few more things about myself now, that I didn’t know awhile ago. It’s progress. I am happier, and that is a win.
