Reassessing my life…
The past couple of months have NOT been good for my family. I've always been famous for getting too involved with outside interests but the past two weeks in particular have brought me to a moment of clarity...
I signed on to choreograph Gypsy last Spring when I thought the show was going to open in September and then during the summer things got moved around and bumped into later dates. Instead of sitting down and figuring out if doing the show was still in my best interests, I just went with the changes and didn't take myself out of it. This was a mistake. Although I really enjoyed doing the show and I love the cast to pieces, it has made my home life hell.
Josh is getting the bum deal in all of this. It's hard for me to admit how hard I've made life for him this past season, but I have. I'm never home so everything falls to him and it isn't fair. It has dawned on me that doing anything theatre related is always going to have this effect. Any show I do will cause me to have rehearsals in the evenings and on weekends and will take me away from my family and household duties.* I already teach dance four evenings a week! Also, on a personal note, because of my teaching schedule there is no way any director would cast me in a role besides chorus. Why would they want to deal with all of my conflicts?
This leads me to one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in a long, long time. I've decided to take a break from theatre for at least a year, more likely two years until Gwen is in school full-time. I'll still have my musical theatre classes and I'll still do my summer camp but I won't do any community theatre myself. It's just too much right now and I need to concentrate on the things that are more important like my family.
I'm not giving up music altogether, now. I'm still involved with the band and I am feeling really positive about this. The band had a few rehearsals the past two weeks and it feels like we are really gelling now and everyone leaves practice feeling very good about what we've accomplished and how we sound. It's great and it's the only reason I'm not heartbroken about my self inflicted leave of absence from the theatre world. There are a lot of plus sides with the band. All of the band members are fine with having Gwen around for the occasional practice. She's very good at playing by herself and just hanging out listening to us. I only have to drive 10 minutes down the road to get to Gerry's house. A lot of times I end up doing mini rehearsals with him during the day while Josh is at work. We like to work on songs acoustically and add our bassist and drummer in once we have the song down. It saves a lot of time at full rehearsals.
We have 5 gigs lined up before the end of the year and already another gig possibility in January. Always on Friday or Saturday nights, usually around the same time Gwen goes to bed so I don't feel like I'm neglecting her by doing this. It gets me out of the house and gives me the opportunity to hang out with adults! I sorely need this considering my day is spent with Gwen and my job is spent teaching other children. Sometimes I feel like I can have a conversation with a child better than with an adult. Not good for my brain!
Even though I am finding it very hard to picture my life without a constant show going on, I do realize that I have done this before. When I moved to Japan I didn't dance for over three years. Well, I'm back at teaching again so that came around full circle and I fully expect theatre to do the same thing.
So to take a really long blog down to it's main point: Don't expect to see any blogs in the coming year about whatever show I'm working on. I'll tell you about the silly things that Gwen did, I'll blog about where the band's next gig is, and I'll blog about my TV addiction. This is a good decision for everyone involved and I hope it will make me a much saner and less-stressed out individual.
*I am a stay-at-home mom essentially, so, yes, the household duties fall to me in all fairness. If Josh stayed home with Gwen, he would be doing laundry and cooking too. It's not a woman/man thing.