Beginnings

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Birdie has left the Building
How do you fill up your time when the nest suddenly empties? I thought I had worked through this when a girlfriend and a driver’s license arrived practically simultaneously a few years ago, but as graduation and college approach the question has resurfaced. With a vengeance.
I guess you try to figure out who exactly you are now that you have spent the last 18 plus years being “mom, Mom, MOM”. Finding a life outside of soccer, basketball, swimming lessons, singing lessons, band, youth theater productions, trips to friend’s houses, and tutoring is proving to be a bit elusive; much like trying to corral a cat who doesn’t want a flea bath. Not that I miss the endless driving, driving, driving interspersed with waiting, waiting, waiting one little bit.
In the “pre-Mom” time, my life used to revolve around theater, endless theater; production after production. Or music. Then came “Stubble”. I can count the times that I have picked up my guitar in the last 18 years on the fingers of one hand. Do I really want to try to get the calluses back? I don’t know. For the last decades many things “me” have been on hold. And at the time, I didn’t miss me. I was too busy trying to get Stubble to adulthood relatively unscathed and reasonably enriched. I waved goodbye as career gently drifted away, replaced by job because it made more sense at the time.
I have certainly made some positive changes. I have joined a Fitness Center and lost much weight and gained much stamina, but filling in all of the time with something that I find fulfilling is proving more difficult. I love baking, but friends and neighbors have said, “Enough, already”. I have started dancing again, but that takes up a few hours a week and I really am finding that I have no desire to do theater again. Life without theater? How does one survive it? Very easily, actually. I am very surprised at this, but I am past the age of moving from chorus to chorus again even if I get my dancing skills back. And when it comes right down to it, do I really want to devote weeks and weeks to rehearsals followed by weeks and weeks of performances? Yes, performing is a real thrill, but it requires a huge commitment of time to the exclusion of all else.
I love writing. I can do it in my own time and on my own terms. So here we are: Reclaiming Chris. One post at a time.