{"id":38,"date":"2016-12-18T22:04:29","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T22:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/?p=38"},"modified":"2016-12-26T22:38:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T22:38:05","slug":"stories-i-tell-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/18\/stories-i-tell-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories I Tell Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For all the artists who didn't.<\/p>\n<p>And all the artists who did.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/howlround.com\/where-are-the-disappeared-women-of-the-theatre\">This HowlRound article<\/a> about motherhood and theater got me thinking, about the paths not taken, about fear, about motherhood.<\/p>\n<p>I think about all the things I didn't do and why not. \u00c2\u00a0Here's what I tell myself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In college, I gave up acting for directing because of the fear of rejection.<\/li>\n<li>I fell in love with directing.<\/li>\n<li>I needed a full time job for the benefits. The one time I went without benefits, I broke my hand. So, I got a job with benefits.<\/li>\n<li>I gave up directing because I couldn't work a full time job and direct. (Why not? Because that's what I told myself.)<\/li>\n<li>I started writing plays because they didn't require the rehearsal time commitment, but being a writer requires self-discipline. I'm good with a deadline, but not self-imposed deadlines. (Why not? Because that's what I told myself.)<\/li>\n<li>I didn't pursue theater because I may want a family and I knew I couldn't do both. (Why not? Because that's what I told myself.)<\/li>\n<li>I didn't have a family because it would mess with my theater and I knew I couldn't do both. (Why not? Because that's what I told myself.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Am I a reliable narrator of my own life? <!--more-->I doubt it more and more. Looking back now, the probable reason I balked at every opportunity? Fear. There's that hokey but true\u00c2\u00a0 acronym for fear: False Evidence Appearing Real. (Or, f&#8211;k everything and run.)<\/p>\n<p>I came by my fear honestly. It was drilled into me by my mom. Now, I feel it's my duty to tell every young person I know to go for it, whatever \"it\" may be. There's time for all that other $h!t later. Their parents can tell them to take the safe route. I want to be the aunt\/friend\/stranger to encourage facing the fear. (More hokey sayings: Courage is having the fear but doing it anyway.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-39\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"person-723555_1280\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280-768x521.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280-1024x695.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/person-723555_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Be courageous. (Did you hear that, Katherine?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For all the artists who didn't. And all the artists who did. This HowlRound article about motherhood and theater got me thinking, about the paths not taken, about fear, about motherhood. I think about all the things I didn't do and why not. \u00c2\u00a0Here's what I tell myself: In college, I gave up acting for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,6,8,11,10],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-courage","tag-fear","tag-motherhood","tag-theater","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseacreswest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}