Four years ago this week, on a warm spring day in New York City, I was in the back of a taxi lurching down 7th ave after just landing one of the best agents in town. I remember the warmth of the sun hitting my arm through the cracked window and the hot stench of garbage mixed with an aroma of Italian food. I was crying. My whole life had felt like it had built up to this moment. I had just been validated as an actress after years of the ups and downs, cycles of hope followed by rejection that any artist knows too well. I had kicked ass in my audition. They wanted to work with me, the contract was in my hand. I was on a roll- my production company was a success, I had just finished writing and recording my album, and I was finally living the creative life I had always dreamed of in a city I was madly in love with.
But my tears were not just tears of joy; I was petrified. The day before I had found out I was pregnant. Had all this happened a year before, I would have felt defeated, like the timing didn't work out right. But the truth was, the last year of my life had been an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions; a bumpy trip down fertility road where I experienced massive grief after losing two pregnancies back to back. I had immersed myself in my creative endeavors and like artists before me, never wrote or sang or acted better than when I was at my lowest point. I was finally experiencing the rewards of a year of spiritual, artistic growth only to find out I had conceived yet again. I felt a flutter in my stomach and I instinctively whispered “we did it” as the tears stained my cheeks. I had prayed for him or her, I had spoken to this tiny being, I had wrote a song about our connection. And now I felt in this moment like he or she had been with me and watching over me helping me achieve this tiny success in my professional career. I loved him or her already, and was absolutely terrified I would lose this baby too.
For as long as I can remember, I have been an artist. My parents joke that I came out tap dancing and singing. Earliest childhood memories revolve around performing dance routines for my parents friends at dinner parties and playing pretend for hours in the backyard. While most people are finding themselves in their early twenties, I always knew that I wanted to be creative and perform. I spent years studying, rehearsing, working, and “mastering my craft” (a term that actually makes me shudder and laugh). I did every breathing exercise, sense memory exercise, vocal warm up, and body warm up invented. I spent hours imagining. I soul searched, I took myself on artist dates. I read plays and studied modern playwrights, I went to London and studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy. I spent hours at the gym obsessing over my body because after all, I was a twenty-two year old actress in Los Angeles and a casting director told me I was fat. I was 115 pounds, by the way.
My whole life I had been working on myself and my art. Everything was about me, how I was feeling and how to access those feelings. At the core of me, I’m a performer and always will be. The rush I experience when I’m doing it is unlike anything else. I truly love it. But the desire for a baby and the longing I had for a family was beyond any dream of being on stage; it hit me fast and hard. It really surprised me because I was so over it for so long. I was twenty-eight years old and my friends were starting to have kids, and while I thought they were amazing beautiful little creatures I really wanted nothing to do with them. How would I have time to write, sing and act if some little person was chasing me around taking up all my creative time? I blogged frequently about the push and pull I felt about not wanting a family yet and feeling pressure to have one as I was approaching my thirties. Then suddenly one day I felt it-that inexplicable deep longing for a child. It was like someone had turned on a light switch deep inside me, and as everyone knows once it’s on-it's impossible to turn off.
It was a very scary and turbulent nine months until he was born, I had every complication imaginable. When I held him for the first time I wept, I couldn’t believe I was actually holding my baby. He was everything I dreamed of and more. I looked in his beautiful soulful eyes staring back at me and realized he was, to me, more of a dream come true than anything I had dreamed of professionally. (And yes, I totally practiced my Tony acceptance speech my entire life).
The challenges of being a Mommy which I have commiserated with other Mommies about endlessly, is not just the physical and emotional exhaustion but also the complete loss of freedom. I went from the most self absorbed job in the world to the most selfless job in the world literally over night. I had my second baby three days after my first baby turned two years old, and then my world became even more chaotic. My second baby was a preemie, born two months early and in the NICU for 48 days. I had a toddler at home who demanded my attention, and a baby in the hospital who I prayed would make it out of there alive and healthy. It seemed laughable to even imagine a scenario where I could be creative again or indulge any of my previous passions. I accepted that my life was about them now, and the love was so deep and pure and true that I was OK with that.
It was only until my youngest turned one that I started to find my creativity again, that I allowed myself some free time to work. As mommies I think we all feel a tremendous pressure to get right back to it, and this wasn’t my reality. I had two babies back to back and had been pregnant for four years. I needed time.
I’m still finding my way back to the things I once loved more than anything; I started writing again, singing again and working on a new production with my producing partner. Between the two boys schedules, one in therapy 5 days a week and the other in pre school- I barely feel like I have time to do anything let alone take up all the time it’s needed to create. But I have an incredible network of artist mommies who inspire me daily. Their advice is always the same: make time for yourself. Allow yourself that time to create and don’t feel guilty about taking it.
It’s a major shift to go from the most self absorbed job in the world to the most selfless. But my life is so much more beautiful and rich. These two perfect little beings have taught me so much about patience, strength and love. I am forever changed and a better artist for it.
