Jill's blog: A Drink with Freddy Krueger

I might be tempting fate here, but I feel like we’ve hit a bit of a Family Sweet Spot. Maybe it’s the autumnal festivities. Maybe it’s the age of the boys. Maybe it’s the more relaxed attitude I’ve adopted lately. Whatever is contributing to it, family life feels good at the moment.

If I’m going to reflect on this, it seems worth the mention that family life was never on my ‘must do’ list. I was not the girl who grew up picturing her wedding, naming her future children or dreaming about the white picket fenced house. To be frank, the idea of suburbia really put me off. It wasn’t until a chance encounter with Freddy Krueger at a bar in New York City that I opened my mind to what else might be possible in my life.

Let me give you a bit of context.

My background is in Musical Theatre. I started auditioning professionally at 9 years old with some success over the years on Broadway, in the theatre, commercials and concerts. But when you grow up in this world you are taught that you will only be successful if your mind is fully focused on this career. If you’re listening to music, it must be musicals. If you’re making friends, they must be in the business. If you are reading a book, it should be about how to have a career in the arts. Everything and anything you engage with must be related to the business. And this is how I lived until I was about 24 years old.

I was afraid to be interested in anything other than theatre because I was convinced this would make me a failure. It consumed me. And as much as I loved performing, I became desperate for success and afraid of living life. And then Robert England walked into Joe Allen on 46th Street in Manhattan.

We had a drink and got to talking. He shared some words which completely changed the direction of my life. He said:

“If you want to be an actor you have to live a life. If you want to plant a garden, plant a garden. If you want to travel the world, travel the world. If you want to have a family, have a family. All of these things will make you a better actor because you have to have life experiences to inform your work.”

Honestly, until this point I had never been encouraged to live life. The message had always been tunnel vision leads to success. And here was someone who had a career, had success, saying “go live life.”

It might seem funny that one single conversation with someone I did not know, and have never spoken to again, has had such a massive impact on me but truly, it changed everything for me. It was because of Robert England that when I was beginning to fall in love with my now husband, who lived in London while I was in New York, that I got on a plane and moved country for that initial 6 months. It was because of this conversation that I opened myself to the possibilities of the world around me instead of staying stuck in a life that I don’t think I was really happy in. But that I was choosing to live because I was desperate for success.

It could be correct that tunnel vision would have been the thing that would get me that big stage career I dreamed of. Having lost that focus, I have not succeeded in that dream.

But I am happy. I chose this life. I chose the path of family and suburbia, and even though it was never on my list, it might have been one of the first truly active decisions I made in my life.

I think it takes a while to disassemble what the brain has been consciously, or unconsciously, avoiding. Avoiding out of fear and uncertainty. Avoiding because the narrative was created that “this isn’t for me.” I suppose, truthfully, a family is what I always wanted. And needed.

Nothing could have prepared me for the kind of love you experience when having children. Nothing could have prepared me for the safety and security and emotional freedom (however intense the emotions might be at times) that comes with a family filled with love and support. It is the sort of feeling I do not think I will ever be able to put into words properly. Because the beautiful thing about feelings is that they exist in the body and soul, not in the mind. And for someone with an overactive mind, being able to live in this feeling of the Family Sweet Spot has made the journey to get here completely worth it.

Jill is an American ex-pat living her best English life on the border of London and Surrey. She spends her days pretending she knows what she’s doing, creating some fun things along the way. With a passion for storytelling and the gumption of a New Yorker, she’s raising two cheeky, clever boys with deep imaginations and an annoyingly cunning use of language. With a husband, cat and hamster along for the ride, life is never boring. Even if sometimes a bit too stressful.

Tags:
• Families