Oh, Facebook. You really like to make things tough sometimes, don’t you??  I love Facebook for so many reasons – one being the way it keeps me connected to all the different people in my life – but it can also be the fastest route to a downward spiral for me.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on this one.  It’s a wonderful thing to hear about the professional successes of my talented friends…and I do want to give credit where credit is due.  If you’re thriving in the theatre world after all these years you really do deserve all the accolades and applause your success is giving you.  I really do mean that.  It’s a tough, tough business, and definitely not for the faint of heart.  But for the other 98% of us, I wonder if my former beloved professors and acting coaches would drop the same praise on my wall for my job as a Mom.  You know, the one I’ve been working at for 4.5 years?  I wonder if it would look something like this: “Your children are beautiful!  Congrats on keeping them from killing each other, the cat, and yourself!” “So proud of you!  You are the master at answering 20 questions in the span of 5 minutes!” “Way to go!  You really make tea parties and playing “movie theatre” look so easy!” Maybe it’s watching too much “Smash” or the fact that my girls pull my monologue collections and Shakespeare Folio books off the shelves to “play library” – but I’ve never felt further away from my old “career”.  It really does feel like a past life and when people ask me if “I’d go back to acting after my kids are in school”…I just don’t know.  What was once a bright star has faded a bit with the diapers, chicken nuggets and Minnie Mouse jammies.  I’d like to think that that fearless performer is still in me somewhere – being kept alive by my love for language and reading and classical theatre – and that I can grab that star when my time during the day becomes my own again, a few years down the road.  But I really don’t know.  I don’t know if I can face the rejection of being told “no” again.  And it pains me in my deepest being to think that maybe, I just didn’t have the stomach for it and that 2% of my theatre buds did – and still do.  And so, good for them.  Honestly.  I guess I just wish that there would be something said for those of us who are working our asses off at a different career.  I guess sometimes I’d like a little praise heaped on me for making it through each day as the co-leader of my home, Mom extraordinaire, woman with 200 hats at any given time. I’ve decided to walk away from my work-from-home writing gig – it was an awesome experience but as it turns out – well, for me it was just too hard to balance deadlines with a very active 4 year old and a loving handful of a 2 year old.  And it also made me realize what I want to be writing about the most… My life, my family, my heart. Note to self: Figure out how to do that.