Maybe I Don’t Want to Do This Anymore

I turned 49 yesterday.

That sentence feels stranger to type than I expected it to. Forty-nine. One year away from the number everyone likes to make a big deal about, and apparently close enough to it that I've started asking some questions I never thought I'd ask.

Questions like: What if I don't want to do this anymore?

Not life. Calm down.

I'm talking about the pace of it. The constant running. The overscheduling. The saying yes. The getting home late and waking up early. The calendars that look like somebody lost a game of Tetris. The strange pride we take in being able to survive schedules no sane person should have created in the first place.

I don't think I want to do that anymore.

And that's a startling admission coming from me.

I went back to work last Friday after what may have been one of the most restorative summers I've had in years. Almost immediately, my days filled with trainings, meetings, responsibilities, preparations, and all the things that accompany the beginning of another school year.

Then rehearsals started.

For those who don't know, Allyson and I are directing She Loves Me together right now, which means after spending the day at school, I'm heading to rehearsal from 7:00 to 10:00 at night. And within about four days I found myself thinking:

Oh. I remember this feeling.

And I don't miss it.

I don't miss chasing my tail. I don't miss feeling like I'm perpetually three days behind. I don't miss walking into one responsibility already thinking about the seven other things I should be doing instead. I don't miss burning the candle at both ends and then acting surprised when there's nothing left in the middle.

The strangest part is that Allyson and I have actually started talking about stepping away from theatre altogether.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

Theatre has been part of my identity for almost my entire life. I love it. I respect it. It challenges me. It feeds something inside me that very few things can.

And maybe I'm done doing it.

Both things can be true.

Maybe that's one of the strangest lessons of getting older: loving something doesn't automatically mean you have to keep giving your life to it.

I can love theatre and decide that teaching it and directing at school are enough. I can be grateful for decades of productions, rehearsals, opening nights, friendships, standing ovations, disasters, inside jokes, dressing rooms, callbacks, cast parties, and stories—and still decide I'd rather be home tonight.

That doesn't erase the love. Maybe it simply means the cost has changed.

Or maybe I have.

This summer spoiled me.

I remembered what it felt like to have time again. I remembered what it felt like not to be rushing somewhere every night. I remembered evenings at home. Conversations with my wife. Sitting down without immediately calculating how long I could afford to sit there. I remembered that rest doesn't have to be something I earn by reaching complete exhaustion first.

And now that I've tasted that kind of life again, I'm having a surprisingly difficult time convincing myself that the rat race is worth returning to.

Then school started, and by Day Two, I was already wondering whether I wanted to be there either.

That's probably not the inspirational back-to-school message anybody was hoping for.

On the first day of school, I used a colorful, old-fashioned colloquial expression in class—something I've heard and used throughout my life—that simply meant, "whatever makes you happy" or "whatever you prefer." Someone heard about it outside the context in which it was said, interpreted it very differently than I intended, and contacted administration.

The next morning, I was informed that the comment had been considered inappropriate and offensive and that I needed to address it with my class and apologize.

That next morning also happened to be my 49th birthday.

Happy birthday to me.

I understand that intention doesn't erase impact. I understand that language changes, people hear things through different experiences, and something completely innocuous to one person can land differently for another. After more than two decades in education, I also understand that teachers carry a tremendous responsibility for creating classrooms where students feel safe and respected.

I take that responsibility seriously.

What rattled me wasn't simply being told that someone was offended. It was realizing how afraid I have become of accidentally offending someone.

There is a difference.

I found myself wondering how many invisible lines I'm navigating every day without knowing they've moved. How many words must I mentally rehearse before saying them? How many parts of my personality should I sand down? How carefully must I curate myself before I've removed the very humanity that allows me to connect with students in the first place?

And perhaps most troubling: When did teaching become something I was afraid to do?

I've spent most of my adult life in education. I've been the teacher, the administrator, the director, the colleague, and the mentor. I've dealt with angry parents. I've dealt with angry teachers. I've dealt with angry administrators. Hell, I've even been all three at different times myself!

But I've always believed difficult conversations work best when we begin by assuming the person across from us is not a monster.

Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe we misunderstood. Maybe context is missing. Maybe the story changed somewhere between the classroom, the dinner table, the text message, and the front office.

Maybe—crazy thought—we could ask:

"Can you help me understand what happened?"

Those seven words could save us so much grief. Not only in schools. Everywhere.

We live in a strange time when people will type vicious things to complete strangers from behind a screen but increasingly avoid having uncomfortable conversations with people standing right in front of them. We assume motive. We assign intent. We pick teams. We prosecute. We defend.

And somewhere along the way, curiosity disappears.

I don't want to live like that.

I want to assume the best in people. I want to give someone the benefit of the doubt. I want to believe most of us are wandering around this ridiculous planet doing the best we can with the information, scars, baggage, wisdom, stupidity, and sleep deprivation we've accumulated along the way.

And I want people to extend that same grace to me.

Because I will screw up. Apparently I can make it all the way to 49 and still discover entirely new ways to do it.

But underneath everything that happened this week is a much larger question I've been wrestling with: How much of myself am I willing to sacrifice to keep doing the things I love?

Theatre asks for nights. Education asks for days. Both ask for weekends. Both ask for emotional energy. Both ask for pieces of my identity. Both can be extraordinarily fulfilling. And both can consume absolutely everything you're willing to give them.

For years, I think I wore my ability to survive that consumption like a badge of honor. Look how much I can carry. Look how many plates I can spin. Look how late I can work. Look how little sleep I need. Look how much I can accomplish. Look how badly I can neglect myself while still somehow getting everything done.

Maybe at 49, I'm not impressed by that anymore.

Maybe I'm finally asking a better question.

Not:

How much can I handle?

But:

How much do I actually want to carry?

Those are very different questions.

My last post was about the danger of allowing fear to disguise itself as wisdom. I've spent a lot of my life wondering whether fear has kept me from taking chances, auditioning, applying, writing, creating, speaking, or becoming something more. But I'm starting to wonder whether there's another disguise I haven't paid enough attention to.

Sometimes endurance disguises itself as faithfulness.

We tell ourselves that because we've done something for twenty years, we should keep doing it. Because we're good at it, we're obligated to continue. Because people depend on us, we're not allowed to leave. Because something once gave us joy, admitting that it now exhausts us feels somehow ungrateful.

So we stay. We push. We endure. We bend.

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

I've always loved that line. But here's the thing about being flexible: even flexible things have a breaking point.

Maybe wisdom isn't always pushing through.

Maybe wisdom occasionally says, enough.

Maybe walking away from something doesn't mean it failed. Maybe changing your mind isn't quitting. Maybe rest isn't laziness. Maybe protecting your peace isn't selfishness.

Maybe there are seasons when the bravest thing you can say about something you deeply love is: I loved this. And I don't think I want to do it anymore.

I don't know what that means for me yet. I'm not resigning teaching tomorrow. I'm not announcing my retirement from theatre. I'm not burning anything down.

I'm simply paying attention.

To my body. To my mind. To my marriage. To my energy. To my spirit. To the strange little voice inside me that seems to be getting louder as I get older—the one asking whether the life I've become incredibly good at surviving is actually the life I want to keep living.

Maybe that's what 49 is going to be about.

Not proving how much I can do. Not chasing another title. Not collecting another production. Not filling every available square on the calendar. Not twisting myself into whatever shape makes everyone else most comfortable.

Maybe 49 is about deciding what deserves the finite amount of me I have left to give.

Because I still want to teach. I still want to create. I still want to direct. I still want to write. I still want to laugh until midnight with people I love. I still want birthday cookies and free drinks and pizza with my wife.

I still want theatre.

I just don't know if I want all of it, all the time, at any cost anymore.

And for perhaps the first time in my life, I'm realizing I don't have to know the answer tonight.

I can love something and question it. I can be grateful and tired. I can be committed and uncertain. I can want to stay and wonder about leaving. I can be passionate about my work and protective of the person doing it.

I can live in the And.

Maybe turning 49 isn't a crisis after all.

Maybe it's permission.

Permission to stop asking how much more I can take—and start asking how much more I actually want to give.