My friend Susan Gregory Thomas is one of the few people I can tell anything — really, absolutely anything. She’s coached me through an unfortunate perm in the ‘80s, the ill-advised allure of dating a professional boxer in the ‘90s, an artistically heartbreaking misadventure in the Hollywood film industry in the ‘00s, and many other instances too numerous and incriminating to mention here.
We met three decades ago, when we were in our early teens. Perhaps the deepest bonds of friendship are forged when we are at our most vulnerable and malleable. My friendship with Sus is hardwired into me on some psychic level. We don’t have to worry about it. We don’t have to “work” on it. We trust it. It’s been there forever. It’s not going anywhere.
When you are single, like me, and don't have kids, your friends become your family. They are my emergency medical contacts, the ones I agonize with over whatever is currently plaguing me, the people I spend the majority of my time with. My friends are the foreground. But when babies arrive, these little creatures must take the spotlight — and sometimes even the most cherished friendships recede very far into the background.
But that hasn't happened with Susie and me. Sure, our friendship has changed in the small ways. When Susie had kids, she became instantly unavailable for last minute trips to Guatemala and she usually can’t come if I call her at 10 p.m. to see my ex-boyfriend’s band do a midnight gig. But in the ways that count, our relationship is still the same.
Every time I see Susie, she makes me feel like I'm at the very center of a fabulous universe. Her universe has now expanded to include a charming husband, three magical children and a menagerie of domestic pets. It’s like a party complete with dancing and shrieks of laughter. They all make me feel very much one of the family and I cherish this time. Susie also makes sure the two of us have time alone to catch up. I’ve never asked to her to do this and I know this can’t be easy for her to carve the time out of her schedule, but I’m grateful she makes that happen.
Story: Having kids changed everything — except one core friendship
What made Susie fabulous has now made Susie a fabulous mom
In the past, I worried that if I had kids, I’d feel like I was on permanent lockdown. I felt almost there’s some mandate out there that would require me to become sensible, stable and give up my ideas of a grand life in the theater. Sure I’d be anchored. But perhaps I’d be restless. After all, a ship is meant to sail, not to stay still in a harbor weighed down by some huge metal anchor, right?
I worried I’d have a mom implosion: I’d retreat to an obscure suburb of Connecticut, never to be heard from again. Perhaps once a year, I’d issue a very long holiday letter detailing my obsessions with the minutiae of my children’s lives. I’d become part of the social structure I’ve always tried deliberately to live outside of. I’d get a sensible wash ’n’ wear haircut and start wearing mom jeans.
Susie has sort of single-handedly blown that notion out of the water. Susie has never owned a pair of mom jeans, neither literally nor figuratively. The last time I saw her, she was holding court wearing a pair of black leather shorts and looking super glamorous or, as our high school music teacher once described her, “ravishing.” She has always been — effortlessly — the most beautiful and most brilliant girl in the room. She’s also hilarious, self-effacing, fierce when necessary, loyal to the death and almost constantly exhilarated at the adventure of living her life. What has always made Susie fabulous has now made Susie a fabulous mom.
When I saw Susie for the first time after she gave birth to her latest, she reminded me of a hero at the very end of an action movie: she had given everything she had, she was utterly exhausted, and yet she was glowing with joy and triumph because the world would now be a better place.
Motherhood is like permanent tech week
People wonder if non-moms feel abandoned by their mom-friends, replaced by the kids. Not me. Here’s why: Anyone who does theater understands that during tech week — those crazed last days before a production opens, you’ve got a free pass. You will not be expected to return phone calls, to attend weddings, to think about anything other than the show that’s about to open. All your friends understand it and wouldn’t have it any other way. The play’s the thing, after all. Motherhood is like permanent tech week.
I understand the absolute commitment of motherhood because I too have nurtured a new entity into existence. When I was 25, I started a theater in an old warehouse in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York. Way before my friends had babies, I had this all-consuming obsession which made me unavailable for a lot of typical friend-type activities. In the early days, if any one wanted to see me, they had to come to the theater. Susie performed there several times and she wrote and starred in a wonderful play, which I directed. Like a baby, my theater is expensive, time-consuming, and there’s always a last minute disaster that prevents me from going to some cherished special event. It being a theater, there is, also no shortage of puerile behavior.
It’s possible that I didn’t feel the absence of a child in my life because I felt like I already had one. It’s been nearly 20 years of raising this little theater, and hundreds of plays, thousands of performances later, it remains my pride and joy, the apple of my eye. Perhaps I don’t have children because I’ve been pre-occupied by my metaphorical theater child, perhaps it’s because most of my friends are artists and only a handful of them have children, and perhaps it’s because I have fear of mom-lockdown syndrome.
I’m also a terrible procrastinator and on some level I think I woke up one day a few years ago and thought, “Oh God, I forgot to get married and have children!” Unlikely as it is, I have a certain faith that this, too will work itself out. Lots of the hopes I cherish most dearly are unlikely. But miracles happen all the time and I like to think that I will end up with a lovely happy family of some kind.
Some friends see in you possibilities you fail to see in yourself
All moms seem pretty psyched about other people becoming moms. This is also true of married people and people who run marathons. They have this super-encouraging attitude: “Hey, if I did it, you can do it too!” But I tend to doubt these people.
Susie, on the other hand, I trust implicitly. She didn’t encourage me to keep the perm or the boxer. She wouldn’t sweet-talk me into motherhood just to have a few play-dates. Right? One of the cool things about dear old friends is that sometimes they can see in you possibilities you fail to see in yourself. Recently Susie said, “Oh Jags (her nickname for me), you’d be a great mom.” And I believe her.
While my friendship with Sus has not altered much since she’s become a mom, my notion of motherhood has. With Susie, it is less like she has dropped anchor and more like she has taken flight. It seems like something magical and impossible, but there she is with her flock, soaring into new realms of experience I can only imagine.
I hope very much to have children, somehow, some way. But I know that even if I remain childless, I will not be alone. I will have very much in the foreground, the company of my dear friend Susie.
Jacqueline Christy is the artistic director of Access Theater, which she founded in 1992. There she has produced the premieres of Tom McCarthy’s "The Killing Act," Aasif Mandvi’s, "Sakina's Restaurant," Stephen Belber’s "Tape," and others. Before founding Access Theater, she co-founded Access Manufacturing Inc. She has written several screenplays and short plays and is currently writing her first full-length play. She is single and lives in New York.