On Easter Dinner, and Rabbit Holes

Easter is mine.  

Well, technically, it’s for all of us, I guess. Celebrate as you like, please.  But if you want to know what I’m up to (and you’re going to, since you subscribed to this), I’m hosting my biggest family dinner to date. We’re a mix of vaccinated folks and recovered patients that will be wearing masks and distancing, and the weather promises to be as perfect as April in Ohio can get.  The forecast is sunny skies in the low 70s, with a chance of a Level 3 Snow Emergency.    

They’ll be about 13 people, 3 generations, 2 proteins and at least 6 side dishes.  

My wife is making greens for old Black ladies.  She’s petrified. I don’t blame her.

This kind of stuff is a pretty big deal to me, but I spent a long time convincing myself that it wasn’t. There aren’t many people in my family that I connect with in regards to career goals.  I  chose a profession that keeps me busy on the days when families spend most of their time together.  Game Night Fridays are the Hump Day of the performance week.  Saturdays at the cookout are cut short by 5pm call times at the theater. Sunday dinners are saved for late lunches on Monday – which are the Sunday Brunches of the actor’s schedule. It’s enough to make a Google Calendar go nuts.  

But being a working artist isn’t bad.  In fact, it’s a damn blast – so much so that, for years, I found it hard to believe that anyone else could find happiness doing something other than what I was doing.  I got to get on stage and be a rockstar sketch comedian for hundreds of people a week, and share my life with my talented friends – this new family that “got me.”  I could get lost in making myself in my own image.  

Then the world slowed down, my Calendar cleared up, and I realized that my show dates weren’t filling the holes in my heart.  They were just covering them up.  

But then my mother found out how to use Duo, and she video chats me at least three times a week.  My big sister started working from home and grew a garden on her patio that she’s turning into a business.  My little sister sold her paintings and became an astrologer (yes, she’s cooler than all of us).  I hung out with my nephew and discovered his sick sense of humor is all my fault.  I spoiled my nieces with home-baked cookies and donuts and let them slap my bald head.  We’re a weird, close family.  

And we got closer.  

I know that this time has brought a lot of pain to many people. It has also helped many of us discover what’s important, and how putting them in their proper place in our lives can make a lot of decisions a whole lot easier.  Life is never going to be easy.  But I’ve found that in letting more people in, I’ve made it simple.