Five of Clubbs: Turn, turn, turn

"When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things."

~1 Corinthians 13:11

"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven."

~Ecclesiastes 3:1

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

~C.S. Lewis

The second morning after bringing our first child home from the hospital, I turned over and spotted a pair of flip-flops before I rolled out of bed. They had red and pink cherries on them and I had worn them often in my last, swollen days of pregnancy. In the throes of postpartum anxiety and depression, I looked at their cheerful pattern, the way they were haphazardly tossed under the vanity (probably from the day before I went into labor) and thought, "I can't wear those anymore. They aren't appropriate for a mother. I'm too grown up now to wear shoes like that." I was barely 26.

As time went on and my hormones leveled out, my thoughts on what was childish and what wasn't became less dramatic -- and I certainly went back to wearing flip-flops. However, there were certain parts of my life that definitely took a back seat to motherhood.

A year before that first baby was born, I had been in cap and gown, receiving my MFA in acting. Shortly after, I toured with a professional production of "A Christmas Carol." I thought I would teach theater at the university level, but I ended up falling back on my speech and theater education degree, teaching communication studies and eventually going back to school for health communication.

Six years before that first baby was born, I had been returning from a semester in London. I had become accustomed to finding my way around the city via public transportation, then navigating my way to other countries on the weekend or over spring break. The world had become smaller and bigger to me all at once. I promised myself I would return before I turned 30. But at 30, I had a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old and was satisfied with a long weekend with a good friend in this nation's capital.

This year, I turned 40. My oldest daughter is about to be a ninth-grader (a freshman, but in Jackson, she is still at the junior high). My son is starting middle school. My baby, our youngest daughter, is going into second grade. And some of the childish things I put aside seem to be coming around again.

I decided to audition for the River Campus Summer Arts Festival production of "Steel Magnolias." I had been in a couple community theater productions since I became a mom, but this was my first time back auditioning for professional work. I was cast as Clairee. It made sense to be given the role of a 70-year-old (even though I had played the part of Shelby 19 years earlier) because no one else in the cast was older than 25.

My days were filled with scoring my script, memorizing lines and rehearsing. When dress rehearsals began, I realized I didn't have to work as hard to find the age lines to draw in as I once did, but I loved it all. Oh, sure, I headed home in the evening when the party was just getting started for my castmates at 10 p.m., but I realized theater was still a part of me. It had been there all along, waiting to be given more to do than sing show tunes to crying babies, occasionally teach theater appreciation for the community college or improv a really great game of Monster High dolls. As I write this, we are preparing for the sixth and final show of the run.

Shortly after "Steel Magnolias" closes, I will head to Costa Rica with my oldest daughter. When Eva came home from school with paperwork about an educational eco-tour two years ago, I told her she could go -- if I could come, too. We have faithfully been making our payments and trying to learn Spanish (she's doing a lot better than I am, since she took Spanish I last year). Despite becoming a teenager since we began planning this, Eva is still excited that we are going on the trip together. We plan to visit a volcano, hot springs and rain forests, all while doing our best to communicate in a second language. It will be thrilling and humbling.

I'm realizing it is easier to move from one season of life to the next if you are proactive about it. After I had Lily, I felt panicked -- we had jobs, we had bought a house, we had all the kids we were planning to have. What was next on the timeline? Was it all downhill from here?

But then I started turning to new-old things. The kids were outgrowing stroller rides and Mommy & Me Yoga, so I needed to move on, too. I had not run since before they were born, and I worried about the time it would take away from them. But it turned out we were all the better for my running. Similarly, I have to be a little more brave to pursue theater and travel now than I did when I was younger, but I'm discovering my kids can flourish even if I am taking time away to dream new dreams.

They know, through every turn, they are always my best and greatest adventure.

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About Brooke

Brooke Clubbs is a wife to Bob and mother to three kids and two dogs. She runs (literally) around Jackson and teaches for Southeast Missouri State University's Department of Communication Studies. She wrote this while wearing flip-flops. You can see more of her writing at www.brookehclubbs.wordpress.com.