My Mom Died And Other Failures

My first post, in which I take a depressing subject and add another one for spice!

My mom died, which sucks because she never really saw me succeed at anything. I mean, I’m fine and all, but she didn’t see me have a baby, which she wanted, or me really breaking through on my career, which I wanted and she did too. She really believed in me and that’s embarrassing because I haven’t really done anything.

And she didn’t die when I was super young either! I was 35. In fact, I turned 36 between her death and her funeral. On her deathbed, a thing she really had (wild!), she said “I was 35 when my mom died too.” She was 37 when her mom died actually, but you pick your battles at that point and I graciously chose not to correct her. It’s actually never occurred to me till writing this that it’s weird she said that because she was predicted to live past my birthday, but I guess she knew she wouldn’t. I don’t think she was feeling well.

I always wanted her to see me win an award or something, or at least some important marker of success or not be chronically unemployed, but none of that happened. When I say “success” I mean regularly working in WGA writers rooms or maybe on-camera. I don’t do these things. I have done them, but with absolutely no consistency and for sometimes totally random projects. I try to accept that I’ve had a bizarre work history as part of my brand: that it’s quirky and fun! But I hate it. It’s totally embarrassing to me. I hate talking to people about “what I do” because I mostly do nothing. Sometimes I blame my mom’s illness and death for my lack of success because it took so much time and energy. I think that’s probably a lie, but a lie that I might continue to tell myself and others and you. Watch this space!

I hate that I’m still talking about my mom dying. It’s so boring. I hate that it’s defining me and she would hate it too, but I’m struggling to replace it with anything and every day she’s been dead longer and it’s a bigger thing. And that’s another thing: her death did not rocket me to success! Can you believe this shit??? It just happened in an open sea of my life that continues to go on!!!

I got an interview to write for SNL in 2017 and I mainly wanted to book the job so my mom could see me get it. I submitted through the general email. I didn’t have any reps at that time because my most recent manager — who once sent me a “u up” text (love this industry!) — was rumored to have been fired from his management company for being a pathological liar. So it felt cool that SNL wanted to interview me just on the strength of my packet and certainly not because of my elite representation, which, again, was no one. I met with one of the producers and as I was leaving I said “I got to tell my mom I’m interviewing for SNL so thank you for bringing me in: this means a lot.” That might be the exact opposite energy that show is looking for lol so spoiler: I didn’t get it. I keep my 8H visitor badge just to remind myself something good could happen. It mostly hasn’t, but it certainly could.

I was recently walking through Manhattan crying and luckily it’s still a pandemic so you didn’t see me or you did see me and you're polite in which case: hey, thanks, bud. I don’t think crying while walking through Manhattan comports with people’s vision of me, but recently on The Big Shot with Bethenny Frankel, Bethenny Frankel said “people think I’m going to be the life of the party but I’m not” and like NO ONE thinks Bethenny Frankel is going to be the life of the party so maybe we’re not good at knowing how people see us. (Bethenny = all of us; this much I know is true.) Anyway, I was crying walking through Manhattan because I’m 38 years old and my mom is dead and I’m still talking about it and 30-year-old me would be so judgmental of all this. This was the decade to make things happen and I didn’t do it or they didn’t happen or something. You’ll notice people who are like 31 or 32 are always joking about how old they are because they don’t actually feel old at all. You don’t hear 38 year olds joking about being old because the back half of your 30s, possibilities are getting more finite. Things are harder. It’s not like “haha funny.”

Like, I guess I could still EGOT lol, but probably not, right? I don’t have a job, how would I win an award, let alone four? And that’s fine! Little known fact: most people actually do not EGOT, but you love to have the possibility and I probably don’t anymore. There’s a ceiling on what I’m going to do in life and the biggest thing is whatever I do in life, but mom will not see it. That’s done. That’s not a possibility.

In August of 2019 I took my character show to LA because that was just a thing you would do back then in August of 2019. August of 2019 was highly fraught for me because the year anniversary of mom’s death was approaching and that’s when I needed to be done with all this grief stuff. This was a conscious deadline I had in my mind. (Folks, I didn’t meet the deadline!) My manager (a new one who doesn’t sexually harass me so we love that) set up a couple generals while I was in LA. Generals are often fruitless but kinda fun meetings where you get to see inside people’s offices. This one was in one of those LA buildings that I can only describe as a Montessori school. Like, they don’t teach tangrams there, but I also believe they do. I was in the waiting area and I could hear a famous person who I know talking in the other room. I knew it was this person because I know their voice because -- to review -- 1) they’re famous 2) I know them personally. I was anticipating running into this person which could be fun because, again, I know them.

I was looking down at my phone when I saw out of the corner of my eye the famous person *almost* walk into the waiting room, but instead clock me (I was the only person there), stop talking -- they knew their voice would be recognized and, reader, remember: we know they were correct -- and jolt in the other direction. They jumped back like they’d hit a forcefield. So that hurt. You could say, rightly, this behavior has more to do with that person than me, but it has something to do with me. Whatever anxiety that person felt in seeing someone from the past (a perfectly normal anxiety made famous this year!), I wasn’t worth getting over it for. The thing I thought in that moment was “your mom is alive to see you be successful and this is how you treat me, someone with none of that?” To really feel in a moment how low status you are to someone is, um, hard. My brain is always making things about my mom and grief so this incident is about my mom to me, even though it really isn’t at all. (I know people who grew up in a lot of pain and chaos are like “Hey, Caitlin, did you, like, JUST learn about trauma? You know you can read books, right?”)

Wow, a blind item! This newsletter is Deux Moi now. (It’s okay. I’ve hurt people’s feelings too. Nobody’s perfect.)

I don’t know if writing this was a good idea at all! It’s hard to talk about success in the entertainment industry because no one feels they’re doing well and everyone is hurting someone else’s feelings when they say that because the truth is, you are doing better than someone else. I mean, look at all the fun details I had in this essay about failure: WGA! SNL! LA! Other letters!

I just feel like for me if my mom could have seen me really do something bigger then that would have been enough. I think that would have felt like success, but I’m probably wrong! It would probably be just another thing that’s fine when you have it, but seems life-altering when you don’t.

As Kourtney Kardashian always says “there are people that are dying, Kim.” And actually? She’s right.