Cheyenne Jackson, out actor, turns 50 and reflects on his
life:
“Today I’m 50. I’ve been waiting a long time to do the Molly
Shannon ‘I’m 50!’-high kick, and now I can for real. 50. A number that once
felt impossibly far away… now feels somehow right on time. This past year has
been a reckoning. My dog died. My best friend [Broadway performer Gavin
Creel]died.
Hollywood
halted. Los Angeles burned. Grief has been my steady companion. ‘Hey girl, I see you’re back,’ I say to her. She lingers for a while, we dance a bit … it’s slow and flirty at first, then it morphs quickly into a WWF
match. I finally push her off, then she floats along like a burnt-sugar-scented
cloud. What once was sweet is now scorched. My beloved children are almost nine
… How? They are growing into their own bold, beautiful selves, and they remind
me every day that joy is loud, messy, and everywhere … if I stay present enough to notice. This year I stepped fully into my writing, not as a side
passion,
but
as another extension of my art. My tough new lit agent was worried I would
suck. Turns out I don’t. He
was surprised. I wasn’t—but pretended to be. It’s a little thing I like to do.
Pretending, you see … it’s been a theme in my life. The
fear of not being good enough always nearby, waiting in the woods like a wet
creature ready to pounce and flog me before I can do it all by myself. I ache
to connect. I’m working on it. My friends push through my isolation. I
refocused on my sobriety. I took it for granted. Treated it like gravity. So
constant, you forget it’s holding you up. Trying to let myself feel more, hide
less. And yes, like so many immediate families, due to this impossible
political hellscape, we’ve navigated differences. Tensions. Unsaid things. But
beneath it all, I’m still holding on to hope. For healing. Or maybe some ‘Love
Can Build a Bridge’-style-JUDDS sh*t to happen and make it all better. And yet,
through every tear, every missed soccer goal, every broken toe (mine), every
broken foot (Willow’s), is [my husband] Jason. My love. My north star. He sees
me clearly, loves me ANYWAY, and reminds me (daily) that I’m not alone in any
of this. So here’s to 50. Not a finish line. Not a starting line. Not a
reinvention. Less performing. More being. And definitely more high kicks.”
What a great post to celebrate a milestone, with honesty,
joy, and family and love and insight into where you were, where you are, and
where you’re going.
Happy Birthday, sir.
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