Best Actress in a Supporting Role

I have mastered the art of supporting other people.  I am so good at it, in fact, that I am not the main character in my own life anymore.

When I wake up every day, I force myself out of bed to go spend eight hours in a place where everyone’s needs come before my own.  High school students are fairly high maintenance – hormones and existential crises and all – but I signed on for that job, and I love giving them whatever knowledge and insight and personal assistance I might be able to offer.  But a student told me just yesterday that high school is simply a place where teenagers go so that their parents don’t have to deal with them, and that most students don’t give a shit about what any of their teachers are saying.  I countered with the fact that I still sometimes talk to my former students, so people must be listening, at least sometimes.  I added that if even one or two of my students get something valuable, my time was well spent.  He said, and I quote, “Don’t hold your breath.  No one cares about this shit.”

He’s probably right.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep supporting my students whenever and however I can.  Otherwise, what’s the point of being a teacher?

I wish this essay about supporting roles was just about my job. 

When I come home, I am again relegated to an ancillary role.  Because I don’t have a love life (or even a social life for that matter) I am the maid, cook, chauffeur, advisor, and organizer.  People in Main Roles do what they want.  Other people revolve around them, instead of the inverse.  Nobody revolves around me.  If my kids need food, I cook.  If they need prodded to fill out college applications, I prod.  If they need help with homework, I try to remember basic algebra or the plot basics of a novel I haven’t read in 10 years.  I support people who are Main Characters. 

I won’t even write about my “husband”, because all of my support in that role has been for naught.  In that role, I am an extra, perhaps with the screen credit of “Field Medic”, because my only role there is triage on a dying plot element.

Back in the day, my head shot (and accompanying resume experience) would have been fairly impressive.  Now?  Not so much.  And the most distressing part is that I might not even be the Best Supporting Actress in this particular role of life.  I can’t seem to figure out how to play this role that I’ve cast myself in.  I have forgotten what the point is.   

When people fall into the Typecast Category, is there any way out?  Why does it take such extraordinary measures to break free of the way other people see us?  How do people even find a way to break out of such a crushing weight of predictability? 

Maybe I’ve fallen into the foreign language category, but I’m still delusionally thinking people understand me.