by Lori Yeghiayan Friedman
At six years old, I sat cross-legged on the living room carpet in front of the Magnavox watching Cher sing about middle age regret. Mesmerized by her performance of “Send in the Clowns.” I wondered: Is that what it was like to be a woman? To be full of regret like my mother? She got married and had kids because she was supposed to, not because she wanted to.
When Cher sang the opening questions and the words joined together with an expansive lift in the music and the key changed, something inside of me shifted, changing me instantly and from that moment on. Right then I decided, No duty for me. I’ll take the spotlight.
At 16, I got my thespian card, and the full benefits of lifelong membership. All the drama students in Ms. Davis’ Play Production at Palisades High School class got one. I was a junior when I performed in the spring musical production of “West Side Story.” My casting sucked. A member of the chorus! And a Jett?! I wanted to be seen.
Banished to the purgatory of the dressing room for most of the show, I sat with the other chorus girls in front of the mirror, staring at our reflections, our unusually-shaped bodies and interesting noses. We spent the time saying to each other:
“Girls who are stars in high school have probably already peaked.”
“Did you know that oil in skin acts like a preservative so when we are old, like 50, we will still look young?”
“We have only just begun, unlike those girls onstage who will soon be washed up.”
We penned alternative lyrics to “I Feel Pretty”―I feel shitty, oh so shitty!―while twirling in our poodle skirts and complimenting each other’s vibratos.
At 20, I auditioned for my college production of “Into the Woods,” a play that brings Grimms’ fairy tale characters into a collision course with each other and with real life. I would have been a fantastic Baker’s Wife or Witch, if only I could have hit the high notes. I learned every word and melody of the Broadway cast recording. It contained all the wisdom my 20-year-old-self lacks. I was going to need it.
At 29, I was the same age as Cher when she lounged across those Lucite steps, but I felt like Little Red Riding Hood, skipping into a tangle of dense trees. I met all the wolves, the giants, the witches. From casting directors, I received more “Nos” than “Yeses.” I went on dates. So many dates. Coffee dates. Lunch dates. Dinner dates. 8-minute dates. 5-minute dates. 3-minute dates. Coming home to my cramped studio apartment after another wasted evening, Little Red’s lesson thrums through my head about nice being different than good.
At 35, I left my unfulfilling acting career, and embarked on a new professional path. I embraced being a single woman living on my own terms and without regrets. I was introduced to the musical “Company” the same way I have been introduced to almost every good thing in my life: by a gay man; this time, my friend Paul. He had been going through a break up and listening to it on repeat.
A musical about marriage ambivalence? Be still my beating, closed-off heart, I thought. d
I sang along with lead character Bobbie over and over again until I understood that being alone is not like “Being Alive.”
At 37, I met someone who made me want to take the leap. Maybe I didn’t have to be my mother, maybe it wasn’t marriage and kids that filled her with disappointment. Maybe she would have been that way no matter what her life choices had been. Would it be so bad for someone to sit in my chair and ruin my sleep? I decided to give love a chance.
At 50, with great skin—preserved by all the oils—I sat at my piano keyboard, playing songs from my “Broadway Hits” songbook, my very own chair-sitters and sleep-ruiners—my husband and children—interrupting every second…alone is alone…while I played the chord progression that cemented that key moment of a-ha…not alive…the one that changed me instantly and from that moment on, when I understood that the choice to not be alone was not a one-time deal, but a decision to be made once and then again, and again, and again, over and over, and for the rest of my life.
Lori Yeghiayan Friedman‘s most recent work has appeared in Mizna, Phoebe, Gordon Square Review, Atlas and Alice, Consequence Forum, Longleaf Review, Lost Balloon, Pithead Chapel, Memoir Land and the Los Angeles Times. Her creative nonfiction has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and been a finalist for Best of the Net. Lori earned an MFA in Theatre from UC San Diego and attended the Tin House Winter Workshop 2023. Follow her on Instagram and Bluesky: @loriyeg
Emerge Literary Journal 