Dear friends, far and near-but-distanced,
What a ride 2020 has been.
I kicked off the new year by applying, again, to graduate school at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor for their interdisciplinary fine arts program. My sister Beth moved from our house in Brookings to Wayne, Nebraska, to join her husband Alex, and my sister Anne moved in from Sioux Falls for a semester of on-campus classes. A late January visit to Colorado was fruitful but difficult and made it clear that the time was right to start processing my post-surrogacy emotions with a counselor. (To be clear, these feelings have never included regret. I visited a counselor proactively pre-legal agreement and conception attempts, as well as pre-delivery. We always predicted I would eventually revisit a counselor post-delivery. It was something akin to icing down muscles post-marathon: you know you'll be sore before you start, and afterward, happy to have completed the run, you must give your body what it needs to heal. )
February was a busy month for my work with Brookings Community Theatre (BCT); I directed a "Musical Theatre Talent Showcase," working with several great community members and SDSU students for a one-night performance in a new event center in town. I chose "Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere" from Come From Away and "Once and For All" from Newsies as the opening and closing ensemble numbers. Anne jumped in at the dress rehearsal to help cover a duet for a performer who'd fallen ill, and the event was a success. (Listen to the Spotify playlist to hear professional versions of our song lineup.) Working on an incredibly tight rehearsal schedule, this event rekindled my aspirations to direct, choreograph, and organize performances. I hope the future includes more such opportunities. I also spearheaded a South Dakota Arts Council grant proposal for BCT in my role as a board member. This comprehensive proposal took a significant amount of time but yielded a grant of $2,424 as announced in July, as well as created a template from which to work for future applications for this annual funding opportunity. These efforts, combined with evening rehearsals for our spring show, Rabbit Hole (in which I was cast as Nat, the grandmother), made for a busy BCT month.
March came, and with it an end to long-distance breastfeeding, a return to the gym, and a plan to reconnect with friends after my busy February and five months of milking myself anywhere from 1-8 hours per day. Then, of course, the Earth shifted. Our run of Rabbit Hole (a brilliantly-written show by David Lindsay-Abaire) was cancelled after one performance. Work went remote. Everything was put on hold as we tried to make sense of this new virus, to protect ourselves and those around us.
Anne and I spent a lot of quality time at home and, with plenty of time to cook, completed the Whole30 challenge. I started running every weeknight and doing workouts every weekday morning with Beth and a few others, led by one of her friends via HouseParty. Becky stayed with Anne and me for a couple weeks. We began preparing to move when our lease ended in May.
It was announced that my summer job at Harvard, where I was returning for a fourth (non-consecutive) turn as an Assistant Dean of the Secondary School Program, would go fully online. I still had a job but no longer had the housing it normally provides, nor the restorative energy that I was so looking forward to in Cambridge. Meanwhile, I had not been admitted to graduate school; instead, I was in the midst of applying for a major career pivot and did not want to make an extreme move or sign a lease while that process was pending. So I joined Mom and Becky in my hometown of Salem. Hopes for a summer of "Have laptop, will travel," were mostly thwarted, as Covid showed no signs of abating. Nonetheless, we had some quality adventures, including kicking off the summer by camping with Ronda, the four nephews, Beth, Mike, & Becky at Sylvan Lake and in the Badlands.
Summer School went pretty smoothly online; it was less work than a typical summer but also less rewarding. Still, I enjoyed the talented and affirming students and colleagues who make Harvard such a wonderful place. In August, I transitioned to a temporary, remote position in SDSU's Title IX/EO office, covering a colleague's maternity leave. Through mid-October, I helped investigate claims of discrimination and sexual misconduct, still working from (mom's) home.
Selection for the long-term job for which I'd applied was still in progress, so I then accepted another temporary position, back in SDSU's Department of Housing & Residential Life (my employer from July 2015-2020). This came with a discounted lease for a furnished guest apartment adjacent to campus, bringing me back to Brookings. After spending most of the past six months in my mom's basement, being a grown-up in my own space and shopping for/cooking my own meals has been a healthy change. The job was set to end December 4th. However, I learned on November 30th that the finish line again shifted, and the career path for which I've applied has become more competitive and would not begin for up to another 6 months. Moreover, there is no guaranteed timeline for when I'll have an official yes or no. These days, I roll with the punches and don't plan too far ahead. While the uncertainty of the shifting ground is not ideal, I've been fortunate to remain gainfully employed throughout the time that Covid-19 has impacted us, and for that I'm deeply grateful.
Nalerie Renae Sutton-Talley, the little girl who joined our world October 3, 2019, remains a shining light in my life. After their Christmas visit to my family in Salem and my January visit to her family in Colorado, trips to see her in March and October were cancelled due to Covid-19. However, dads Jacob and Andrew brought her to see Anne and me a few days before Mother's Day, while they were visiting their families in South Dakota. I then spent two weeks at their (new!) home in Greeley in July, and we had a fabulous time playing house. (Visits to Peace Corps friend Emily and Camp E-Nini-Hassee friends Katie & Rachel bookended this time and made for a wonderful work-remotely summer trip.) Nalerie's adoption was finalized in August, legally terminating my parental rights and, at long last, fully recognizing both her fathers on her birth certificate. It was a tearful but joyful session of "Zoom court." Baby girl turned one in October; she, big brother Isaac, and dads Andrew and Jacob are a dearly loved extension of our family. The visits with a counselor, a couple of creative projects, time, and looking forward to new chapters have all helped in my healing and in right-sizing their place in my heart. We are so fortunate that our surrogacy partnership has been everything we hoped (and planned) for it to be. Stay tuned--there may still be a book, yet. Time will tell!
In September, I had an enjoyable two-week stay with my brother Bryce and his family (Ronda, Caleb, Isaac, Micah, & Asher) in Vermillion, including time with each of the boys and plenty of pleasant autumn walks around their neighborhood. Before and after that visit, I spent many hours going through my "life archives": 20+ totes of all my earthly belongings: childhood mementos, journals, college books, legal documents, and so on, of mostly sentimental value. I culled and sorted, but more useful was the opportunity for deep remembering and reflecting. It was, in many ways, a chance to revisit myself: my past, my dreams, my goals. In this time of treading water, it has been helpful to reimagine who I have been and whom I still hope to become.
I also forced myself to start dating again. Surrogacy--which was, all told, a 3-year journey--had left no emotional space for romance, and my work/class/theatre schedule left little time for lingering, open-ended dates. This year, though Covid has altered our perception of time, the clock's insistent ticking toward 37 sounded loudly in my ears, so I reticently reactivated an old dating app profile. After a handful of video or mostly-outside dates with several nice people, I found myself wanting to keep spending my weekends with a charming guy from Sioux Falls. We've been together(ish) for three months, and while I'm not quite sure we want the same life, we sure do have a good time. He's fluent in all the love languages and we've explored a surprising number of activities--golf, tennis, climbing, hiking, cooking, pumpkin carving, cooking & baking--together, despite the current environment. We even snuck in a long-weekend getaway to the Black Hills in my transition between jobs. With our social interactions otherwise limited, sharing a bubble of our individual households of one has been deeply positive, and I'm excited to keep spending quality time with him.
While I consider myself civically active, I had not been deeply politically involved since I worked on a Republican campaign back in 2002. Now, having been registered Independent for many years, I was excited to do phone-banking across numerous states to help Joe Biden win this fall's election. It was encouraging to talk to voters, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Biden & Harris were officially declared the victors. The line between loss and win is thin, though, and the election reminded me that we must start listening, and truly trying to understand each other, if we are to unify not just our country but our individual communities.
I'm still waiting to see where I might set sail in 2021. I'll keep the current aspiration under wraps for now, hinting only that my interest in the field was re-ignited by a prominent fellow Harvard alum/peer. Knowing that the odds are slim that this opportunity will be granted to me, I have some serious work to do in exploring other options for the near future. I'm pretty accustomed to changing angles when I miss a swing. The ocean of possibility is vast and deep.
For now, I'm happy, healthy, and (as far as I know) Covid-free. (Thankfully, the members of my family who contracted the virus earlier in the year have also recovered.) I must acknowledge my own privilege, particularly in regard to the deep troubles our nation has faced in confronting racist and violent undercurrents. Lives were unduly and tragically ended this year: not just by an indiscriminate virus, but also by a planet in accelerating decline and an insidious devaluing of Black life. Black Lives Matter. Science is real. My own life's peaks and valleys are minor given our real challenges as a society and a global community to address real, life-threatening issues, and I hope I can keep a broader perspective in determining how to do my part. We have a lot of healing to do as a nation. I'm hopeful for the new leadership taking the helm in January. I'm hopeful we can still build the future that the next generation--including my nephews, Nalerie, and her brother--deserve to inherit.
Sending love and warmth to you and yours,
Andrea
