The Supporter

Best actor in a supporting role. Best actor. Any awards show usually opens with the lackadaisical announcement of the best supporting actor/actress and always leaves the best actor awared until the end. As if to show the apparent quantitative difference between the supporting actor and the lead actor.

This has actually been quite an internal struggle for me. I grew up in a very competitive atmosphere. Where your best was usually not good enough. Success was measured not by your character but rather how well you did on standardized exams and if you could manage to make your parents proud by getting into a better university than the other kid down the street. Be the front runner. That was the mantra. The spotlight. That was the goal.

As I got older and decided to use my own brain I realized that the ideas we were fed were not in line with the type of person that I eventually wanted to become. When I got married I put a lot on hold. I was almost chastised for my decision. ‘You are going to put your medical school on hold?!’ I was asked over and over again. At the beginning I would answer by expressing my dreams about becoming a wife that would support her husband in his successes and failures and that our journey together would be much more meaningful than anything I would do on my own. The response? A blank stare. This happened so often that I began to think that maybe I was the crazy one. Until one day I realized most of the people who would ask me this question were also raised in a very similar atmosphere as myself. It was difficult for them to see themselves in a supporting role. Where there was no fame, no glory. It went against all their convictions.

It saddened me. For many reasons. But I must say, the greatest reason, was a selfish one. I felt that I was truly doing something remarkable yet no one saw it as something commendable. It became a personal struggle for me. I had to keep reminding myself, ‘This is the type of person I want to be. This is the type of people I want my children to be.’ The more I reminded myself the more I felt like a fraud. Did I truly believe in taking a supporting role? Had I truly let go of the independence and glory that a career would bring? The more I delved into my inner thoughts the more I realized that it was quite easy: I did not have to choose. It was okay for me to sometimes desire all the perks of being a career woman. After all, it is still laudable for those who choose to sacrifice for that cause. As long as most of the time I knew that what I was doing was just as commendable and even more so if I truly wanted to become the type of person who could be the ‘wind beneath someone’s wing’, if you will.

So anyway, some days I feel great about myself and other days I think about all the things I could have accomplished by now for myself. I know that in the future I will have the opportunity to do the seemingly selfish things I want to do but for right now it looks like my husband is in flight and I have to gear up for some major wind-blowing.