Playwright: A script I wrote in high-school!

Do you ever look over your writing to see how much you’ve grown? I often do that. I return to them whenever I have writer’s block and can’t find ideas. They’re helpful and inspire me when I lack inspiration. I encourage you all to write journals and save them. Every single thing that you write. Save it. Here is just a script I wrote with a classmate who was my pretend husband. We made a wedding scrapbook, which he let me keep, and I still have it. It’s helpful now that my sister is engaged, and I’m trying to help her plan her wedding.

We got an A+. Our presentation at the time was heated and dramatic. We had to act it out from meeting each other, to marrying, to having children, to growing old and dying.

We had to pretend to be in one of the situations we learned about in class. We had to use concepts we learned about in the course in our script. We had to use background music and everything else. We had to write out our skit and memorize our performance, making sure to use concepts. We also had to present our whole scrapbook. There were a lot of parts to it. It was so much fun back then, but it took so long.

SCRIPT:

Part one: (infertility, how many children to have, adoption)

Thomaz: (sitting down, reading a newspaper)

Amy: (walks in, throws purse on the floor)

Thomaz: Hunnie, what’s wrong? Is everything alright?

Amy: Baby, I know you have big dreams to have a family of your own and for us to have our biological children, but maybe it’s time to face the truth and accept it. It will never happen. Nothing works; maybe it’s time to move on. I’m infertile.

Thomaz: I’m here to support you in whatever reproductive technologies you want to use. I know you’ve already tried a few.

Amy: Yeah. I have. I’ve already tried artificial-insemination and a couple of assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization and drug therapies. I’m pretty much mentally exhausted with all these fertility treatments. Doesn’t there come the point where we must accept it and move on? Maybe we’re just not meant to be parents? Don’t you ever think about the stress and conflict we were creating for ourselves for nothing? What about adoption? Have you ever considered that?

Thomaz: I want children who are of consanguinity. I want children who have my blood, Amy.

Amy: But look at these children, Thomaz, read the descriptions underneath them. It breaks my heart that maybe we weren’t meant to have biological children because I thought we should have been able to care for one of them. (hands over Thomaz 5 pictures with five descriptions)

Thomaz: (Looks at pictures) Your right Amy. These stories are sad. It says Isaac suffered a lot of physical abuse, his father would burn him with cigarettes, and his mother had a drug problem. (looks at the pictures again) Oh wow, this story’s sad… It’s two bi-racial children. I want them, Amy. They are brother and sister. I don’t want them to be separated. It says here the father walked out on them, and the younger one, Cayden was an insecurely attached infant, and due to the fact their father put their mother through a lot of verbal and physical abuse, they witnessed a lot of violence. The mother ended up committing suicide because she couldn’t handle the pain. They need a home, Amy.

Amy: And we started fostering these two children, Crystal & Cayden. The first few years were great. Here are some pictures of our foster children. (SHOW SCRAPBOOK)

PART TWO: (When Marital CONFLICT HAPPENS)

Amy: Thomaz, are you serious? You’re a horrible parent. What’s wrong with you? You gave crystal chocolate again. It’s going to wreck her teeth. Just because your parents were authoritative doesn’t give you the right to be permissive. You never say no and provide the children with whatever they want. You’re spoiling them too much.

Thomaz: What do you know about being a good parent? You’re never home. You’re a feminist. You’re always at work, and work runs your life. You don’t even know the value of family.

Amy: I let you move into the house I paid for, and you have the nerve to speak that way to me.

I know the authoritarian parenting style is the one that allows children to grow up to be happy and successful adults, and someone needs to tell you before we have monster children. I can’t cancel on my clients, and somebody around here needs to make sure these children are financially secure, and the bills get paid. And don’t be questioning me about what I do – you’re the one who has a problem with Infidelity – so much for keeping your wedding vows. What do you think because I’m so busy? I’d never catch you??

Thomaz: What do you mean? I never cheated on you or committed adultery.

Amy: Oh, but Thomaz, you did. I’m a psychologist, and you have the nerve to lie to my face. Why don’t you explain these? (hands over pictures of him cheating) oh, and not to mention those texts I found on your phone saying… 'hey, love… my wife won’t be home until six p.m. So we have until then?' Oh please

Thomaz: You have no right you can’t creep through my stuff

Amy: I didn’t until I found this letter from your mistress with lip gloss all over it, sprayed with perfume so much for commitment, Thomaz.

Thomaz: What do you want me to do? You’re always putting me down, finding something wrong with me, and never here. Get down on bended knees and apologize. Someone had to teach me how to care for these children.

Amy: Well, maybe we ought to get marriage counseling since we were so dysfunctional, or we need to separate or, better yet, a divorce since you can’t keep your marriage contract. When I got with you, I thought you agreed to share the bills so we could have a dual-income family, and now I support you and the children myself, and you cheating on me is the thanks I get? Really?

Thomaz: We can’t break up. What about the children??

Amy: Oh, now you want to stay together for the children? What when daddy doesn’t come around anymore? They don’t feel neglected even though we don’t know how to be happy together right now? I need space right now, Thomaz. You must pack your stuff and move out so I can think this over. I make enough money to afford Universal Day Care anyways. It’s not like me, and the children need you.

Thomaz: But I’m the parent they know and have an attachment to

Amy: Thomaz, they’re bi-racial were Caucasian. What about when they’re older and can communicate and begin to notice that they are bi-racial and Caucasian, what then? What do we do when they start to struggle with identity issues? Maybe we’re not cut out for this job.

Thomaz: What are you saying? Amy, maybe you don’t understand. You want to give them up after you already took them in. I have a bond with them. I get them; they call me, and we are not giving them up. I intend to adopt them. We are the family they know. I got a cousin who married a Jamaican woman and is in an inter-racial marriage, and I have loads of extended family that would help support them and me. Maybe you don’t understand that feeling because your father walked out on you and your mother, and perhaps you’re so feminist and had an expressive role and had to take the man’s part and play the instrumental role too.

Amy: How dare you bring my father into this and put me down after everything I do for people to help them when they’re in need. I told you I needed my space. There’s the door. Why don’t you use it?!!

Thomaz: (Walks out of the classroom) Fine, WOMAN!!! Have it your way!!!

Part three: (Marriage/ solution / therapy / counselling)

(so we decided to take a break to decide whether we should get divorced or get back together and are now doing therapy, and you people in the classroom are going to be our therapist, so listen)

Amy: I feel depressed. I feel heartbroken. I can’t stop eating chocolate. I’m a strong independent woman that usually knows what to do, but now I feel lost. I don’t deserve this. I give my husband everything, and still, he’s never satisfied. And on top of that, he broke our wedding vows by committing adultery. I don’t understand how this happened.

Thomaz: Amy’s always at work. She doesn’t realize the family-work-conflict her full-time job is causing us at home for us. Here I am, a man trying to raise household money more important to her than family values. She never considers my feelings or the feelings of the children.

Amy: What do you mean I’ve never considered your feelings? I’ve always put our family first.

Thomaz: Oh yeah, by never being home, so the children don’t know who you are, but they know who I am because you chose to have a family, and your clients are more important to you, and that’s the real reason you don’t mind giving them up.

(using the systems theory and the social exchange theory first, we both made a list of the pros and cons of our relationship, and then we wrote down a bunch of different ways our lives would turn out if we stayed together and if we didn’t and we decided we would work on our relationship and stay together and since we came from religious families we felt obligated to because it takes two people to make something go wrong and two people to make it right and we both wanted to make it right)

part 4: when the resolutions are over, Amy eventually invests enough money and retires at the age of 50; instead of the actual age of 40. Amy goes on to spend time with the children, and a non-normative event happens, and Thomaz gets diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 65, just like his father because it’s hereditary in his family. He also suffered from a genetic disease known as diabetes for a long time which didn’t help his cancer, and he ended up dying. Now, this is his funeral service.

Amy: Thomaz was the love of my life. I watched him; love. I watched him hurt. I watched him cry. I was there by his side, holding his hand as I watched him die. He knew that his time was short, but he’d lived his dream, maybe not his first one, despite our sometimes destructive conflict. We still always found a way to make it right. He never quit or gave up, and when I think of his death, I am reminded of the disengagement theory because he neared closer to his death. He isolated himself, became introverted, and shut out many of his friends, and I thought I would have to help him with resocialization. Still, maybe that was just my faith, and I hoped to keep him holding on so I could stay strong and hold onto him just a little longer. In my heart, I thought he would get better, and in his heart, he accepted and knew he was dying. Treatment after treatment is unsuccessful. And as he lay there in his hospital bed, I held his hand. He couldn’t stop telling me about our two children, Crystal & Cayden, who we eventually adopted and did become grandparents. He told me how proud he was to be a father and a grandfather; despite the crisis, we went through in our lives with our faith, we still made it through. Thomaz, as I stand here saddened, heartbroken, lost, and confused, thinking I’m now dealing with the social construction theory knowing that you are gone dead. I now have to accept that I’m aging, too, and sometimes without you as my spouse; I feel I have no more meaning or significance in my life. Sometimes I think it was you who made me feel complete, and without you, I’m missing my better half But I need to be strong and move on because it’s not my time, and society still needs me Goodbye, my king, may you rest in peace as you go to heaven with the angels (places a rose by Thomaz’s grave)