The Goodbye I Didn't Write

On the last day of high school, before final exams were taken, before we walked down the aisle in caps and gowns, I wandered the halls carrying nothing but a box of tissues. I was an emotional wreck, crying with every goodbye. Something I had dreamed about for years, graduating and moving to New York City, was finally happening, and all I could do was fall apart.

I’ve always hated goodbyes.

If you’ve ever been at any kind of social gathering with me, you know this to be 100% true. I am a big fan of the Irish exit, just slipping out the door without a word. No drawn-out farewells. No teary hugs. Just poof, gone. It’s my signature move: equal parts self-preservation and emotional escape hatch.

The farewell to childhood when I left Vermont for the bright lights of New York left me gutted. And years later, when I traded the city I’d grown to love for the unknowns of Los Angeles, I felt that same ache again. Those moments shattered my heart into a million little pieces. Even though I had chosen both departures, the grief still came. Maybe I was mourning the passing of time itself, or the version of me I was leaving behind.

But it’s the unexpected goodbyes that linger longer. The ones you never asked for. The ones you’re never ready for.

As I prepare to begin production on the final season of Misguided, I find myself pausing often and unexpectedly. This ending is one I’ve chosen, and still, it’s heavy. I’m not just wrapping a show that has been a dream come true (one I’ve nurtured for almost a decade), I’m also letting go of a version of myself that has lived inside this project. Once again, I’m stepping into the unknown. But this time, it feels different.

It feels different because I’m different. I’ve gone through therapy. I have language now to name what I’m feeling. I’ve learned to sit with my emotions, both the comfortable and the excruciating, and to let them breathe without letting them take over. And it feels different because Misguided wasn’t just a creative outlet; it became a space where fantasy and healing met. I created a heightened soap opera reality where I got to live out childhood dreams—with actual soap stars—and where the storylines weren’t just heartfelt, but personal.

I got to meet and work with people I had admired since I was a kid watching daytime television. And most unexpectedly, I got a second chance at having a mother.

Three days before production on Season Two, we were set: studio booked, crew assembled, cast locked, except for one role. Mo. My mother.

“Who’s going to play my mom?” I kept wondering, hoping the universe would intervene.

And on a Tuesday morning, it did.

I emailed an agent. By that afternoon, Jackie Zeman: icon, legend and soap opera royalty had said yes. Not only was she going to play Mo, she was excited to join us!

In acting school, I was trained in Meisner: living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. In the world of Misguided, where I was playing a version of myself, Jackie became more than a scene partner. She became the mother I’d always wished for. She was imperfect, but grounded in unconditional love. And somewhere along the way, my heart stopped recognizing the difference. Jackie wasn’t just portraying my mom. She was my mom. She became family.

Now, as I sit with the scripts for our final season, her absence is palpable. The goodbye I didn’t want to write has become the one I can’t avoid. I had an entire season written before Jackie passed, a version I was excited to film with her. Losing her meant losing that version, and trying to write a new one without her has been, without question, the most painful writing I’ve ever done.

How do I say goodbye to Jackie? To Mo? How do I honor both and still keep the integrity of the story?

This new version of the story asked me to go deeper. To face the emotional truth of Paul (the character) whose last words to Mo were “I have no mother,” before slamming a door that would never reopen. Through all of the rewrites, I found myself grieving with him. Sitting in heartbreak. Wrestling with regret. And somehow, in that grief, I found something worth sharing.

When production begins next month, something will be missing. A piece of all our hearts. We’ll mourn. Without a doubt, we will most likely cry. But I hope we celebrate too.

Jackie championed this series from the moment she joined. I felt like I had won my mother’s approval both on screen and off. She believed in me, in this story, in the world we created together. And even though she’s no longer here to see how this chapter ends, her presence hopefully is felt within every frame of the coming season. I hope as we transition from pre-production to production, Jackie’s spirit lives on through the heartbeat that is carried throughout these final episodes. 

Jackie may be off screen this season, but she’s woven into the fabric of it all. 

And I hope, somehow, I’m still making my Misguided mama proud.