Several years ago, when a filmmaker friend asked, “You want to make a film, don’t you?” I was taken aback, even a little embarrassed. This was something I was secretly contemplating but hadn’t yet admitted to anyone – especially in the filmmaking community. I wasn’t a filmmaker. I was someone who funded other people’s films.

For the past 20 years, I’ve been the Executive Director of the LEF Foundation, an arts foundation based in Cambridge, MA, where I’ve watched countless documentaries and provided feedback to many filmmakers. I’ve had the rare opportunity of evaluating other people’s creative efforts and making decisions about who gets funded and who doesn’t. I recognize that my position is not only privileged, it’s also safe; I haven’t had to put myself out there to be judged.

But with my daughter Lily soon to leave home for college (my first big anxiety!), I needed to find something that would engage me on a deeper level than my foundation work. So, I embarked on making a film.

I was interested in looking at young people’s ideas about love, romance, and long-term commitment. What was the world like that Lily would be entering? I was worried that there were no road maps for her generation. More anxieties!

I chose to interview mostly non-experts (Stephanie Coontz, notwithstanding) because I believe that anyone and everyone is an expert on love. Everyone has his or her own story, idea, and expectation about relationships and romance. I wanted to play with this idea of randomness and to cultivate a kind of spontaneous feeling in the film.

I also wanted to show my sense of discovery over the course of the filmmaking process. Like many filmmakers who end up making personal documentaries, I hadn’t set out to include my own story. In fact, I was very resistant to do so.

But with the help of my editor, Lucia Small, I realized that the film could only take shape if I accessed my hidden anxieties and fears about love and marriage and revealed them on camera. I found myself reaching back to my earliest memories, my mother’s difficult relationships, my college experience, and then to finding Kent, and having Lily come into our lives. While this excavation was sometimes slow and often painful, it ultimately provided a framework for the film.

It’s important to me that my film resonates with people from both my generation and my daughter’s generation. My goal is to spark a conversation about the uncertainties and anxieties that people of all ages feel when it comes to love, romance and marriage – especially in this rapidly changing world of relationships. Reflecting on my own story in love has given me a certain kind of freedom to be more accepting of myself – and certainly a bit less anxious! I hope that my on-screen experiences will help others to do the same.