This is my life now.
There are many like it, but
This life is now mine.
Many years ago I made a series of mistakes that took me upwards of $40,000 in credit card debt. The minimum monthly payments were equivalent, if not a little higher, than the combined remainder of my cost of living. Today, I couldn’t even tell you what I spent that money on. I can tell you that thanks to interest, I’ve paid back far more than that trying to clear it out.
When I graduated college, it was this (still escalating) debt that kept me showing up to my job every day. Customers asked me how I managed to maintain my constant level of energy and enthusiasm while wearing tights and a cape, and I’d answer, “I just think of my Visa bill.” It was a joke, and they’d usually laugh. But it was also true.
I allowed my debt to feed my fear of pursuing an acting career. I was safe and comfortable taking no risks. Indeed, my entire life I’ve been shiftless, motivated to action only out of necessity, and then only when prodded. Uninspired. Unimpressive. Afraid. Until I was 26 I was never outside of Dallas for more than a week, scared and homesick and nearly desperate to return to familiar surroundings. I didn’t even bother to lie to myself and say I was happy at my dead end job, because if I ever did I would realize just how much I wanted to be doing something else. But to do something else would make me vulnerable. To admit what I really wanted and go for it was too frightening, because if I tried and I failed would be worse than never trying. But comfortable acquiescence wasn’t the same as fulfillment, and I grew more and more unhappy.
I remember the moment the scales tipped. I had fallen in love with a most ambitious woman with remarkably ambitious companions. I remember the way she talked about them, and I wanted her to think of me the way she thought of them. I began to consider where I was in my life, which was four years out of college with a resume of a fresh graduate. The parade of life kept going after I had stopped moving with it, and as I stood still a new world washed over me. First it was a cold, dark and empty place with no one to point me in a direction I was willing to go, and later it became the world I fit myself into instead of keeping up with the world I wanted to be in. I remembered the passion I had begun to develop for artistic creation and performance, and my heart began to bleed and radiate the need get back into that world. I needed to catch back up.
I began doing voice overs and loved it, but couldn’t get enough work to make me happy. I applied for grad school and was rejected. I got into a play, but the rehearsal schedule conflicted with my job, and the money I lost was five times the paltry sum they paid me. The half-summer I spent in Cambridge was the most influential. I spent weeks working with my contemporaries and old school Russian professionals, and I earned the deepest sense of confidence in myself thanks to the praise and respect I got from fellow students and teachers alike. I finally realized I had nothing to fear. I was good at this, and being good at what I love to do lit a fire under me. I would do whatever it took to make this my life. I would go anywhere, suffer any indignity in the pursuit of my dream. I was still afraid, but that fear was quieted by my desire.
I came to Chicago on a whim. I had high aspirations of what I would do and be able to accomplish, and fear wasn’t going to stop me. I had established the passion in my heart, and I had confirmation of my skill, and I was in the right place. The only thing I was missing was a resource of income, whereby I would be able to pay those minimum credit card payments of about $1,000 a month and still eat.
I needed a job, any job, and I was here for several weeks before I got one. I took out a sizeable loan, sold my truck (sniff), cashed in my entire 401k, and in spite of the blessed assistance Heather gave me, I burned through all that money before I got my first real paycheck. I took any source of income that came along, including two menial jobs that each paid half what I was expecting to make. Soon after, I took a third job and got a promotion at the second, and I started to catch up. A few months later and I actually started to get ahead.
Money was the first tangible hurdle to starting my theatrical career, and it was the last thing I started to clear out of my way. Being in debt has ruled my life since I was twenty years old. I have ached and screamed and raged and cried over it, most especially once I began to realize just how much it was stopping me from living the sort of life I really wanted. The last two years it ached and palled working sixty to eighty hours a week trying to make up for my mistakes, watching my life tick away while I did nothing that made me happy. I hated what it meant to be working these jobs, I hated not having any sort of hobby, and I hated not having the time or energy to go out and have a good time with the woman I loved. It was like running up a rockslide, the ground sliding out from under my feet with every leap forward, bloodying my knees and knuckles and toes, grasping for anything I could use to pull me ahead.
Finally, blessedly, I made to solid ground. Through all these hours of toil and misery, exhaustion and sacrifice, money is no longer a problem. I’ll have the student loan debts in a few years, but that will accrue during the pursuit of a lifelong dream. Every cent spent on education is money spent well and to good purpose, which is far more than I can say for the first round of debts I incurred. I’ll still be living in debt, but I’ll be working for, and on, and toward my heart’s true passion and desire. I can live with that, and happily.
I never would have made it through without the constant support of one other. She was my relief and my release and I relied on her daily to sustain my sanity. I was grateful for her in a way I was never able to articulate, and every effort to do so fell woefully short. It was just one of the reasons I fell so desperately in love with her. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to give to her the love and gratitude and passion I carry, to focus on her the way she always deserved. If I’m very lucky, she’ll want me to. And if I’m very lucky indeed, she’ll want me, too.
As for today, and tomorrow . . . they belong solely to me. All other problems and hurdles are out of my way. Every obligation I have coming, every choice that presents itself and every decision I make is directly related to living the dream. The approaching days are the ones that matter most, more than any single day that has come before.
Coming to Chicago was a reboot, and a confirmation of my worst fears about really getting started on doing something important with my life. I’ve never had so much standing in my way, so many challenges to overcome, so many hardships to endure; but I’ve also never taken so many risks, or tried to accomplish so much. And when I look back over the time I spent here, I’m proud to say that for everything I tried to do, I succeeded. Every obstacle I faced, I defeated. And there’s only one thing I really, really wanted and couldn’t get no matter how hard I tried.
Maybe I am human, after all.
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