A Starving Artist Looks Into Adulthood

I can see it now:

Hi.  My name is Angela, and I'm a jerk.

"Hiiiii, Angelaaaa."

I'm 31 years-old, and every morning, I wake up to put hot chocolate mix in my coffee.  That's a real thing, and I do it every.  single.  day.  But, in my defense, I put coconut milk in it, too, which is both soy and dairy free, so, I guess, in a way, I'm still aiming to be nutritionally sound?  And also, at least it's coffee.  Which I could drink black and just choose not to, but my point is that I'm not, like, chugging a thing of Nesquik through a twisty straw as my morning ritual.  Although that sounds delicious.  ...I'm an adult.

"Let's pause on that for a moment.  When you say 'I'm an adult', are you saying that because you believe it to be true, or because you're trying to convince yourself of that much and, essentially, force it?  Are you forcing the idea of Adulthood?"

... ...I'm an adult?


I war with this thing in myself pretty much all the goddamn time.  And I have been.  I'm sure that's a thing, like a symptom of "I'm in my late 20s/early 30s", assessing how to find that balance and all that jazz.  Still.  It's unacceptable and I don't like it.

HOWEVER.  Over the past... (....1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7nope) like 6 1/2 months...? (Which, if you'll notice, is how long it's been since I last wrote which, admittedly, is disappointing to me however, I swear, there's a reason for it, and I've been avoiding it, and I still can't get into it quite yet, but I will...JESUS CHRIST WITH THESE PARENTHETICALS AND THE EXTENSIVE COMMA-USAGE!).  Over the past 6 1/2 months, I've been upping my Adulty-game at hyperspeed.

Professionally.  Strictly professionally.

And therein lies the rub.

I feel like I literally woke up one morning sometime at the beginning of September and went "Fuck.  I'm not doing anything!"   And I decided to start doing EVerything in an attempt to get ANYwhere.  Which, sure, everyone goes through bouts of this.

My particular bout was 6 1/2 months-long.  And my 6 1/2 months looked like this:
-Let's take this workshop.
-Let's take THAT workshop.
-Let's do a reading.
-Let's pimp myself through a mailing.
-Let's run to four auditions.
-Let's work 6 shifts.
-Let's close this week, and hit Repeat.
-Let's film this awesome month-long project.
-Let's work 24 more shifts when I'm not shooting.
-Let's immediately run from this project to another one where I direct.  For two months.
-Let's immediately run from rehearsal to work almost every day.  For two months.
-Let's start pimping that project.
-Let's figure out how to fit a double in this week.
-Let's record a voice-over.
-Let's pimp myself again.
-Let's take 3 workshops.
-Let's question my day job.
-Let's start working 7 shifts a week.
-Let's run a fundraiser.
-Let's open a play.
-Let's do a sketch show.
-Let's do a reading.
-Let's take 3 more workshops in 2 days.
-Let's punish ourselves for not having done a mailing in a bit, and pimp EVen harder.
-Let's start another improv class.
-Let's audition for a big huge role on a big huge show and then still wonder why I haven't: booked anything like that yet/shot a short film/finished writing a webseries/gotten into class with Bob Krakower/started making more money/landed an agent/found a way to not have a day job/finished improv classes by now/started sketch/made my website cuter/handed out more business cards/written a pilot/done something of worth with myself.

Even though I had.

I was running myself ragged and exhausting myself through exhausting all of my options in how to get myself professionally Awesomer.  Because, that's the Adult-thing, right?  If you're not kicking ass professionally, if you're not 100% succeeding, you're not living and you are, otherwise, a waste of space and this big crazy succubus to the grown up-potential of the people around you.  Right?

Not right, though.

And meanwhile, I began to realize that I was doing absolutely nothing else.

I couldn't remember the last time my boyfriend and I had been on a date.  I couldn't remember the last time I'd found a chance to go running.  I couldn't remember the last time that I'd adequately cleaned my house, dropped off a load of laundry that hadn't been accumulating for 4-5 weeks, took a day to read, go to a museum, hang out at a bar with friends just to do it and get stupid drunk just because OR not, or just meander and I live in NEW YORK FUCKING CITY AND I SHOULD PROBABLY BE DOING THIS ALL OF THE TIIIIIIME.  I was putting so much extraordinary effort into being an "Adult" that I was doing nothing in the way of being just a fucking "Person".

I was slowly, and without even realizing it, becoming that chick that I never wanted to be:  The Actor.  (Horror, Gasps, and Shock and Awe.)  I knew that if I let it go on much longer, I would slowly evolve into the girl who doesn't ask "Ohmygod, how ARE you?", rather "Ohmygod, soooo, what are you working on these days?"

These people are not necessarily asking this question for a competitive purpose (...ok, fine, some definitely are, but), they're asking this question because they have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT.   Because "What're you working on?" is all that they know.

And that's the saddest.

So, with the official entrance of "New York Winter Dead" at the beginning of February, I just decided to stop.  I was going to take the month off from Professional-Me and do, I mean, pretty much everything else.

And I did.

All of a sudden, friend-dates were happening, boyfriend-dates were happening, exercising was happening, reading was happening, tax-organizing was happening, SLEEP was happening, the cleanest house in the universe was happening, a whole lot of Nothing was happening, it was All.  HAPPening.

And I felt complete.  I'm not kidding, shit felt glorious.

And my world didn't end, and my professional world didn't stop.  It just, I suppose, relaxed.  And man, it was a welcome change.

There are, however, two problems with this approach:

For A ) This Relaxation/Let's-Just-Be-A-Fucking-Normal-Person-thing is JUST as addicting as the former.  And, therefore...

For A2 ) You have to determine how to find this stupid Balance-thing.  Rather, I have to determine that.  Which, naturally, I'm assuming is just going to be a fancy work-in-progress for a good long while.  It's a funny little struggle when you sit back and really think about it:
      -Wound-up/Professionally On Fiii-yuh -Me   -versus-   Just CALM THE EFF DOWN AND SIT THE HELL DOWN AND GO GET YOURSELF A GAH-DAMN MARGARITA -Me.
      -& You're 31 Be a Fucking Adult Already -Me    -versus-   Nooooooooooooooooooooooope!  Nope -Me. 

Truthfully?  This lil warring-thing could, actually, get kind of hilarious.

For B ) UNhilariously, there are lots and lots of people who will just never be ok with your taking this approach.  And they will let you know.
      -"So!  What're you working on right now?"
      -Nothing!
      -"Wait.  ...What?"
      -No!  It's great. I'm actually just kind of taking some time to just kind of slow down and, I guess, be better to myself.  For lack of a better non-cheesy-sounding term.
      -"Huh."
      -What?
      -"NO, just.  You'll be ok, things will pick back up."
      -No no no, TRUST me, I'm fine!
      -"OK.  ...I just took class with someone from Bowling/Miscia, by the way, she was SO great."
      -That's awesome!  
      -"You should totally look into it."
      -Sure.  I will.   But, I'm fine.
      -"Huh."

Look.  Just know that this happens, and know that this happens from more people than you'd expect.  And know that it's happening just because they're even more lost in their own shit than you are.

(PS, These are also the same people who will warm up the loudest in the lobby of the Equity-building, and freak out on YOU when they shatter their compact of blush before a commercial audition.  Nutshell:  they're the last people in the world that you should actually worry about.)

(PPS, WHAT'S! UP!  PARENTHETICALS!!!)  (For real.)

But.  In my humble opinion, you owe it to yourself to try it.  In my 31 years of garnering life experience and wisdom beyond all possible comprehension (dusts shoulders off)(FUCK!), I feel like the best Actors, nope, the best Artists, Starving and otherwise, are the people who take the initiative to live beyond their craft.  In other words, the best Artists are the people who take the opportunity to actually live.

(You should totally look into it.)