Support

Becoming successful requires motivation, persistence, skill, talent, luck, and it certainly helps to have reinforcement from your friends and family. Support comes in many forms. When you've been pursuing an elusive goal for as long as I have, if you're lucky, you've seen just about every form of support that exists. At some point one has to ask the question, how much longer can this go on? How much longer to I deserve support?

There's the support that comes in the form of a much needed pep talk.

There's tough love, i.e. "Get up off your lazy butt and do what you have to do! Stop feeling sorry for yourself! There are starving children in Africa! When I was your age I had to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow with no shoes!" etc.

There's monetary support.

There's the support of a good education.

There's support that comes in the form of a rambling, two hour conversation just to keep you company while your driving home.

Did I mention monetary support? I guess it's worth mentioning twice.

After a while, you can't help but feel as though the well might be getting dry. You can hear your would-be-supporter's voice, they're trying to be optimistic for you, but they've just stopped believing. Exasperation is a pretty hard emotion to mask.

When starting out in the business, you tell yourself it'll be worth it one day. I'll make it up to them. But with every year that goes by, you're still struggling, and this becomes harder and harder to believe. Everyone talks about how hard it is to become a successful actor. People think they know what they're talking about, and I thought I knew what they were talking about when I bucked their warnings. "I can handle it!" I insisted. However, with each day that passes I discover a new, more painful way that this proves to be difficult. The most painful thing I've discovered to date, is the slow-fading enthusiasm in the eyes of those who once burst with pride.

The thing is, I get it. I totally understand why one would have apprehensions about getting behind yet another scheme, another angle, another gamble. I'm starting to feel like the crazy uncle in the movie "Parenthood," who has a kid and names him Cool. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Netflix it. Its a great movie! I digress.

I've always been as practical as a dreamer could possibly be and this makes it even more unbearable. I know how I must appear. Almost 30, still struggling, still broke, still asking my parents for money, still not substantially closer to my goals... yuck. Don't worry, I will continue to plug away, but be warned everyone! All of you young or not so young folk who wonder what it might be like... This is what it's like!

I know this all sounds super dramatic, but that's me. Tomorrow I'll be singing show tunes and doing back flips down the street (figuratively, not literally. I've never been able to tumble).

To summarize, thank you to everyone who has ever supported me! One day people, one day!