I just agree with people when they say I moved to New York City to chase the dream, when in reality, I did it to run towards my fear.
In 2007, I took a beginning acting class at Utah State University. I was below a beginner. There were maybe three people in there that had any real acting skills. Not to say that no one else had any potential. At this point, even I could probably do a decent acting job. There was only about 15 people in the class. None of us knew each other, except for the three with real acting skills. I assume it's because they had other acting type classes together. It wasn't like there were best friends.
I never would have hung out with any of these people before the class. I never did after the class. During the class, I only hung out with any of them once. On the last day of class, half of us went to Olive Garden. To this day, it's one of the best times I've had. I kept in brief contact with one girl from the class. But that died out after a few years. Other than having two or three people from the class as Facebook friends, I've had no contact with anyone in that class for years. Hell, I don't even know most of their names anymore, just personal details. Even with that, I'll never forget any of them and in a way, they know me better than anyone else.
As I look back, there wasn't really much acting or learning about acting taking place. It was really just group therapy. Which I've since learned, is fairly common for acting classes.
I think it was the second week of class. We were each taking turns saying the thing in life that scares us the most. No one was taking it seriously. Everyone just said the stock scary things: snakes, spiders, ghosts, heights etc... I don't even remember what I said.
After we all gave lame answers, the teacher expressed his disappointment. He wasn't mad, just disappointed. That's when the weirdest, most misfit of us started speaking. Which is saying a lot. We were a class of misfits. We were all such misfits, that none of us fit in with each other.
I don't remember what he said, or maybe I just don't think you should know, but there was a lot of crying. From him and everyone else in the class. One by one, everyone re-answered the question of what scared them the most. Some were funny, some were tear jerkers and some were in between. But there was real emotion behind all of them. Class went about 30 minutes longer than scheduled that day. No one cared. I doubt anyone even noticed. We all sat there as everyone said the thing they fear most and once we were done, we continued to sit. Mostly in silence.
I took my turn somewhere in there. It was sometime in high school when I really started to think about the rest of my life. What would my life be like when i was older? What would it look like? Being a teenager, I had all kinds of fantasies. Some realistic, some outlandish. But in thinking out the rest of my life, all of the possibilities had one thing in common. Not one of them had me being older than 28.
I thought nothing of it at the time. I had more than 10 years until I turned 28. But as I finished high school, I did start to notice it. Why was I never over 28 when I pictured myself? Even in my outlandish dreams about my life, like being a pro-athlete, I was still never over 28.
I thought about it a lot after I realized it. It started to gnaw at me. By the time I took that acting class, I had convinced myself that the reason was because I wasn't going to live past then. I was 22, and the only question I had about it, was whether I'd die at 28 or if I'd get to live until 29.
My fear didn't end when I told the class about it. They continued for quite some time. Telling people didn't dispel the fear, but it did help me feel like I could tell these people anything else. Things that helped me in other ways. It helped me open up a little bit in my acting. Not saying that it still was atrocious.
It was about that time that I was taking the idea of doing stand-up comedy seriously. That's partly why I took the class. I figured it would help in some small way. Little did I know how big of a help it would be.
I didn't actually step on a comedy stage until late 2009. Two years after the class. But I can say with certainty, I never would have gotten on stage if it weren't for that class. The class helped me open up a bit.
Two years into being a stand-up, things were going well and I started to think about the future. That's when I noticed something. I was picturing myself past the age of 28. I could see myself doing stand-up at 30, 40, 50, 60...
That's it though. I still couldn't see myself doing anything else. It's still that way. Everything I see me doing past the age of 28 is still me on stage. Sometimes I'm not on stage. I'm sitting at a table, just talking with other comics. But that's it. I still haven't been able to see myself doing something not comedy related.
I see no girlfriends, wife, kids or different job. Maybe they'll come. But I can't envision it.
That's why I moved. Things were good for me in Salt Lake. Really good. I probably would have eventually made something of myself in comedy had I stayed there. But I can't wait. I left for New York to speed up the process. Even if it essentially means starting over at first. And likely, never amounting to anything.
I can't take the slow road. I can't take the chance that maybe 28 is it. Because in my mind, it is. Until I turn 29, I'll always believe that. Comedy is the one thing that gives me hope, that maybe it isn't.
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