In which I start my life anew

I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s excellent book, Just A Geek, over the last few days, and in it he talks very honestly about a little voice in his head that he called ‘Prove To Everyone That Quitting Star Trek Wasn’t A Mistake’. Now, I’m not a former teen star in an Oscar-nominated film, or an original cast member in one of the best sci-fi shows ever, but I understood that voice. Mine for the last three years or so has been called ‘Prove To Everyone That Moving to New York Wasn’t A Mistake’. Now, those of you who know me (and let’s face it, that’s probably 100% of my readership) might think that I had no such voice. I mean, I’m so positive and stuff. I am happy. I have my own place. I have a happy marriage. However, Prove To Everyone continued to say, ‘remember why you moved here? To be a professional actor, idiot. You’re not a professional actor. You’re an amateur.’ The voice was my own doubts, saying what my small, negative self thought about my life.

For most of my life, I have wanted to be in films. I have a vivid memory of being about 14 and going to see ‘While You Were Sleeping’ at the local cinema in Eltham (now closed, sadly) and walking home from the cinema in a kind of filmic daze – imagining myself as Sandra Bullock in a snowy Chicago, finding love and happiness while a carefully chosen soundtrack played music in the background. Perhaps a corny movie to have this revelatory moment about, but true nonetheless. Throughout my teens, I would imagine that my life was a film, and would pick which of my current favourite  bands would work best to soundtrack the crucial ‘scenes’ that defined my life: Silverchair when I broke up with my boyfriend, Jeff Buckley blaring from my stereo when I was having an introspective (read: angsty) moment sitting on the roof of my parents house smoking a cigarette (I’m sure my parents are delighted to read that I sat on the steeply-sloped roof of our house. Sorry guys), Fatboy Slim, Oasis and Blur for happy summers drinking beer on Blackheath.

Moving to New York was all part of this film fantasy life that I had planned out for myself; my training period in indie theatre, my discovery while in a small-yet-brilliant show by a casting director, my eventual work with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright in an acclaimed cult classic. It was all so simple and plausible. And yet…reality came to bite me. I had the training ground in indie theatre – I’ve spent nearly five years working with some of the most wonderful, creative, supportive people this amazing community has, and will continue to fool them into casting me in more shows – but the chance meeting with the casting director/agent/producer never happened. Perhaps this is not so surprising to people here on Planet Earth, but the fantasist in me always held on to the feeling that it was destined to happen. So I got some other jobs to pay my way while I waited for that magical opportunity to appear.

Four years later, I slowly woke up to the fact that my life was not what I wanted. Like I said, I had/have a great life. I’ve been blessed with steady work (both in acting and in my day job), enough money to be comfortable, to buy an apartment in New York, health insurance, friends, love, etc etc. However, I saw the end of my twenties (and the decade) approach, and wondered whether this was it for me. A lot of my friends were in the same place – acting on the side, working during the day – and seemed content with that. Why wasn’t I? I thought it was the job I had – it was busy, it could be stressful, it had relocated to New Jersey so I reverse commuted every day – and I decided to find a new one. Eight months go by, and I come second place several times after interviewing for great jobs, and two consecutive jobs nearly offered me a position before deciding not to hire anyone because of the economy. Perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something. As a Buddhist, I don’t believe in chances, or ‘bad luck’, so I had to find the root cause of this job karma I was experiencing. The cause took a long time for me to figure out (which is dumb, because it was so obvious once I did). It wasn’t about my current job. I wasn’t supposed to get another day job. I wasn’t supposed to have a day job. I was supposed to be an actor, remember?

I was inspired by a couple of people over the last year to take that scary step. First was Sandra, who I blogged about in October. She quit her job to be an actor, and was succeeding before she started her journey battling cancer. After she passed away, I began to reflect a lot harder on what I was doing with my short and precious life. She made the most of hers, and I hope she lived with no regrets – could I say the same? The second was my friend Hank. He has fought harder than anyone I know to do what he loves – make music. He wanted our band to be a real band, one that got paid, and his dedication was infectious as we planned to release our album and schedule tours. His gift to me was including me on his journey and reminding me that I was a musician too. Maybe this was part of my career as well – to make use of the thousands of pounds my parents spent on music lessons and be a musician. An actor/musician. That sounded pretty awesome.

I dedicated more time to my Buddhist practice than I ever had since I joined SGI in 2006. I chanted more; I committed to spending time supporting others as a behind the scenes volunteer at our culture centre; I reconnected with the reasons I became a Nichiren Buddhist in the first place. A profound shift in my attitude about my life began to emerge, one that handed control of it back to me, and let me see the incredible opportunity I had to challenge myself. The positive causes I had made through my efforts were coming back to me as this great benefit of clarity about my situation. Chanting nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a powerful thing.

As 2009 began to wind down, I looked at the decade that was coming and realised that if I didn’t make a change now, the life I felt destined to lead would slip through my fingers. I had to stop waiting for someone else to ‘discover’ me, I was going to have to discover myself. I also needed to silence Prove To Everyone That Moving To New York Wasn’t A Mistake by getting real, paid, consistent work in film and music, and prove not to Everyone, but Myself, that I was good enough, that I could actually do it. When I finally set out my harebrained scheme to my husband, convinced he would (sensibly) try and talk me out of this path to possible financial ruin for us both, he merely said, ‘of course you have to do it. I want you to be happy.’

My decision was finally made. At the end of this month, I’m leaving my job. I’m losing my steady paycheck, my health insurance, and my financial security for the chance at stable acting work and a successful band. For someone who’s about to get very broke, I’m happier than I have been in a very long time about where I’m headed. The film of my life is getting a reboot (hopefully in an awesome, Battlestar Galactica kind of way, not an American version of Spaced way. Yes I know those are TV examples, but they were the best ones I could think of), and I think I hear a soundtrack playing in the background…

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