Chapter One: Wiling Out
My stomach dropped at the sight of the ten digits. I blinked hard twice to get my vision straight. My heart rate was jacked. The sweat glands under my arms heated up and my pupils dilated. I pulled focus on the LED screen again. Six-one-nine. Six-one-nine. A shit-eating grin erupted on my face. Two months ago the area code wouldn’t have meant anything to me. But, in mid-March when they said they would be making their decisions, a missed call from a six-one-nine area code meant my future had completely changed direction. I knew it. My shaky palms knew it. And my sphincter definitely knew it as it clamped down hard for some version of bedrock. I drew a breath and dialed my voice mail, closing my eyes as I leapt into some unknown void. And I waited.
Several months before that call, the audition was one of those perfect meetings where I did my absolute best work. The ensuing interview was even better. It was comfortable, filled with laughter and appropriate name-drops that genuinely sparked their interest. The chemistry in the room was overwhelming, really it was. And they had all but said, Welcome Aboard. I left feeling more confident and sure than I had about anything in a long time. Immediately following the audition I ambled into Times Square and climbed the red stairs above the TKTS booth. I sat down and took in the evening winter cityscape just as the sun was dropping its orange and purple hues into the sky. I smiled. The feeling crept over me that I would not be in this town much longer.
So I’d been somewhat prepared for a favorable phone call in mid March, about the time they’d be making their decisions. But what I hadn’t been prepared for was the din of uncertainties that would swim in perpetuum about my head during the months that followed.
Initially, my excitement was paired with exalted shouts of obscenities into my small Brooklyn studio apartment. I called my family to share the news and several other joyous obscenities. I jumped on my bed and yelled the F word out onto my fire escape. And slowly, after all the important calls had been made and the news had been spread, after I’d paced a half mile in my kitchen, my adrenaline rush gave way to the beginnings of a sweet den of lethargy. Alone on my bed, another obscenity crawled out of my mouth, this one different in taste and texture. Something new took hold. I would be leaving New York, a city I’d lived in for nearly a decade for San Diego, a city I’d never even been to. I would be leaving everyone I knew behind and starting all over. I’d just been accepted at the USD/Old Globe MFA actor training program. The first of what would be many doubts reared its ugly head: What was I doing?
Fuck.
I, of course, knew exactly what I was doing. I had been required to write an essay on why I wanted to return to training, which I did with great honesty months earlier. But now, facing the actuality rather than the hypothetical, the words I’d believed in so heavily before seemed empty and ultimately fraught with the worst kind of hypocrisy and out-and-out lies. I was kicking down hard on some cosmic emergency brake.
I spent the first weekend holed up in my apartment watching movies and searching the internet for more information about the program. I didn’t shower. I didn’t shave. I left my apartment only for a bottle of wine or my morning coffee. I ate peanut butter straight from the jar. I turned my phone off. Eventually, I had to come out of the house to go back to work. But I did so reluctantly. I didn’t talk about my new news to anyone. When the news did finally make its way around my circle of friends I shrugged the congratulatory remarks off with mumbles. And when I confided my uncertainties to my best friends they couldn’t really understand what I myself was failing to understand. They’d say, “What the hell are you talking about man?” Or, “This is a fucking amazing opportunity.” I was fighting them tooth and nail and I had no idea why. “Yeah, I know,” I’d mumble into the bottom of a pint glass.
The doubts mounted on top of each other. What was I doing? What had I done? I couldn’t back out now. Suddenly, I was doubting the validity of my decision out loud. Someone hugged and congratulated me with remarks about what a great program it was. I actually fired back, “How do you know?! You’ve never been there!” What I really ought to do is move to Los Angeles and start shaking some hands and shaking some trees. What I ought to do is this. What I ought to do is that. What I ought to do is quit!
When people asked why I was moving I went into a well-practiced monologue that I gave to everyone that asked the question. Those closest to me probably heard it several times. I’d tell them in a single breath, run-on sentence about the prestigious classical training, how-they-only-take-a-limited-amount-of-people-but-its-a-full-scholarship-plus-a-guaranteed-two-year-residency-at-huge-theatre-that-pays-a-monthly-stipend-and-an-expenses-paid-trip-to-London-and-its-graduates-are-always-on-Broadway-and-Jack-O’Brien-was-the-artistic-director-there-for-a-decade-and-I’ll-do-a-thesis-project-that-culminates-in-a-one-person-show-before-my-final-showcases-in-New York-and-Los Angeles-while-taking-home-a-master’s-degree.
Woe. Is. Fucking. Me.
But it always ended up sounding like an apology. An apology that it wasn’t–I don’t know–NYU or Yale… schools I never even wanted to apply to in the first place. That it wasn’t a guest star on a hit show, something I wasn’t sure I even wanted at this point in my life. And it was like I needed to convince them that it was good enough. Convince them that I was leaving my life in New York for a great purpose. Convince them that I was worth a damn. That maybe I had accomplished something really, really cool.
Of course, they weren’t the ones who needed the convincing. I checked into therapy.
And then, through a series of Facebook searches I met up with one of the seven that would be in my class. We shared a bottle of wine downtown and talked a little about what we were thinking. To my utter amazement I was not alone in my overwhelming gust of uncertainties. We even had the same monologue that we fed to our friends. She said that she was feeling like maybe the school had made a mistake in choosing her. An idea that hadn’t even crossed my mind. And talking on the phone later with another of the seven, he seemed to be almost more confused and unsure than either of us were.
So now that I had plenty of good company, I put myself in action and booked a trip out to San Diego to meet the current students, see a show and get a whiff of what was in store for me. And of course, it was absolutely incredible. It was everything I knew it would be. The words from my application essay started to come back to life. The facilities were beautiful, the talent was top notch, the weather was perfect and the students really loved their work. A couple of them even drank whisky on the rocks.
I started warming up to the idea of my new home.
When I asked if any of them experienced a premature freak-out before starting they all responded with wide eyes and heavy nods and even one or two “Oooh Yeah”s..
When I landed back in New York I had about a month left. The school sent a summer reading list, which might have been a complete syllabus for a year-long doctorate course in The History Of Every Great Drama Ever Written. And after cracking some Chekhov and Euripides for the first time in far too long, I was right where I needed to be.
So maybe I hadn’t been crazy. I certainly wasn’t alone. Perhaps my behavior had been completely normal or even healthy. Maybe in a very real way, there is a symptom of doubt and uncertainty that afflicts artists when they are given what they want. Especially when they are given what they want. Maybe for our breed, failure is so much easier to accept than success. And when validation does visit, it disrupts our stasis and our status quo so much that it frightens us. We have to leave town. Relationships. Even that shit job we’ve been at forever. So, wary of that fear we too often run towards the familiar annals of a safe disappointment rather than the uncharted waters of a turbulent fulfillment.
I leave in less than two weeks. And though the move is shaking up my life a bit, I’m looking forward like I hadn’t let myself before. I’m taking in New York for all that I can. But this city isn’t going anywhere. Neither is Los Angeles. Or any ethereal concept of career. And I’ve disregarded the notion of any absolute roadmap that claims to lead to it. But great opportunities do not linger. So I’m taking my best swing with the idea that my greatest days are still ahead.
And the palm trees and the cul-de-sacs and the sweet Pacific Ocean tell me so.
–CJ
