Every so often I end up on a conference call or in a meeting where the purpose of the meeting or the issues being discussed have little to do with me, or leave me limited room to contribute. If that sounds like it might be boring, let me tell you it absolutely is every bit as dull as it sounds. That said it's also an opportunity. On those occasions when I'm in a meeting or on a call where I don't need to be very involved I pull out my notebook and pencil and draw whatever comes to mind. Today this is what came of listening to one of the developers on my team walk a client through a fairly technical process.
I've always thought it was odd that Batman is dressed in head-to-toe black, with a cape to break up the contours of his body and a mask that covers his entire face, but Robin jumping around in brightly colored underroos was hilariously unfair. I have to assume this conversation was a fairly regular thing, especially when Dick Grasyon was younger.
Is this Selling Out, Giving Up, or Moving On?
To understand where this post is coming from it's necessary to have the proper context. The picture on the right should pretty clearly sum up my motivation for the decisions I've made in the last couple of weeks.This is a sonogram image of the baby my wife and I are expecting in October. We found out Mildly Sensational is pregnant at the end of January. As soon as we found out she was pregnant I started giving some serious thought to my priorities and what they should be.
For a while now some of the people in the company I work for have made it clear that my pursuit of some kind of acting career outside the boundaries of their organization wasn't working for them. It wouldn't be untrue to say there were some very oblique threats to my job related to the time I sometimes had to take for auditions.
Right now my job is the only income, and my insurance is the only thing guaranteeing that my wife can work with the awesome obstetrician who delivered our first. After many years of struggling I had to put responsibility and ambition on the scales opposing each other. Responsibility far out-weighted my ambition.
Almost two weeks ago I contacted my manager, my commercial agent, and my theatrical agent and asked them to remove me from their rosters. In essence I took any hope of an acting career and set it aside.
This has been the most difficult two weeks I've had in a while. Acting is something I've wanted to do for a long, long time, and I'd had some minor successes. Nothing that would propel me into being able to do it full-time, but some positive steps. But I recognized that it was time to, as my Granddad Randels would put it, "do what I have to."
It's been painful. I can't watch Actor's Studio and listen to great actors talk about what a wonderful thing it is that they get to act for a living. There's a pang in my heart when I drive past trucks lined up on the side of the road and lights and "flags" have been set up for a film shoot. There's a little piece of my mind that says, "this is the closest I'm ever going to get; staring wistfully at a film crew at work as I drive by."
It has to be done. It's the right decision, for right now. Maybe it's something I'll be able to get back to. For now I'm grateful that I have this as an outlet for my creativity. I'm grateful for my wife and our daughter who give me all the reason I need to say I'm doing the right thing. I'm grateful for my friends who support me.
For now I just hang on, do what I have to, and hope there are bigger and better things on the horizon.
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