So here I sit for over 15 years at my "B" (day actually, get your mind out of the gutter) job, still doing my craft, art, creative stuff, writing, making people laugh, what have you, thinking why am I still here and why do I still feel I need to explain to civilians that I deserve merit for my creative accomplishments? "I'm a produced playwright damn it !" "I was in an internationally known improv company for 4+ years." "I've hosted my own talk show/podcast for over 10 years before it was cool and everyone had one" and on and on and on. "I am friends with Robert Horn who I wrote and performed with back in the day" (He just last year won a Tony for writing the book to Tootsie on Broadway). Yes I now even name drop stuff like that because it's so frustrating talking to non artists about what I really do and hardly ever get paid for. Here's the best one which I'm so proud of the way I handled: At Thanksgiving in Kingston NY at my friend Mike's house, who is a sex therapist, (not relevant except for who his guests were) had over a bunch of therapists and myself where an older woman therapist asked what I did to which I replied most of the above. Her quick and automatic response was , "oh do you make a living at it?" To which I ingeniously replied (I know this was ingenious because my other therapist friends told me so later that evening after she left) "I'm not going to answer that question. I do all right and I reach a lot of people." Boo YA ! Finally after 1,000 years in recovery and therapy, I have the self-esteem to handle an age old question that in the past would have made me feel like a loser and a failure.
"BRAVO!" All my therapist friends said. It's an old school, brainwashed question, but it still hurts since indeed I do not make my living as I'd like. The thing is I am proud of all the work I've done and continue to do (until my last breath) and at the moment the consolation is all my other creative peeps in the same boat support and appreciate me and my work as I do theirs.
My mother, who was far from perfect, hence my years in recovery and therapy that I have worked on healing had this one great thing she said which I will take to my grave: "if you make one person laugh you are a success." And maybe next time someone asks me if I make a living at this creative stuff, I'll just say that.
