The Plan

So, with the decision to move to NYC finalized, the next step in the line of execution is formulating a plan.  Although I have had many friends opt to move eastwards at the drop of a hat, I don’t see as moving to New York as a decision I can make a mere month or two before the fact.  It is very important to me that I am able to move there feeling secure, both financially and mentally.  The culture shock will inevitably be jarring, and after living in the same ‘hood for all twenty-eight years of my life, being away from the familiarity of family and friends and my favorite local haunts seems almost inconceivable.  Fortunately, I have the benefit of moving with my boyfriend – I will have someone there who is also adjusting, someone who I can come home to that is familiar and loving, where we can discuss the struggles and joys of building a new life in a new city.  But, as much as emotional support is important during a process like this, the major factor looming overhead with NYC, as with most things in the world, is MONEY.

It’s no secret that New York is far pricier to live in than most cities.  Fortunately, San Francisco has been neck-in-neck with the Big Apple for a while now, vying for the title of “Most Expensive City In America,” so I have SOME local reference point to look towards.  But, in the life I had previously built for myself, I spent all of my time working to earn money to pay for my “things” – my apartment, my cable bill, PG&E, car insurance, gas – how the hell was I going to find a way to save up enough money to move to New York City?  How can I show up in this city with a fistful of cash and NOT have to worry about finding a job immediately, so I could take the time to properly adjust to the new culture surrounding me?  My prerogative moving across the country is to be an actor in a place where the possibility exists to support myself through my craft.  The last thing I wanted to do was secure an apartment and then immediately start stressing over how I would pay the next month’s rent.  I needed to figure out how I could sock away as much money as humanly possible to take the next step in my life.

So, I made the reluctant decision to give up my apartment.  The tidy, stable life I had created for myself based on an old-fashioned model of the road to adulthood was anchoring me down in the Bay Area, trapping me in a cycle of dissatisfaction.  All of the “things” I had accumulated – furniture, kitchen appliances, the apartment itself – were preventing me from truly chasing after my dreams.  I mean, these were all things I had EARNED for myself, by myself…how could I even fathom giving them up?  It wasn’t until a conversation with my good friend Leanne (who now is living and performing on the East Coast!) in between performances on a 2-show day, that my perspective really shifted.  “Those are all ‘things,'” she said.  “Couches, TVs, bikes…you can get rid of all of those, and you can always get them back.  But what you can’t get back is time.”

That was the rightest thing she done said all day.

It was at that instant, quite literally, when my perspective shifted.  Why was all of this material bullshit so important to me?  Because I had earned it, paid for it with my own money, it somehow meant I should be bound to it forever, it should weigh me down and keep me from pursuing what the universe was clearly telling me I should be doing?  Fuck that!  As a person who has always considered themselves self-motivated, the overwhelming effect of a friend’s simple suggestion sent me into action.  I had to slough off all of this excess – it wasn’t important, I didn’t need it, and it was draining my bank accounts and holding me back from my dreams.

So, at the beginning of this year, I gave away the majority of my belongings, packed up what I could fit into one room, and moved back in with my father.  Twenty-seven years old, at the time, and moving back in with a parent.  Normally, this would terrify and humiliate me.  All of the work I had done to prove to myself that I could function as a responsible adult was quite literally being chucked into the dumpster.  But, just as Leanne had said to me, I kept saying to myself, “You can get THINGS back, but you can’t get time back.”  I could not…no, absolutely WOULD not…allow this arrangement to make me feel inadequate.  I was doing this because, while life as I had established it for myself was fine, it wasn’t extraordinary.  I needed to do whatever it took to make my life extraordinary.  I never looked back.

Since moving back in with Dad, I was able to pay off my credit card debts and start saving my money.  Relinquished from the chains of material possession and financial obligation, I was free to do more shows and concerts, still train my faithful clients at the gym part-time, and build my resume.  I made my way to L.A. for a seemingly successful audition and callback Carnival Cruise Lines, where out of all the singers called back in L.A., I was the only male.  I received notice shortly thereafter that I was in their “to hire” book, and they would keep me in the loop.  Thrilled with the opportunity, I created a new plan to do a contract or two with the cruise line, and use the money from my work to fund my New York City transplant.  Well, after six months of giving me the runaround, asking me to submit dance videos of myself (which I embarrassingly did in my gym’s group exercise room during operational hours), and endless emails, Carnival was STILL unable to find a position for me on any of their ships.  Disappointed?  Absolutely.  Discouraged?  Hell no.

So, I decided I would make this happen the same way I had created opportunity for myself before – by working my ass off.  Sitting down with a pencil and paper, I crunched numbers and spanned out the nine months ahead of me.  In turn, I have devised a realistic savings plan that would allow me to pay my bills, have a social life (albeit somewhat limited), and be well-prepared for the New York.  It is imperative to me that I be able to make this move and feel secure.  A decent percentage of my earnings from the gym would funnel into my plan.  ALL money I earn from performing or singing goes straight into the bank – it only seems right that my relocation to NYC should be funded by the paychecks I earn as an actor.  With the plan I’ve created, I should be able to move to NYC with $10,000 in my pocket – enough to get the apartment and pay a couple months’ rent up front.  This will allow me time to explore the city, attend auditions, and start taking acting and dancing courses – hopefully attending the CAP21 Summer conservatory program starting in June.

Now, I’m not an idiot.  I don’t plan on moving out there and not finding a job.  In fact, I’ll probably go crazy if I don’t get a job sooner than later – I won’t feel productive enough.  Fortunately, my extensive experience and skills as both a personal trainer AND a bartender, as well as my self-motivated attitude toward life, reassure me that work won’t escape me easily.  Bills will need to get paid, and they will – but the first few months of this transition are the most important for me.  I am so thankful to have such a great support system, and to have the privilege of moving home so I can take the steps necessary to fulfill my life’s purpose.

I’m not moving to New York to see what happens, I’m moving to New York to create what happens.

The Decision

I’ve always loved writing – in fact, I’ve tried to keep a blog afloat on here for quite some time, however unsuccessfully.  I look back on my ancient entries on MySpace and LiveJournal, and wonder how I found the time to write such eloquent and detailed accounts of my relatively mundane late-teen/early-twenties experiences.  It seems that spare time is few and far-between in my life nowadays, which, unfortunately, means I don’t have a plethora of journal entries chronicling my life over the past few years.  Fortunately, it DOES mean I’ve been funneling the time I used to spend mindlessly writing blogs into solidifying my plan for the not-very-distant future.  I’ve conquered career, I’ve conquered love, and now the time has come to finally conquer the most terrifying challenge anyone can face: the fulfillment of your life’s purpose.

See, when I used to write blogs, it was about the basic things people seek out in their life: work, school, and, more often than not, dating.  This blog, however, will be different, as it’s focal point rests on the single most daring, terrifying decision I have ever made: taking my acting career to New York City.

Now, as someone who considers themself an actor and singer by profession, many of you may think that the idea of moving to New York is a natural choice for me.  Frankly, now that the decision has been made, I can’t believe I didn’t feel this confident about it all along.  But, as exemplified by the naivete of my blogs from so long ago, I truly didn’t know what I was looking for in my life, or where I was supposed to fit in.  I was so concerned with following the traditional path laid out by so many people before me: nail down the career, find the partner of your dreams, and build your life together until the time for kids comes and your life no longer belongs to yourself.

Now, I’m not saying that the aforementioned path isn’t an effective one; people have been following that framework for years to much success.  Sure, I achieved success.  I became a wonderful personal trainer, learned how to run my own business like a well-oiled machine, and established myself as a top-producing employee.  I secured my own apartment and began building a life for myself, by myself.  Then, by some miracle, I met the love of my life, quite accidentally, during a routine dollar-drink Power Hour at the local gay bar.

Something about falling in love, a love I know is strong and enduring, granted me permission to explore the ways I could fall in love with the rest of my life.  See, even though most professional actors in my area have supplemental careers much like I did as a trainer, finding love had become my other full-time job, not performing.  Suddenly, with Charlie by my side, the time I spent looking for companionship could now be spent booking auditions, rehearsing for productions, and performing on stage.  Suddenly, I was receiving my Equity card while playing the lead in a regional premiere of Xanadu.  More rapidly than I ever could have expected, my resume began to stretch with new credits, new companies, and new directors.  People began contacting ME for projects rather than my reaching out to them.  Never had I thought my life would be so rich with passion.  I was truly beginning to feel fulfilled.

True inspiration finally grasped me when I took my first, long-awaited trip to New York City in May of this year.  The empowering, throbbing energy of the city absolutely permeated my being (har-har, to all you double-entendre lovers out there).  To physically be in the only place in the world I can reach the apex of my ability level was incredibly overwhelming.  Before seeing my first shows on Broadway, I feared I would walk away from the productions only wishing I had the chops to be up there with the other actors.  For as long as I can remember, I rationalized not making my foray to NYC, hiding behind the belief that I wasn’t talented enough to compete with Broadway-caliber performers.  To my surprise, I left many of those shows realistically envisioning a place for myself somewhere on the stage.

The day after I got back from New York, I began rehearsing for a Summer production of A Chorus Line.  The show was a long-time favorite of mine, and one that I always swore I would do.  I had longed for years to take a stab at playing Paul, who delivers the heart-breaking monologue that serves as an emotional centerpiece for the show.  I was, instead, cast as Mike, the fiery, overtly-masculine Italian from New Jersey.  Disappointed at first, I began to dig into my character more, and I slowly realized how much common ground we really had.  “I Can Do That,” Mike’s solo song in the show, has long been my mantra in my theatrical jobs and in life: whatever you want me to do, I can do that.

Resonant doesn’t even begin to describe how it felt to portray an actor vying for a coveted spot in a Broadway musical.  When we were performing, I was so involved with competing for a spot in the show-within-the-show, when I found out I had made the cut, it was often difficult to contain the overwhelming emotion I felt.  The rush, the relief, the ecstasy and the disbelief of finally achieving a lifelong dream was palpable for me, and it became clear that this was my journey, my life’s purpose.  I could no longer stay in California and wonder what it would be like if I really went for it.  I would regret it for the rest of my life if I had to look back and say, “I never tried.”

So, the decision was made…at least, for me.  I still had another half to tend to.  Charlie, approaching his senior year at San Francisco State University, is nearing the end of his own journey – at least, the one he set out for in California.  Set to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Sociology, I cannot stress how much of an inspiration my boyfriend has been to me.  Coming from a small town in Rhode Island, he will be the first in his family to graduate college, an accolade that I never even completed myself.  He has managed to accomplish this through his own efforts, paving and paying his own way, and unwaveringly pursuing his dream.  His fierce commitment to his goal reminds me every day that we are in charge of our own destinies, and we can create whatever opportunity we want for ourselves through perseverance and focus.

It took many conversations to warm him up to the idea of moving across the country together, but I had plenty of factors on my side. Charlie misses being close to his family, and New York is a three-hour drive from home.  He’d like to get involved with international affairs and globalization (these are schmancy words for a mere actor to remember, mind you), and I doubt there’s a better place to find opportunity in such a field than in New York.  But, most importantly, we both are ready to take the next major step in our lives and in our relationship.  It was important for him to feel included in the move to NYC – to make sure that it’s not something that he’s doing only for me – and I would never ask him to take the plunge if I didn’t believe the opportunity exceeded the risk for both of us.

So, that brings us to today.  I am restless as hell anticipating this move.  A self-proclaimed over-preparer, the level of effort I’ve been putting into research has been nothing short of obsessive: checking apartment listings on Craig’sList on the daily, researching the advantages of certain neighborhoods and boroughs, reading books about the business of being in the theatre industry.  Next week, I submit an application for a six-week Summer intensive with CAP21, a professional musical theater conservatory.

So, let’s see if this idea for a blog sticks.  I’d love to be able to look back in a year or two after moving to the other side of the country and remember who I was when I made that decision.  But if the continuation of this blog isn’t certain, at least I know one thing is – I will arrive in New York City next Summer prepared, focused, and ready to take the bull by the horns…and it all starts here.