Boomerang

I don’t know what’s in the air, but recently I’ve reacquainted with some folks I had worked with in my past. Back then, I found these people to be unbelievable successful. They made a lot of money, they had big, important jobs and fancy apartments and they basically made me wish I were more like them. They seemed somehow more together. More professional. Better than I was.

I was always running around to auditions and scrambling to make money and fighting tooth and nail to make my art. Where they were savvy, I was scrappy. They were smooth, I was rough and always wearing the wrong clothes. They were “there” in the land of “made it” -- and I was always looking in the window wondering what they were eating and if I would ever be that successful.

You might know the feeling I’m talking about.

Fast-forward to today, me meeting these folks again, having a cup of coffee and talking about what’s gone down in the past 15 to 20 years or so. And while I sit there and listen to them I realize how wrong I was to compare myself to them. How being envious of them was a complete and total waste of time.

They had all the stuff that I thought I wanted, sure, but they didn’t know what they were doing any more than I did. And because they were so busy trying to keep what they had, they never stuck their necks out. They just stuck.

A couple of the people I’ve reacquainted with are a friggin’ MESS. Not all of them, certainly, but some of them -- sheesh! They better send up a flair and hope for a life boat.

And here’s my overextended, blown-out metaphor for the entire experience:

When I was in my twenties, those friends of mine seemed like fancy, exotic, ascot-wearing heirs to the universe with perfect bodies who went to all the best parties and crapped money and pissed good luck. And they never understood why I stressed out about paying my bills.

I, on the other hand, was like a feral hillbilly who had to figure out how the hell to get around the jungle of Gotham with just my knife made out of goat bone and a weensie bottle of moonshine. (And a big stupid-looking straw hat.)

I learned the lay of the land from the inside out, a very messy hands-on process, because I had to. They stayed on the glossy outside of things because they could.

And some of them don’t know their way around anymore. And know what? I feel as bad for them now as I did for me then, which is arrogant I know, but it’s true.

I hope they remember what it is they really want to do. All that maintaining the picture seems to have taken away the want and the dream.

Have faith, kids. Those people who make you green with envy only look good on the outside. Do your thing. Follow your heart.

It’s the only thing that really matters.