Long have I wanted to be an artist. Not with paint and glitter (you know how artists love glitter) but with words and acting. By the time I graduated high school, I knew I was going to be a successful actor. Cue the laugh track. I would use my instrument (my body, my self) to inspire and entertain millions. I was the next Jim-Carey-meets-David-Sedaris. Writing would be my escape from the craziness of moviestardom. Maybe I’d publish under a pseudonym just for giggles. Sure everyone said it was a “hard” life but I knew the endgame. Perhaps I’d have a few hard years but certainly by the time I was 23 or 24 I’d be a millionaire moviestar/novelist/falconer.

At 18, the vision I’d concocted for my life was very specific. I would wake up every morning with creativity simply shooting out of all my holes. Picture a rainbow shooting out of something with lots of holes, roughly 5-8 holes. I would drink coffee and write for a few hours. This would occur at a bay window with a dope view of some nature or trees or glitter art. My agents, managers, publicists, and acupuncturists would know that writing was sacred and I was not to be disturbed. My primary struggle would be which project to focus on and when. The memoir or the screenplay or the novel? Fortunately, my invaluable and loyal assistant, Claire, would keep me on track. Thank god for Claire.

When I wasn’t on location for my next Blockbuster film, I’d do theatre. After all, it is my first love. When I was finished with writing for the day, I’d head to rehearsal. More than likely I’d be work-shopping a role for a new Broadway hit. Maybe I’d be polishing up my one-man show. Either way, there’d be lots of Tony buzz. But I can’t get caught up in that. I’m really just here for the work (he says as he quickly snatches his trophy away from the presenter).

Meanwhile my social life would be saturated with all kinds of likeminded creatives: writers, actors, poets, dancers, musicians, calligraphers, people who do window displays at department stores. We’d regularly get together to drink port and discuss Proust until the wee hours of the morning. They’d be the right mix of snobby intellectual and sloppy whore. My life would be largely perfect and inspirational and fulfilling. I’d basically be a living, breathing Instagram account. I would have “followed my bliss” like all the gurus instructed and, thus, I would be blissful. Patrick for the win, suckas!

Pause. You probably know where this is headed. Let’s just fast-forward ten years over here in the real world, shall we? Now I hate to be the bearer of bad news but holy-fucking-credit-card-debt-Batman was I in for a rude awakening. I’m now a full decade removed from that poor naïve 18-year-old bastard and, not to be a downer, but my life is largely a nightmare version of what I once dreamed up (oops!).

As I’ve discovered over the last ten years, there are roughly a quajillion hurdles to overcome as an artist. I could go in depth about all my burdens but I don’t write horror stories. The long and short of it: I’ve waited tables for ten years, I have no money, and my career has largely not happened at the speed/rate/girth I thought it would/could/should. But today I come to you to share just one small, specific struggle. It is pitifully, tragically, despairingly basic. I physically cannot utter the phrase “I am an artist.” I can’t say it to myself much less to anyone else.

When I was 18, there was no hesitation in telling people I wanted to be an actor. I was that theatre nerd who did all the school and community productions. I did community theatre in places that shouldn’t even have communities for God’s sake. Of course I would be an actor. I already was one. Even my writing had been published (school lit magazines, contain your envy). There was no shame in telling anyone and everyone I would be an artist. Just look at the body of work I’d already accumulated.

Since high school, my career didn’t get rolling despite best efforts and my confidence eventually faded into oblivion. Nowadays when people ask what I do I either A) bow my head and say I’m a waiter or B) I bow my whole body and whisper to the ground “I’m sort of an actor…sometimes…sorry.” What follows with Option B are problematic questions that come shooting at my face like those machines that shoot tennis balls at your face. What have you been in? Would I have seen you in anything? What else do you? Do your parents know? Are you homeless?

I did one episode of that cable drama that one time. Did you see that? I was also in two movies that haven’t come out yet. I probably have a cumulative 15 seconds of screen time. Have you seen those? Did you attend any theatre productions at the local high school between 2003 and 2007? What about the intern showcase at the local mid-sized theatre? How about that one play reading that no one got paid for and 6 people attended? I was real good in that. Nope? You didn’t see those? Well that’s a bummer. Then I guess you haven’t seen me and I’m not a real boy, Geppetto.

Coming “out” as an artist can be rough stuff. People place a lot of expectations on that word. They assume that if you’re not famous or if you still work a day job then you’re a failure. Obviously, part of me believes that too (hello have you been reading up to this point?!). It’s very hard to “feel” like an artist when you go months/years between gigs or when you work 50+ hours a week at multiple part-time jobs that barely make ends meet or when you’re too tired to write at the end of the day so you binge on upbeat comedies like Schindler’s List and The Handmaid’s Tale. Where’s the moviestardom? Where’s Claire the assistant? Where’s port and Proust until the wee hours?

I’d like to tell you that I hereby formally recommit to my craft and will proudly proclaim to every passerby how I’m an artist dammit! I will forevermore stand in the truth of my artistiness and shrug off any suggestion otherwise. I vow to write for 3 hours everyday despite my human desire for sleep. I pledge to read every script ever written and find that fire again. I will bang down the door of every casting director, producer, agent, and director until I become the star that I know I am.

But let’s be real. That won’t happen. I’ve made those promises thousands of times before and it always leads to grief and disappointment. What I’d like to do this time is present myself with a simple suggestion: to do whatever the next best step is, however small, as often as I can, in the direction of creative fulfillment. Maybe that means writing for 20 minutes and then watching Netflix or maybe it just means watching Netflix. Whatever that next best step is, I want to enter into it without judgment and guilt and the sting of inadequacy. And maybe, just maybe, if I do that often enough, I’ll slowly reveal myself as an artist, even if only to the man in the mirror (cue the Michael Jackson outro).

Now let’s grab our glitter pens and go make something…or don’t…whatevs.