9:05 AM - Mon 1.22.18

I've been up for about an hour, and something was telling me, after having breakfast and making a cursory check of the news (We're in Day #3 of a government shutdown), to write an entry.

So here I am.

Still struggling with my mood - I'm not miserable all the time, but I'm having a lot of anxious, depressive "spikes" - and I don't know exactly what it's about.

Am I feeling a totally appropriate sadness or anxiety about things, which is then exacerbated by "bad chemicals"?

That seems possible (My concerns - about money, about my future as an actor, etc - feel reasonable, but just how miserable they make me does not. Particularly since they're concerns about what might happen, not what is happening).

Are "bad chemicals" causing thoughts to pop into my head that make me sad and anxious?

That seems possible too (Yes, the fact I will someday cease to exist is a disturbing thought, and it's a disturbing thought I'm thinking a lot lately. But death is a bedrock reality that isn't going anywhere, so why should it be a problem for me one day but not the next?).

And is some portion of how I'm feeling just boredom, and beyond simple boredom, a general lack of purpose and meaning in my life?

I'm gonna go with a definite "Yes!" on that - boredom has dogged me all my life. It's why I read so voraciously when I was younger, have spent so much of my life watching TV, and why I have such a serious Internet addiction these days (And how I use food as distraction/relief from boredom and depression could be an entry all by itself).

All those distractions speak to the same issue - I have always found day-to-day life dull and generally unsatisfying...when not actively unpleasant. And that being the case, and since I had no one helping me negotiate the challenges of my life, particularly early on, I reached for the quickest, easiest relief that was at hand.

When I think about it, acting emerged as "relief" - From the feeling that I was insignificant, that no one cared about me, that I didn't matter.

I don't know the exact trajectory of how I went from severe stage fright in my first time on stage to wanting to be an actor to actually being an actor, but clearly, it "clicked" for me at some point, "When I do this, people pay attention to me. They look at me. They like me. They think I'm special".

How could I not "matter" when I could make everyone watch me, when I could make them laugh, and feel things? And have them like me for it?

And that was such a good feeling that I wanted to do it all the time - I self-identified as an actor, and I wanted the world at large to see me the same way.

That constituted "winning" in my mind - To go from feeling insignificant and unloved as a child, to being an actor (And let's be clear - Not just an "actor", but a movie star) who everyone knows and admires.

I felt like nobody loved me, so my fantasy, my revenge, would be to become someone that everyone loved.

(Cut to the present day...)

One of the biggest things I'm dealing with right now is the all-but-certain reality that my being an actor isn't really going to work out, not the way I'd hoped.

I've been out here for almost 17 years now, and it seems clear I've "peaked", said "peak" being pretty fucking close to the bottom (Not the bottom - there are people who come out here, give it a try, and they can't make anything happen, while I actually do have credits - but I'm way closer to the bottom than I am the top, or even the fucking middle, for that matter).

I'm not going to give up - give up and do what? I'm 56 years old, with no skills and no other interests - and I'm not going home, if "going home" means going back to Lansing (Because what then? Do I just cobble together some rickety approximation of the life I left behind, 17 years ago? The life that wasn't working for me then? Assuming I even could, what would be the point?).

I have to keep trying, because what other option is there?

Kill myself?

Frankly, that's somewhat more of an option than it used to be (It solves a lot of problems, that's for sure)...but in a world where the notion of non-existence freaks me out, it still seems a non-starter (But get back to me if/when I get my Alzheimer's diagnosis).

But I don't know what's left for me to hope for, what purpose I have other than to try to keep eking out enough of a living to keep myself afloat till I keel over.

I know being a famous actor was a tall order, considering where I come from, the way I look, and the fact that I didn't really even get started till I was 40 years old.

And I know there's every possibility that, if I'd actually achieved that goal, I would have found it wanting (I wouldn't have been the first actor who became wildly successful, only to discover it still didn't fill up the "hole in his soul").

But it was the dream I had.

And I don't know what to do without it.

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