It Pulls You Under

About a month and a half into living as a working actress, making a couple of hundred dollars a week and letting my boyfriend support me financially, I finally break down.

There are a lot of things about life as a working actor that break people down. For most people, it's the rejection. It's constantly feeling like you're not good enough. For some people, it's the frustration of knowing that you are good enough, and nobody gives a shit.

I can deal with both those things. What finally got me last night was something different entirely.

In February The Boyfriend and I moved into a gorgeous one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. My half of the rent is more than I was paying for my Queens studio apartment, but in February I had a steady job, making enough money to pay rent and keep up with my student loans, and still have money to put away in savings. Good for me.

But now, in this performance job that I ADORE, I'm barely making enough money to pay the rent. It's only thanks to my generous parents, a NY Lottery commercial and the payout from a class-action lawsuit that i forgot to opt out of that I've made it through July.

The Boyfriend, however, cheerfully tells me, "Don't worry about it, baby. I get paid tomorrow." And I love him, but the fact that HE has enough money to pay OUR rent does not make me feel better. WE should have enough money to pay OUR rent.

Nobody ever told me that the hardest shit to deal with in this life was going to be the Financial Aspect of it, and I call Shenanigans.

Why isn't that ever on an episode of Smash? Huh, Telsey? Why doesn't Karen Carpenter have her credit card declined trying to buy macaroni and cheese at a Duane Reade at 2 o'clock in the morning?

So last night I spilled fucking water on my fucking iPhone again. I am the biggest dick on the planet, and no one should ever give me anything worth over $50, because I will ruin it. Spoiler Alert: my phone is fine, I got it in rice right away and it only had a little bit spilled on it in the first place. But in my haste to rip open the rice bag, it exploded potato-chip-style all over the floor of the kitchen, and then I spent the next hour and a half crying. Like, snot-pouring-down-the-front-of-my-face, Irish-funeral-keening. The Boyfriend hugged me as I hyperventilated, and once I'd calmed down I went into the living room and fired off an email to Best Friend Cate. 

As previously mentioned, Best Friend Cate is an incredibly talented writer, who moved to Poughkeepsie when her boyfriend got a teaching job there. And she spent the first six months there living much like I am living now. Shitty job, not enough money, being supported by someone else, all the while with all this talent inside her, just waiting to be discovered.

To say her response made me feel better would be underselling it completely.

"You're doing everything you're supposed to be doing," she said, "and shit--you're only in the financial situation you're in because you took a chance on a job that is going to move your REAL career forward... You chose to work in a field where nobody gives a shit about you... You chose this--years of people not giving a shit, and having to balance the non-shit-giving with paychecks so that you can survive until people do give a shit... It's slow. It's called our twenties. We can't all be Lena Dunham.

"BUT look at Christina Hendricks. Maybe I'm biased, since she's the first woman I've ever wanted to motorboat, Vince-Vaughan-style, but she's in her mid-thirties and her career is only now taking off... Total nerd girl, too. She paid her dues. Am I saying it will take you another 8 years to get there? No. But it might.

"I love you. Hang in there. Remember that a big part of this is the transition period. It pulls you under."

Seriously everybody is being so fucking supportive it makes me want to throw up. In a good way.

So here is the part where I try to turn this incredibly depressing blog entry into an inspirational cry to action, whoopie. Perhaps I should include some quote about perseverance or never giving up or whatever. But instead I think I'll end with a message to myself.

Dear McNally,

Calm the fuck down. It's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't, everyone would do it.

And yes, that was paraphrased from A League of Their Own.

Stop whining. If you're so worried about money, get a second job already.

Kaboom.