A year and half ago, I stepped off a plane and into a strange land. I made my way down a long corridor en route to the baggage claim as weary speakers rained down announcements from above.
I scanned the room, taking in my equally disheveled seat mates as I wheeled my tattered bag away. The moment I stepped onto the arrival curb a familiar Bay Area breeze washed over me as I stared blankly off into the distance.
There was a fear that belied my poise; the kind that comes when the first half of your life hasn’t gone according to plan and the second feels uncertain.
Just then, a dusty Tacoma truck pulled up. The driver was lanky, a hair taller, and losing his once coarse black hair. It was my brother.
I’d just moved home after 12 years.
The transition back was far from seamless. It felt like watching someone trying to use chopsticks for the first time. Every move to get my footing felt awkward, embarrassing, and little bit impractical.
I also felt like a stranger in my hometown. The faux hawks, overpriced coffee, and trendy storefronts that now lined once forbidden streets put me in a daze.
Where am I? I thought.
Oakland was now uttered in the same breath as the Brooklyn’s, Hollywood’s and San Francisco’s when referencing the graveyard of once affordable cities. This town had changed.
And maybe I had too.
I looked to make myself useful in whatever way I could. I made inquiries to universities and colleges, half expecting them to roll out the red carpet. I thought I’d be a shoe-in to help young actors tell stories. But the replies, if at all, were never invitations.
I took long walks and even longer drives. I thought long and hard about how to find a home for my unique but not particularly marketable skill set.
Just what exactly could someone who’d spent nearly 1/3 of his life pursuing a professional acting career do other than help others do the same?
My humble pie became even more tart when I took on a roommate for the first time in nearly a decade. Correction, my friend now had someone inhabiting his guest room in his already cramped single-family home.
I did my best to stay out of his hair. I’d tiptoe out the front door by 6:45 am and usually tucked myself in bed by 10:00 pm or so. The only solitude I could find was within the small frame of my Honda Accord. That little car suddenly became a mobile tabernacle — a place of peace, quiet, and sometimes even prayer.
I understood that sometimes life requires a little brinksmanship. That you must fall in order to get up, go backwards to move forward, but I wondered at times if I could just pass GO.
Strangely, the lack of housing or steady work was not the hardest part. I knew in the back of my mind those matters would eventually work themselves out. What felt most daunting was trying to figure out who I now was. Without a stage, a story, a monologue, I suddenly grappled with loss of identity.
Losing that also entailed losing my sense of self-worth because it was so embedded in who I perceived myself to be.
This month, I’ve been home for almost a year and a half. Looking back, I’m profoundly grateful for both the struggle and where I find myself standing today.
I also took away some invaluable lessons, not the least of which was the importance of being patient with yourself. Understanding that progress is slow and often uphill is all the blueprint you really get.
But it’s something.
Redefining yourself is also not a sign of defeat but evolution. It means you haven’t gotten lazy on the only kind of progression that surpasses career, salary, and recognition.
Progression of SELF.
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