If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Before things get too dark or personal, Drew would like to point out that he'll be signing copies of the ArchEnemies trade alongside Yvel, Joe, and Kep at the Dark Horse booth at the New York Comic Con this Friday from 6-7 pm. If you're at the con, please stop by!
I moved to New York a few weeks after I graduated from college. It's what the cool kids were doing that year, and who was I if not a tremendous geek the coolest of the cool?
It took me a while to find my place in the big city. I spent my first year working at a call center off Wall Street, fielding financial questions for 112 year-old war widows with more money stuffed under their mattresses than I'll see in my entire lifetime.
It was temp work, so a lot of my co-workers were actors and artists and musicians and writers between projects. It was good in that sense. I got my first good look at reality. My first good look at my future.
I got to see how hard it was to make something of your life. I got to see the look of defeat on their faces every time they returned form a tour or an off-Broadway run or when the money from their last magazine article ran out.
They were miserable.
All of them, that is, but Pat. Pat was, at the age of 33, a retired would-be actor. He had tried to make something of himself for a number of years. He'd acted in some small productions. Did some extra work, here and there. But it had never happened for him.
And then, one day, he gave up.
You'll never meet a man more calm and centered and content than Pat. Amdist all the disappointment and grumbling and self-loathing that was this job, Pat just was.
And I, ever the character study in angst and anxiety, was unapologetically jealous.
Life becomes so much easier if this is all you want. No scratching. No striving. No putting yourself out there.
Wake up. Go to work. Do your job. Go home. Watch The Simpsons. Go to bed. Repeat.
There are days I wish that I could live that kind of life.
But then I'm nuts.
Well, nuts-ish.
People sometimes think I'm kidding when I say things like that. I am not.
I had my first panic attack when I was 5 or 6, but it took me till Freshmen year at college to finally get a handle on what was wrong with me. And by then I'd met so many people who had it so much worse that it always makes me feel like a punk when I complain.
But sometimes the depression hits pretty hard. It makes it hard to write, and it makes it hard to hustle for work. And that's not meant as an excuse. That's just how it is.
And I know that some writers can channel the depression and use it to fuel their writing. And I know that the smart ones reach out and get help.
But that's never been me. Sometimes I just hit a wall. And then I hit it again. And again.
And it's days like that that I consider - seriously consider - the Pat Option.
Yet here I am. Still at it. Still banging my head against walls both metaphorical and concrete. And tomorrow I turn 30, which I think - if we're keeping score - makes me both old and stupid.
I mean, I suppose there are things that have kept me going, long after friends have traded all their big dreams for small realities. The brief successes. Those elusive moments of validation and vindication.
Certainly, getting ArchEnemies out and onto the stands (and now the bookshelves) has been a big boost to my self-esteem. But I could just as easily have said, "Done it once. Great. Time to move on!"
It wouldn't be the first time that I declared victory and departed the field. I was happy enough to give up stand-up. To stop teaching.
But this is different. This is what I've been working towards my whole life. This is the whole ball of wax. The big bag of marbles. The basket where I have wisely chosen to store all of my best and most beautiful eggs.
Now I'm 30 years old, and I'm the metaphorical grumbly would-be actor returning from my touring company of The Three Musketeers to tell Grandma Ethel how to consolidate her mutual funds.
And that's fine. That's life. As scary as this is to admit, I believe that I am - for the lack of a better term - growing up.
Happy Birthday to me.
This weekend is the New York Comic Con, and as noted above I'll be on hand for a signing Friday night. And the rest of the weekend I'll be out and about and hustling for work.
Or napping. Oh how I enjoy a good nap.
But probably I'll be hustling for work.
NEXT TIME: Drew turns 50. Sort of.
Drew Melbourne is the writer of this column, of Dark Horse Comics'ArchEnemies,
and of various projects upcoming. For
more about the author, visit DrewMelbourne.com.
