I gasp for air and grab a new piece of driftwood to take me to shore and remember that when one door closes another opens.

I bet you thought I’d forgotten about you. Well I’ve not — about two months ago I entered real estate school in New York and since recieving my license I’ve been working 12 hour days fairly regularly. I got tired of being poor. The rationalization for starting a career in the middle of a busy audition season was that I needed to if I was going to be here for the next busy audition season. At the end of my financial rope, I experienced regular hunger pains and dizzy spells. My closest friends were the creditors that called to torture me about my financial obligations. Though once a normal part of my life, New York City — at least as I was experiencing it, made these responsibilities seem impossible to meet. I was drowning in a sea of debt, hunger, and loneliness.

So it was time for a new plan. I tried applying for unemployment. Having been fired from a crappy restaurant, I figured I was entitled to collect on some of what I’d paid in taxes. Alas, the bureaucracy is not set up to help anyone who really needs it. After a month, I’d still not recieved a check. To this day, I’ve not seen a cent. So I borrowed the money I needed to get into real estate school, and the money I needed to pay part of my rent (I still owe the other hundred dollars which I used on food). It was a new financial low for me –no credit cards, no cash, and a heaping dose of humility.

I delved down into my soul and found the workaholic that I’d been in college, that boy who was the student senate president, a resident assistant, a music scholar, honor roll student with 25 credit hours and a part-time workstudy position for the head of the music department. My depression worsened but I held strong. I had to move forward. I had to succeed. Two months later I’m just starting to surface from the sea of sufficating fears that had consumed me. FDR said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. I think that was my mantra. That and another favorite expression of mine, “the best way to climb a mountain is one step at a time.”

So with two rentals under my belt and a busy next few months ahead until the next busy audition season (January), I’m starting to regroup and gain some balance and control in my life. I find myself in Starbucks — one of my favorite places — planning my life and writing this blog even though my website has been taken down because I didn’t pay for it. Wait how am I reading this? It’s back.

I guess this all must sound a little depressing. But the fact that I’m writing about it, means I’m ok. I’m here. I survived. I saw a tshirt the other day. It said, “Due to budgetary cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.” Things were tight — really tight. But thankfully, that bulb kept burning.