I cater waitered an event one time and I remember an older actor telling me that he performed at the Tony awards one year then the next year he was catering the Tony Awards. He laughed it off, that’s life, it wasn’t a big deal to him. I heard it and it seemed like such dramatic Riches to Rags story at the time.
When I was in Paris last year, on a whim, I put an event into my phone calendar for October 13th 2025. I don’t remember the specifics of when I did this, I know I was just walking down the street or as they call it in France, a Rue, so there I am, walking down a Rue and I pull my phone out and scroll 2.5 years ahead to my 40th birthday and make a new event ‘Full Time Comedian Goal.’ That is plenty of time to achieve this very amorphous goal. Well, congratulations to me…I have achieved this goal 2 years early and all it took was getting laid off!
I was let go from my job on November 17th, final day December 1st. I had worked at this company for 12.5 years. I am 38, so its dawning on me in real time that I worked there for one third of my life. But now I am a ‘full time comedian’ and much earlier than the Parisian Calendar predicted! Had I thought through the naming of that event just a little longer I would’ve put, Full Time Comedian, Writer, Actor, Humorist. But you get it.
It took me a few weeks to get over the shock and change of this whole lay off situation and to reckon with the fact that this was exactly what I want and need and had desired. But as everyone knows, you want to break up with them before they break up with you. Well, I got broken up with but it truly is for the best and precisely what I want.
The first step I took on my journey as a full time comedian was to get a roommate. I had a cushy past few years at this job and that meant living alone, not anymore. The next step was to move bedrooms. I have been living in a big ol’ bedroom for years but my apartment has a small little office type room that can barely fit a bed in. BUT what if that BED folds up into the wall and so I asked for a Murphy Bed for Christmas and I must have been on the nice list this year because I am now the proud owner of a bed that folds up into the wall. Thank you Mom and Dad.
I spent a lot of time before I started writing this trying to think of the connection between being Let Go and Letting Go. And I couldn’t quite figure out the way to word it without it feeling trite and cheesy. But that is what this post is about. Being Let Go and Letting Go and then getting to work on the business at hand. My new full time job.
One thing I know I need to let go of is that sense of validation I craved by being financially stable AND pursuing a career as a comedian, writer, actor etc. It’s tough to admit to myself and to you the reader, but my hope is this relates to someone out there so I will write it, but I took a lot of pride in living alone, in New York City and being creative. I have had all the shitty actor jobs, I passed out fliers in Times Square, I cater waitered all the events, I lived with 3 roommates in a 2 bedroom and the first year I moved to New York I made $20,657 and I am still here motherfucker and I live alone now. Because I made it.
I think I wanted to work quietly the next 2.5 years and proudly stand before the world and myself a fully formed, financially stable, productive Full Time Comedian at the age of 40. And I think my younger self would’ve seen my living alone as my Tony Awards and the Murphy Bed as my triumphant return to cater waitering.
But you know what my current older self thinks? Yo…this bed is super fun. It’s like a space bed from a sci fi movie. And my roommate is cool, he told me on Sunday mornings he might wake me up from ‘Yelling at the telly because Arsenal is getting their arse kicked.’ He’s British.
I am very thankful. I am thankful to have been pushed out of a comfortable nest that I would’ve stayed in just to hold onto this pride of projecting stability to myself and others. In reality it was insecurity of getting older and not wanting to look like a loser or a failure or God forbid take some sort of step backwards. I mean, I know if I told 25 year old Kevin his bed would come out of the wall he would think it was a step backward. The reality is this is a step forward, a massive step forward. And I know for a fact 5 year old Kevin would think that is the coolest freaking bed of all time and he is right.
I have a new show I started to write and will start performing in February and I plan to take it to Edinburgh Fringe. I think I have the title, I have a few options, I might ask you to help me with the title next week actually. I am going to be writing here on Substack 2 times a week. I have a bunch of stand up clips I am going to start uploading to Youtube, Reels and Tiki Tok. And I have a video version of Moral of the Story I am going to start filming those and releasing the first one next month. So, thanks for being here, I appreciate you reading or listening to my first post since I began my new full time job.