I started out snippy at Mom, who just wanted a few chores done around the house. It's part of the deal; I pay a small amount of board and do whatever things need doing around the house, and I get to save money. Usually, it works just fine, but today, I just wanted to...well, I don't know what I wanted to do, but yardwork and spackling wasn't it.

Sean and Heather had Heather's Mom and Grandmother down from Maine to help wallpaper the baby's room, and they decided to take them to lunch. Sean invited Mom to come along, so when she left for that, I called Laurie and asked her if she wanted to grab some lunch.

On the Border isn't the best thing for the diet, but I did avoid the queso and had a healthier lunch than I normally do there.

After lunch, Laurie and I went to Barnes & Noble and picked up a few books, commenting on everything that crossed our paths. I, for one, am unbearably tired of having to paw through endless piles of "Chick Lit" in order to see what other new releases are out there. Honestly, I'm sure there are a lot of gems buried with these releases, but digging among all the pink and primary colors makes me want to scream.

Not that it's any better in most genres. Science fiction covers are generally embarassing unless they're fairly abstract and almost any gay-themed book has, I swear, the same three models posing in various states of shirtlessness. Kensington Press may think they're breaking new ground with all the gay-themed titles, but honestly, I don't want to read about the hot, unattainable poolboy who falls for the money-grubbing but good-at-heart escort on the estate of the manipulative older gay man.

"Restless" may not capture what I've been feeling today. Maybe it's just moodiness. Laurie and I had a long discussion about where we were and where we wanted to be, and the two just don't mesh. I lashed out at things within my immediate circle, but the problem is more central. Now that I feel like a fully-functioning human being, I want to do something with that. And while I'm having a fine time at work and with the writing and all that, I somehow feel like I'm running out of time to make any sort of impact at all.

It's not a rant about my age, or what's being produced for the mass market or living with Mom or my feelings of inadequacy about what I've accomplished theater-wise, and yet it is all that at the same time.

Talking to Laurie, she alluded to the fact that her change may need to come in the form of another job; not just outside of the department, but outside of the Consulting Company altogether. And I can see that. I can totally see that. She is an excellent teacher, has taught at the college level for five years, and is in the position to explore that further. Yes, she has debts hanging over her head, but she also had a living situation that would allow her to deal with her debts on a much smaller salary (if need be) so that she could break into a field that genuinely seems to capture her interest.

Me, I've been there for quite some time. I've focused my efforts on two things over the past three years: Getting well and saving for a house. I feel as though I'm well. Yes, there are moments when I think that the medication and the therapy and all the strategies in the world aren't going to be enough, but they are fleeting moments, and I'm happier now than I can ever remember being since I was 15 years old. People notice this. Everyone I see who hasn't seen me for a number of years has remarked on how "good" I look, and I know they're not referring to me physically. I've changed. I'm happy. Things are going well.

And yet...

And yet, there's more that needs doing. As much good as it's done me, I'm a 36-year-old man living with his mother. I live in a city that's very difficult to break into on a professional level theater-wise. I have a good job, but it's just that...a job. I could easily turn it into a career, but I'm not sure that I want to be a corporate something-or-other that does theater as well.

These decisions should have been made in my twenties, when it was acceptable to live with third-hand furniture and nothing but Ramen noodles in the cabinets. When ambitious young things can experiment and figure out who they are and if it doesn't work out, they still have time to establish themselves in something else. Something safer.

I'm now worried about my 401k and zoning restrictions and what kind of a backyard I want, but it all feels like a facade to me.

I'm lying a lot right now. I'm saying the "right" things, I'm making the "right" moves, but I'm lying.

My job is fine, but I'd leave it in a second. My living situation has been very helpful, but it's not the same as having a place of my own, even if that place is rented from someone else. The suburbs are lovely, but there's no hustle and bustle. I'm in a holding pattern of my own creation, and I wonder how much of that is just the inevitability of getting older and how much is just me settling for what's comfortable for me at this time.

I'm happy, but not content. Is that contradictory?

Tonight, right now, what I want to do is write an elaborate letter to all my friends and family, thank them for all the support they've given me over these horrible, torturous, miserable years, and tell them they've allowed me to go do something else.

I'd like to pack the barest of essentials in my car, take the down-payment money for the house I think I want and strike out for somewhere else. New York City seems the obvious choice, but everybody who wants to break into theter goes to New York City. Why not the midwest, or the south, where there are thriving areas for the arts? Community theater on the East Coast means something entirely different than it does in those areas. A community theater in Memphis, TN is a multimillion-dollar undertaking with paid positions. One of the most respected theaters for new works in the country is in Louisville Kentucky.

Could I live in those areas? Could an avowed Yankee pick up and move to a different part of the country, live off savings, take a theater-related job and give it a whirl, this close to forty?

I can't go back in time. I can't go back to my 18-year-old self and tell him to just follow his passion and see where the chips fly. I can't tell a 20-year-old Patrick to stop worrying so much about what he "should" be doing and take chances. Time only moves in one direction, and I'm where I am at the time that I am, and I have to decide if what I have is enough to sustain me through the next 35 to 40 years.

Part of this is bubbling up in me because of discussions I had with people after the festival yesterday. They're all interested in seeing me participate in community theater again at the level I was participating in 1998, when it was an all-encompasing passion for me.

That's fine. People do terrific work in community theater, but it's not the type of theater that excites me. The base of community theater in the Boston area is, for the most part, made up of season subscribers who are of an older generation and would rather see yet another revival of Arsenic and Old Lace than something new. If I were to start a community theater, It'd have to focus on new works. For financial reasons, it would also have to have at least one or two well-known, feel-good plays (most likely including an old standby musical) to get money, but that's not a terrible price to pay.

I could do it. I have the ability to do this; it's not rocket science and it's not a terribly risky proposition, except financially. Friends of mine started a professional theater company together that did excellent work, but it kind of fell apart for reasons unknown to me. My (sort of) Aunt Nancy started a professional theater company, but that too dismantled, and after only one season.

I've seen the professional theater companies in Boston, and some of them are doing extraordinary work. There are others who are barely limping along, and as such, they're not taking the chances that I think this area needs to see in the theater scene.

Am I the right person to attempt to start yet another theater company in this area? Someone with no degree in theater, with a handful of writing, directing, and acting credits under his belt? Who am I to try this sort of thing?

Then again, who am I not to try this sort of thing? Who does it hurt, except me? If I tank, then everything's on my head, and I'm fine with that idea. No risk, no reward. I know quality work when I see it, and there's a lot of quality work that's being overlooked around here.

It would take a sea change in my outlook on things. I've been doing the "oughts" for a good number of years. I ought to pay more attention to getting ahead in my job. I did just that. I ought to save up for a house instead of rent another apartment. I've been doing that. I ought to concentrate on getting myself well enough to face the world before taking on any big leaps of faith. I've done that.

But now that I have the secure job, the money in the bank, and a straightened-out brain, the question is: What am I working towards? Do I want to look back 36 years from now (should I make it that far) and say, "Well, I managed to put together a nice little retirement package, I did props for a good number of shows, I had a lot of plays produced here and there, and I own a lovely little house."

Or...do I want to take a leap? And if so, in what direction?

Something's pushing me, and I don't quite know if it's the angel on one shoulder or the devil on the other. Either way, does it matter, in the grand scheme of things? 18 or 36, it's my life, and I'm nothing but one person out of millions of people on the face of the planet, and whether I concentrate on decorating my cubicle so that I feel at home there or I say fuck it to all of the corporate nonsense and make no money being a PA on a show with people half my age and twice my energy while living in a one-room studio in the middle of a bad section of town, what is it going to cost me? I can get health benefits by working a single shift at Starbuck's. I can do PowerPoint for clients from home. I'm in a position where I won't starve, and I won't fall into a pit of despair, and I won't ruin the rest of my life by taking a chance.

I'm frightened in feeling this way, because part of me says to just take baby steps. Get this script finished, workshop it with a director I respect and see if anyone is interested in seeing it. Do the same with the other full-length. Submit scripts all over, in the hopes of capturing the attention of some artistic director somewhere who will decide that s/he is impressed enough to give me a chance at a mainstage production.

Or...leap off the cliff. Follow in the footsteps of a local actor I've admired for quite some time and produce my own work with whatever theater I can elbow my way into. Take every risk, because there isn't any consequence I'm not willing to accept for this. See if I can do it. I know I can achieve a low level of success in the limited arena that has been set before me, but another year of crewing for shows that are wonderful in their own right and acting for the sake of getting some stage time somewhere can easily be enough for me. I can concentrate on looking for real estate. I can get my nonexistant sex life back on track. I can continue training for the triathlon and bulk up my retirement fund and pick out living room furniture and become an established member of my community and maybe settle down with someone and be responsible.

Or...

Or I could throw caution to the wind, try something completely out of character for me, take that chance, give myself a time limit and set a bar I must reach within that timeframe, and see what happens.

I've seen so many people do this, online and off. I envy them. I admire them. I want to be one of them.

I just don't know if I have the balls to be one of them.