Today is the one-month-and-six-day anniversary of the most depressing birthday I’ve ever had. A week before the day I read Bossypants and it cast shadow over the festivities.

Every birthday stands a reminder that I am not where I want to be, and as one year closer to becoming too old to act. Betty White excluded, the older you get the more difficult it becomes to get work as an actress. This is a fact. As Tina Fey said in Bossypants“I have a suspicion that the definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.” And crazy people aren’t hired.

Something I look forward to experiencing. Soon enough, I will be the crazy tall actress with the impronouncible last name walking down the street holding an umbrella when it is sunny, going to auditions which I will never book.

My rational mind often brings to my attention a consequence of the age-factor in show business: I’m spending my peak earning years working towards a goal in which I have little control. I read all the self-help-manifest-visualize-create-your-reality books out there, but when I tally the numbers, I’m basically volunteering countless hours of my day for the hope that it will pay off with a miraculous pay check. I never aspired to be a starving artist, and at the back of my mind I wonder if I’m settting myself up to be homeless in retirement.

Add to the umbrella countless shopping bags. And buff arms.

I can always delay unemployment with Botox or a good ol’ face lift, but that maneuver only makes it more obvious that you are too old and no one wants you.

When I’m striding down the street with tattered clothes, dirt-colored complexion and a mind full of haunting memories, at least I won’t look like the Joker. Don’t be afraid to say hi!