When I left work, I left behind a life of discipline. I knew when I had to get up, where I had to be at a certain time and when it was time to go home. For the first year following my retirement, I managed to keep some regimentation in my life; I went to yoga three mornings a week, exercised four to five times a week, ate well-rounded meals which I cooked, tutored my ESL student once a week and went to mics twice a week. It has been a little more than a year and a half since my retirement and for the last six months I've lost all sense of regimentation: I stopped doing yoga because it was too early in the morning, I cut my exercise to once a week, started to eat lots of meals out consisting of fatty foods at all hours of the day and night, continued to see my ESL student once a week and started to do more comedy shows and fewer mics. My sleeping pattern is a bad pattern ; I get up in the late morning, nap in the afternoon and toss and turn once I fall asleep, waking up intermittently throughout the night.
What happened? From what I can tell, the stakes have gone up and it's taking its toll. Now that I've been a comedian for a year and a half, I put more pressure on myself to get better all the time. I constantly have my finger on my comedic pulse to see if I'm improving, standing still or slipping backwards. I think I'm doing all of the above, but on average I'm improving slowly. I'm getting to do more shows, but the expectations of me and those that I put on myself are high. The bigger question is this: is possible to lead a happy and healthy life over the long haul and also be a comedian? What I observe in others is not encouraging. I see a lot of drinking and french fry eating. I see people starve themselves before they get on stage and eat like they're about to be executed once they get off. I see a lot of beer guts and bulging thighs. And I see a lot of this in myself; I don't drink beer, but my thighs are rubbing together like two sumo wrestlers. During the first year of retirement I managed to lose 20 pounds and in the last six months have gained back more than half of them. And then there's Facebook. All comedians are on Facebook. That's where we see who is playing where and whether we can play there too. When I started using Facebook, it was fun. It's not fun anymore. It's worse than a cigarette addiction. See what comedians are doing. Respond to funny posts. Write funny posts. See who responds to my funny posts. Check it. Check it again. And again.
So, what's the answer? I keep making promises to myself to cook more, eat better, exercise regularly and not nap and I break the promises before you can say pastrami on rye with Russian dressing, cole slaw and a half-sour pickle. I managed to check Facebook once in the morning and once at night, but that also fell by the boards. I started comedy for fun and it's still fun for the most part, but I have to find some balance or I'm going to be funny, but fat and unhappy.
