Hi. Let me fully introduce myself.

My name is Suzy.

I have brown hair. My favorite color is purple. I love a good fried egg. And I've unconditionally loved acting since I was twelve years old. All of these facts are important to me; they're solid, true, and a part of who I am. I can say each of them out loud and with utmost confidence (even though, to be honest, blue was my favorite color for almost a decade. People can change).

The last of those facts can get a little complicated, however. By saying I love being an actor, I'm saying that I love to work on a craft that connects an audience (and myself) to specific aspects of the human condition. I tell a story in the most honest way I can, and hope that that story can reach out and touch another human being, by opening their mind, nurturing their soul, and getting underneath their skin.

To have such a story make such an effect–and a lasting one at that–I am required to be vulnerable.

I have to take my real-life, hardened, Suzy exterior and shed a layer, or two, or seven. I have to open up my own heart to feel the heart of the character I'm playing. I have to realize my own faults and insecurities before I can understand my character's. I'm not being myself...I'm playing someone else, a person who is living in a different world...but because it's me playing her, she lives in the same body I do. She has the same hands as I have, the same eyes, the same voice. My body is a home for her, so I have to make sure the door is wide enough for her to step inside and settle in.

I can do this when I play someone else. I am confident that I can. Hell, I've been training for years and paying thousands of dollars just to become better at doing such a thing.

So why is it so much harder to be vulnerable in my life–my personal, real, purple-colored, fried-egg-filled life? I've only been a "serious" actor for four or five years; I've been me for over two decades. Why can't I open the door wide enough for other, real people to settle in?

Many actors–and humans of all points on the artist spectrum–experience this strange sensation of being so inclined and willing to open oneself up when performing, but not when one is simply being oneself. Performing as a dancer, singer, actor, musician, etc. sounds terrifying to many, because stage fright is obviously a real sensation as well, but those who find comfort with such vulnerability are in turn covering their selves with an additional, extra-hard layer: the "presentation" layer, if you will. The "I'm performing right now, so I am new, I am different, I am not really me" layer.

More often than not that layer can get pretty hard to peel off.

I find it hard to open up to others, to tell people if I'm sad or worried about something specific instead of simply saying "I'm just tired" or "stressed". I find it extremely difficult to speak about past events in my life or sudden changes, significant or not, or things that I know in my gut would make me feel better if I just told someone. I find it difficult to talk about myself even when it's to a best friend, my sibling, or my parents. I can't seem to take the right layer off when I need to.

Now, this isn't me saying I'm special because it's hard for me to open up to people–literally everyone has had that struggle at some point (or many, many points) in their lives. Humans naturally have a survival instinct and an inclination to protect themselves from danger or fear; while that inclination derived from not wanting to be attacked by a mammoth before you arrived to your cave home after a long day of rolling stones, it has now grown much more complicated and internal. There are a plethora of terrifying outcomes that may result from letting myself be vulnerable in real life instead of on a stage or in front of a camera:

I can be rejected,

Invalidated,

Feel worse about myself or my situation,

end up hurting someone or getting hurt,

And ultimately become weaker, or "less than".

I am obviously not alone–we as human beings hold these fears deep, deep in our hearts, and are careful to keep our own personal versions of body armor locked and loaded so they can't be penetrated.

What makes all of this really weird is that I can take this armor off quite simply (note I said simply, not easily) when I'm acting, when I'm playing a part, when I'm providing a home for a fully fleshed out yet imaginary subject of the human psyche. I'm far more comfortable being the canvas rather than the finished painting.

The question I'm asking myself–and of other actors who feel this because please God I hope there are more of you–how can we be comfortable and safe and truly honest as actors who portray complicated humans if we cannot be so in our own, just as beautifully complicated skin? Is it just a matter of trying harder? Meditating more? Keeping a trendily decorated dream journal by the bed?

Here's the kicker–I don't know. I have no freaking clue.

I usually like to leave my articles with an affirmative, confident answer; an anecdote or cleverly-transcribed moral that wraps everything up in a crisp bow. But I have a feeling I'll be wrapping and unwrapping and re-wrapping the questions from this particular article for a while...maybe a really long time, and perhaps for the rest of my life. And I think accepting that fact alone will help me get a little closer to the answers. Or, this may just be one of those annoying open-ended questions to which there are no right or wrong answers, but a kind of fill-in-the-blank that requires some time, some patience to grow and become better at being comfortable in my body with myself inside.

And then, maybe, one day, I can be truly okay with being me. All of me: the vibrant, determined, strong, purple-colored, fried-eggy me.

And then maybe I can stop writing such cheesy articles.