Super in Charge of my own life or whatever (LA Move-in Week)

I’m so glad I didn’t continue writing the blog I had drafted the other day. I deleted the whole thing, actually, which was for the best. I was spiraling in a bad direction.

Sometimes I am OK to put that kind of negativity out into the universe, but I don’t actually feel too bad about where I’m at right now. I feel excited. I am referring to being in LA, but I am also referring to everything else.

I am confident things will only continue to get better. I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because I have wedged EFT tapping into every free moment of my day, and I have been habitual about playing positive morning affirmations on YouTube before I open my eyes for the day. Because I did all this self-work and diverging from the beaten path, the positive affirmations sometimes resonate. I feel grateful when I hear “I Am making my dreams come true” early in the video, because I kind-of feel that way lately. If I played this video 3 years ago, in my NYC corporate-era, I’d probably want to roll off my bed and out of my 4th story bedroom window. I did not want to admit I had dreams, let alone try to make them come true.

Whether the video resonates that morning or not, I usually rip off my eye-mask-hat and get out of bed ready to start a task. Usually. Sometimes I fall back asleep, which is a treat, and let the affirmations pinball deep into my subconscious. And sometimes my coping skills don’t work at all. Sometimes, when I’m using cope, it’s more obvious that I actually very much need the tactics, rather than the fact they’re supposed to help me. In noticing this, I’ve learned to ride this feeling out. The figure of speech is: a roller coaster. And roller coasters end, and I’m not even at an amusement park, I am at home, alone.

My mood rarely has to do with actual reality.

Life seems to slap me around pretty easily, generally speaking. That is both in a positive direction and in a negative one. Right now, I am slapped positive. During the week leading up to my move, I was slapped negative. But I did it, and I moved, and people have texted me that I’m glowing, and I actually feel the type of way where I’d believe that. Now I just have to worry about getting a follow up text from my mom and dad, asking if I’m sleeping.

(Being happy and excited for life is a confusing and honestly, a pretty scary/concerning feeling for me, in light of the bipolar experience.)

I like to think that my commitment to my cope-skills help me with resilience. It’s like a good skincare routine. I also put myself through well-planned suffering, which I would liken to a microdermabrasion treatment/ laser/ anything else that people are doing these days. The goal is to come out on the other side looking perfect, feeling perfect, and being happily surprised when you don’t see the flaws that you accidentally look for. That you’ve grown so possessed by, if you’re anything like me.

I don’t like to point out what I’m trying to hide, per se, but my big bad insecurity is my skin-texture. And I’ve been thinking about my skin texture a lot lately. I do this when I start thinking about myself in a room full of people. Especially new people, potentially people who have never seen acne scars on an otherwise pretty girl before. I entangle my deep inner-self, the spirit possessing my body, with the little pocks on my cheeks (which is fucked up, and not very gods-image of me). They nestled there during high-school during a health-issue phase I’ve since overcome, and I still worry that they will hold me back from anything and everything I’ve ever wanted. I should be grateful that I no longer suffer from acne, and that the scars aren’t as pitted as they used to be. But I often catch glimpses of my skin texture before I can see the actual shape of my face, or my features. I worry that I’m ugly, and it makes me antisocial. I guess it doesn’t help when I look in reflective surfaces to check if the light is making my skin look worse than usual. I think of an orange peel in my minds eye. I aim for big pores and nothing worse. Nothing to look deeper at. Just an orange peel.

On the shuttle from Vail to the Denver Airport, I had to force my gaze past my shitty-skin-texture reflection in the window and focus on the sunrise hitting the trees. I did not play any music, and I sometimes heard the chorus of a pop-song on the staticy shuttle radio. The driver had curled hair and I tried to force my gaze past her swollen fingers, out the windshield, at the view. I felt very at peace, and I finally felt the feeling of Excitement. I haven’t been excited like this in a really long time. I almost had a new definition for the feeling.

This was a huge relief after my week of self doubt and my packing panic-attack (which was entirely about putting things in a bag, and nothing to do with planning, moving, or self image).

The mountains do look less sharp in the summer. They are most beautiful between 6-8 am and 6-8 pm, as most things often are. Even mid-day, when things are usually bleached ugly by the whitest version of the sun, the mountains look nice. But I’m glad my final viewing of Vail, before getting to LA, is orange-glow trees on half-illuminated mountains. The greens and the blues look good. I approve.

When I first moved to Vail, the mountains looked scary, and I felt small and crushable. There are no leaves in November, and the evergreen trees looked dulled out. I’m not sure if they were, and I’ll never double-check. I won’t ever go to the mountains during the shoulder season. Too depressing.

Truthfully, I was in a resting state of panic, homesickness, and unease. I didn't regret my decision enough to pull out and move home, but I was crying often and thinking: What the Actual fuck. Everything looked extra-ugly and strangers seemed way sketchier than the strangers back home.

Things looked better in my Vail-apartment towards the end, maybe because I was desensitized, or maybe because I knew I was leaving. I’m really glad that my Vail-lease was punctuated with the summertime, with lots of beautiful wildflower hikes and alpine views. I’m also glad that there was a big stupid bear attacking the bear-locked trash cans below my window, for hours through the night and early morning. I’m glad there was a moth infestation in my apartment, I’m glad there was no AC, and I’m glad that I noticed the dishes weren’t done and the kitchen floor wasn’t wiped down unless I was the one to do it. It made the place easier to leave.

And I feel slightly nostalgic, even. It feels good to leave things off on that kind of note. Where everything looks pretty and familiar, and you checked off enough bucket-list items to feel accomplished, and yet the thing-as-a-whole was still not entirely up to standard. Not everything always will be. But I know I can get closer to the standard/lifestyle I’m looking for. Like, at least now I actually do know what I’m looking for.

Another thing: The morning drive from Vail to Denver Airport made me proud to be an American. I am also proud that I am experiencing living in multiple different parts of America. Americana Redemption Tour. I went to France last summer, and in Marseille there was an American-themed vintage shop. The shop owner told us in broken English that it was her dream to visit America, to see the cowboys. I thought to myself about how I am an American, and I hadn’t really seen America as the land of the wild-west and the cowboys. I wondered why she wasn’t excited to see New York City, or the charming New England architecture that I personally love the most. But now that I’ve experienced Colorado-Cowboy life, I feel proud of myself, and I think about that French lady. I’m proud I got through the experience that people dream of, and I am Super American. I am proud I coordinated a sublease in LA, and I’m proud I pulled off the packing-situation.

I am proud that I’m “All Over the place”, according to my Nana, because it means I’m pulling something off. My Mom even started calling me a “wanderer”. I think this is what she is telling people, to make me sound good and kind-of mysterious. She used to brag about my job in Private Equity. Even though I was on the marketing side of things, which isn’t the same brag. And I actually don’t thing I’m “wandering”. I’m pretty goal-oriented in my moving around, even if the move is meant to answer a question.

So I wouldn’t live in Vail again, but I’m glad I did. I've been seriously chewing on the two-things-true-at-once lessons I’ve been learning. I’m getting used to being less brag-worthy and more faith-based.

I like the mountains. But I am a mountain-visit type of person, not a mountain-life type of person. Mountains are cool, but intense. I think its brag-worthy that I lived there, but if you are Actually a mountain person, you could probably guess I would not have stayed. Mountain people are a little bit more outdoorsy, a little bit more gritty, and a little bit more hard-core than I am. I wouldn’t have otherwise known that, if not for the year lease. I would’ve fantisized about mountain life forever, imagining the version of myself that never got to live her truth. So I lived it, and I’m proud of myself for cutting the cords and jumping the ship and doing the things I’d regret not doing. I learned a little bit more about what my truth actually is.

For example: I do like an active outdoor lifestyle. Which means walking out the door and accessing nature. Like, specifically getting somewhere you can spend the day in nature, within 20-30 minutes. An option. I like good foliage (or just good landscaping). I like a good library and a nice neighborhood walk. I like museums and galleries and intentional-design. I like community. I really like cities. I like being close to friends and family. I like Feeling like I’m close to Things Happening, Innovation and creativity. But I didn't actually know any of this before, because I was just living on default-mode. So I auto-opted in, and opted out, and am opting back in, with the toggles set up.

And in saying this, I don’t wanna be that person who can’t stop talking about how they were transformed by an experience. Like the people who go to Burning Man, and make sure you know it. I guess I sometimes am that person, but it’s less to tell you about myself, and more to offer a word of wisdom in learning about yourself. I hope that comes across, without me saying it. But I did want to clarify.

In LA, am excited to start focusing on building my social life back up. I let that slip for about a year or so. Which says a lot, because social-life used to be the most important thing to me (and about me, I thought). I’ve always had good friends, or lots of plans, or both.

Even though I had finally made a good-quality long-term-type friend in Vail, who I could hang out with for long periods of time, multiple days a week, the singular friendship wasn’t enough to make me stay. Maybe if I’d accomplished other things for myself that I still am setting out to do. Friendship transforms a place. A certain kind of friendship does, at least.

I say that because I did make a good handful of casual friendships during the winter in Vail. But the one that feels more long-term made me almost for a second consider staying. Last year, my therapist and I discussed my willy-nilly use of the word “friend”, and how that embarrassed me. Some people are just people you know, or acquaintances. “Friend” holds weight. And I do want to use the word as it’s meant to be used. So I had one friend in Vail, and I’ll go back and visit her, and ski, and be grateful that we met.. But the truth is, I actually don’t like the highway that runs through Vail, and staying any longer would’ve been the more-aimless move, anyways. But I was genuinely sad to be leaving that relationship/lifestyle combo. I loved that my social life was unfolding to revolve around hiking and skiing, or doing random exploring, or otherwise visiting my long-term long-distance friends in their respective cities.

I also like that part of my social life involves going on vacation, to visit with friends and travel, two birds with a stone.

But I don’t want to always be on vacation. I want a comfortable home base, where I want to participate in community, and enjoy the company of people who have good conversations and aspirations and good heads on their shoulders. And I wonder if I will find that in LA.

While I was packing, I was playing FaceTime roulette with everyone in my favorited-contacts list, begging for someone to relieve me from my packing-induced panic attack. I asked one of the lucky-callers if packing also makes her feel like she is going to die. She told me No, but clarified that it’s likely because she don’t suffer the same afflictions as me. This best friend has framed my intense reactions to things as “sensitivities” in the past, which I thought was sweet. I am sensitive to a lot of things, and I am theatrical about my delivery.

My friends meet with equal theatrics, in the way that they have showed up to my parents house with stuffed animals and “Get Well Soon” cards during my manic episode/s. My friends answer my psych-ward phone-calls, playing-along as I Wail about Escape.

I also read into my families reactions in a very sensitive way. I tend assume their emotions revolve around me, the way I tend to assume the world revolves around me. I feel their disproval of my decisions like God casting me down from the palace entrance, shoving me off the fluffy light blue clouds, directly into hell. Which is a big reason why I didn’t really want to move to LA last August. My parents lived in Manhattan Beach when I was born, and they’re not subtle about their disdain for LA, or for California in general. So last August,, when I spent the month on my best friends couch in Santa Monica, I made a great playlist of poached music, and fucked right off to Colorado instead. Which was a relief for my parents, and a slight betrayal of my friend. In fact, I think I just now earned back her trust, or at least the conviction of my words and promises.

I am slowly finding more and more people who I feel similar to, and who I don’t want to disappoint. I am not that similar to my parents, and I don’t really want to plan my life to mirror their life. I don’t think they’ll be disappointed, as long as im successful. But they are very invested in my success, and they like to push it via the avenues they themselves have traveled. My parents are OG business, OG Vanilla, cheerleader-football player types of people. And I love my parents, and their friends, and the lifestyle they built around me. But my parents use words like eccentric and artistic and goofy to describe why I’m slightly-off beat. Not like, repulsively so. Only slightly. But enough that it could use a well-selected word to explain things.

I am growing towards the types of people who share these same words in their adjectives box. People who don’t share the same adjectives are good at making me feel like an outcast weirdo. Still, I wouldn’t adjective swap with them. I like the adjectives my parents bestow upon me. Because my parents love me, and they choose nice words. Even if they are mad at my decisions, because they aren’t the decisions they would choose for themselves.

I wonder if my parents would try to use my adjectives to describe themselves. Probably not. My parents pride themselves on how grounded and in touch with reality they are, and to call themselves by my adjectives would be delusional (I say this with a certain smugness, by the way).

My other best friend that showed up with stuffed animals and get-well cards is also the type of friend who picks me up at LAX, who goes to dinner and splits the best things on the menu, who goes on a long walk after dinner, and continues walking past the short cut, because I asked. We have fun in grocery stores together and she helps me read labels on food and products, because we are honest about wanting to be skinny as much as we want to be healthy. She carries the things I can’t hold in my arms when we forget to grab a cart. She loves my sublet, and coos over the intellectual book shelf display. She is a great reader, and tells me information openly, without judging why I wouldn’t know it. She corrects me when I mispronounce words, and sometimes trains me like a dog to get me to pronounce things right. I don’t know why pronunciation is such a big problem for me.

She discovers empty desk drawers in my sublet, She folds up my clothes and helps me decide how to layer my outfits on the collapsing rack left out for me. She was stylish and brand-aware long before I ever was, and told me what Van Cleef and Cartier meant when we first became friends in college. She is embarrassed when the Cartier birthday-gift ring makes it into a photograph on my stories, even though she still wears it every day. I remember when she got that ring, and I remember feeling proud to have it featured in my instagram stories my sophomore year of college. Mostly because she had taught me what it meant to the other people at Villanova, from Westchester, with money. She taught me before she got it for her birthday.

My best friend is excited about my new LA chapter because of what it means for me, and because of what it means for her. Even despite the fact that it’s far from her, and I don’t have a car to bridge the gap. Even though I did that little fake out last summer.

She told me Silver Lake will be Hot as Fuck this week, compared to the paradise by the beach. There is a heatwave in LA that started on the day of my arrival, and my best friend was using this to push her West Side agenda. She has lived in Santa Monica for the past few years, and I am essentially moving to a different city with my choice to sublet on the East Side. If I were going back to NYC, I’d be looking to live in Brooklyn. To me, Silver Lake is Brooklyn. Brookyn of LA, and I say that out loud. For years, I have told her and everyone else that I don’t care about the beach. I grew up at the beach, my family books tropical beach vacations more than any other type, and I get overwhelmed by sand. I do like the ocean, but I do not like the Pacific Ocean. It’s too cold. And I know brutal city heat, after living and working through a handful of NYC summers. I think I’ll be fine.

My best friend who lives in LA is Natalie, by the way. Our senior year of college, we visited Natalie’s older sister in Venice. Natalie’s older sister went to NYU, and she’s smart about things like Cities and Places, in the way that NYC people often are. She showed us an itinerary that made me love LA. I had moved to the Bay Area for 6 months and had literally no friends, so I frequented LA by plane and by a long, brutal drive down the I5, multiple times. I couldn’t really tell if I liked LA at this point. I said things like: LA seems great for people in their thirties who don’t want to feel old. I’d say this hungover, over Lala land matcha. I’d say this while posting upwards of 20 instagram stories of random artsy-looking corners around Venice and WeHo (depending which lease I was visiting her during).

I was also trying really hard to bender in LA during this time of my life, and it felt like the city inherently rejected that kind of behavior. Or at least the sides of the city that we were exposed to. When I moved back to the East Coast from my short stint in the bay area, I made 2-3 more trips to LA. One with my boyfriend at the time, who was going on business (not a sober trip), one with our mutual best-friend (sober trip) and once by myself (sober trip). I liked LA most on my sober trips. Which led me to eventually conclude that LA might be a great place to enjoy my new sober lifestyle. Plus, I’m nearing my thirties, and I don’t want to feel old.

I am sure there are things I say now that I will train myself to be aware of in LA. Like, when I lived in the Bay Area, I learned that you do not say “San Fran” if you’re a cool person. You say SF, or you lock in and say the whole big word: San Francisco. I am a freshman in LA basically, so I do feel like I would benefit from keeping quiet, and from learning. So I don’t say any embarrassing short-cut phrases. But I took a short cut on my walk back from the Silver-Lake reservoir, up a big flight of stairs similar to the ones I’ve scaled in the Palisaides, and I realized I do know a good bit about LA. Or rather, I am an observant person, and I’ve lived enough places and formed enough opinions to be able to weigh in on my personal experience with LA. Like the fact that I will not have a car for a bit, and that I’m coming from NYC and before that the Jersey Shore. I am sober and I am educated and I am working in food service, despite that education. I feel like I am allowed to say whatever I feel about my LA experience, and I shouldn’t feel shy about it. I say that, too, because someone was just quoting Eve Babitz to me, and I understood her take, but I actually didn’t resonate. My LA is not going to be Eve Babitz LA. It’s my LA. The same way New York City was my NY, and Villanova was my Villanova. It’s fun when people relate, but I actually just want to relay things as I see them, not for the sake of being relatable, per se.

I do think I am paving the way for some people. I think this because I have gotten a bunch of DMs over the past few days. Not that I’m glowing, necessarily (maybe), but that I’m inspiring them to move to the new city alone. I’ve been trying to answer many questions in full, via comment and DM. I enjoy doing things that inspire other people to do things. I enjoy being very wordy about my inner world on my personal blog, so that curious people can really immerse themselves in my tangential (But not aimless) rambles.

And this blog is starting to feel aimless, now, because I have edited it and retyped it in the process several times now, over the past few days.

At intervals over the past few weeks, I’ve felt my heart racing and my skin crawling. I do not feel that way right now, which is important to communicate.

I felt that way at my parents house in NJ, and at my crummy carpeted apartment in Colorado.

I despise the feeling of aimlessness. When I think through the steps and the plans and the intentions, I know I’m not actually aimless. I feel intense relief and pride some days, when I think about how I’ve rerouted my life in pursuit of dreams. And I like sharing about that, knowing it’s either inspiring or comforting someone else who feels similar. Or someone who doesn’t, but wants to. With that, I am trying really hard not to conflate my self worth and my potential for success with my online presence, or a few positive DMs. I am trying to remind myself often that the Real World is more important than the online world, and that I am going to be a Writer that publishes Real books you can Hold and talk about at Book Clubs. Not just someone you can screenshot and follow and unfollow and block and roast on forums.

And I have been writing. I am working on the first draft of a book that I wrote the week-before-during-and after my best friends wedding in Portugal. All of my friends know about this, so I am committed by my own determination, and by the social pressure. I’ve been telling my parents every time I’m typing up what I had written in my dedicated book-notebook (the silky maroon one with the peacock feather print). It’s a good thing that I’m working on this book, actually. It was the main argument that convinced my parents I was OK to quit corporate. The Book. My redemption. The Book, that will deliver me from credit card debt, and ideally make me lots and lots of money.

I also got to tell everyone in Portugal that I was going to LA immediately upon my return, which felt good rolling off my tongue. I kinda freaked out when my original sublease fell through, because I had already told everyone. I found another studio-sublease pretty quickly, but in the short lapse of time, I started questioning myself. I gave myself an out, with the shorter lease. That’s what I told myself. I started leaning in to my out: going back to my parents house in New Jersey, waitressing in Asbury Park (it’s cool town, if you care for a day trip from the NYC area. Just trust me). I have a large credit card bill that I need to pay off, and my back-up plan seemed to directly address that. Plus, my parents liked hearing that I’d more-than-likely flake out of LA and buzz straight home. My parents love me! And there were times they didn’t!

I’ve been EFT tapping about money, too. I have spent the summer unemployed, living off ski-job severance money (Thank you Vail Resorts budget cuts). And I’m in credit card debt. I’ve been in credit card debt before, and I am not too worried about it, because Future Me will take care of Me Now. (My dad literally hates this mentality I’ve adopted, but I have a lot of faith in it. Plus, there’s no use in being anxious over debt, in my opinion. People kill themselves over that kind of anxiety. So I’ll opt out of worrying, and I’ll just fix it as soon as I can). My parents have always been strict on my brother and I about having jobs. We both worked at Surf Taco together, actually. I’ve worked at juice-bars and vegan restaurants, and I’ve waitressed during every phase of my life. If I haven’t recommended this before, I’ll recommend it again: get food service experience ASAP. It’s the best money, and you can work anywhere. Which means you can travel and live anywhere. It means that you can quickly pay off credit card debt. Especially if you move home with your parents, and serve tables from there, rent free, no food bills, no rebuying shampoo or olive oil.

But for now, I am just emailing restaurants my resume and hoping I wind up somewhere cool, with a friendly team. Ideally a cool and friendly team, who I could see myself hanging out with outside of work.

I probably sounded really on top of my shit when I emphasized how happy I am Right Now, how my manifestation-cope-skills actually work, how great my Reclusive Sigma Vail Mountain Retreat went, how I’m basically magic. If you closely follow my instagram stories, you’d know that this has been a cope-response to my general feeling of panic, fear, guilt, and aimlessness. And I do have goals, but they’re longer term than monthly, or even yearly. I have not had a success story yet, by my definition of the word. But it’s important that I keep making decisions that inch me closer. So I guess I am feeling better because I actually made a decision, and now I am committed to enjoying that decision. I am allowed to enjoy my stay in LA for a month and leave, and I am allowed to extend my stay and put down some roots. Both options carry a note of accomplishment to me. I don’t think where I am is as important to my success as my intention behind being there. I never want to stay somewhere long enough to become aimless.