oh hey there, look at me sticking to a commitment 2 days in a row! me, i’m so proud of you. i think it helps that i still haven’t quite gotten back onto LA time yet and i keep waking up somewhere between 5am – 6am. my morning routine is not mad at that. my nighttime routine is crying because it is over by 9pm when i am struggling to stay awake during my “stories.” i’m so behind on everything cuz i keep falling asleep!
so let’s see. where do i begin. yesterday was a little tough if i’m being honest to be here in Thousand Oaks. but let me start with the positives first. a positive was that i had to go get blood drawn at Quest Diagnostics, and they had a location that was 6 mins away from here. there was no traffic to get there, and i didn’t have to pay for parking. easy breezy. very little stress.
i had a facial scheduled last night because of valentine’s day (self-care!). and it was scheduled at 5:45p. normally, that would be a 15-20 min commute from my apartment in Culver which means i would have had to pack up a bit early and address the final emails after hours. however, this meant i had to leave at 4:45p minimum because the directions were quoting me 53mins. so i was stressing on the drive down about answering emails, all the while watching the traffic time estimate creep up – so i didn’t actually get there until 5:55p because i was looking for parking, and then i had to pee, and it was like a whole thing. granted, if i lived in this area – the assumption would be that i would probably find personal care people that were local and avoid all this stress. but for now, it’s hard when you’re life is in two places and you’re navigating pleasing people and traffic time estimates that are out of your control. so i learned that i have to leave at least a 15 min pad while commuting from here. noted.
then after the facial, i went to my friend Chelsea’s to have a sushi date for GALENTINE’S, which was great but short. i had sushi and 1 beer because i didn’t want to be too tired / impaired to drive the 45 mins home. and i had to leave at 9:45p when i felt myself getting tired because of then reasons outlined in the first paragraph. so we had basically 1.5 hrs of hang time, whereas before we could have probably stretched that until around 1030/11p. so while nice, it was just short.
so, i don’t know – after a great weekend where i felt so close to this area / central coast, etc. i feel a bit more torn being so far away from the action of the city today. i miss being in the mix a little. it’s just an observation, not going to judge it, just going to note it for today.
a friend of mine once told me that the best way to operate during time periods of transition is to turn worry into wonder. instead of operating with the thought of “i don’t know what will happen today, next week, next month, etc” we get to say “i wonder what will happen today?” it’s how we can turn fear into childlike wonder. and it’s one of the best pieces of wisdom i’ve ever received to try and help my scared little brain walk through change.
so, with that, i let go of judgement and fear. and i bring in wonder.
did i mention that i’m staying at my sister’s place for the next 3 weeks? well, i definitely didn’t because i haven’t written in a while. but i’m telling you now. and i’m underway in the 3 week experiment – a chunk of time i’ve committed to living here in an effort to figure out if moving to thousand oaks, either temporarily or on a more permanent basis, is something that i like. something that i might need, to get me out of LA.
the hard part is, i don’t dislike LA. and i’m not quite sure i’m ready to give up the city. but something does have to change, because i’m not happy. whether it’s as easy as an apartment, or tougher like a city or a job or alas, a career. something, after 2 years of misery and loneliness in “these unprecedented times”, has to change.
so i’m writing here, and going to try and make an effort to write every morning to check in with myself and how i’m feeling about it all so i might have a record to look back on and maybe make sense of the jumbled mess inside my head.
this past weekend was a perfect example of why it’s so great to consider living here. i went to santa barbara with my mom and we took the dogs to the dog beach and then walked around downtown santa barbara. it took us all of 1 hour to get there from here, and 1 hour to get back. we avoided the majority of the traffic, and it was such a pleasant wonderful day. for someone who loves the central coast, it was nice to remember it’s just a hop skip and a jump away. just seemed easy, fun. and then yesterday, i accomplished all the errands i wanted to – car wash, market, target, nails, without having to fight traffic or pay for parking. the stores were largely uncrowded and i was able to do everything i needed. and then i went to my moms to watch the superbowl and it was all very low key and pleasant and lovely.
the thought that keeps plaguing the back of my mind is – am i settling? and i shutting myself off from romance or love because i’m spending too much time with my family? should i have met up with chelsea at her friends house, or gone to a bar to be amongst my LA people. but if i was having fun at my moms, is it ok not to judge it and just accept it for what it is? that i truly wanted to be there and that’s ok?
i just want to make sure that here, i’m still living my life. the one i want. and not getting stuck in a past life because it’s familiar. where am i happiest? where is going to get me what i want?
and that’s the other part. WHAT DO I WANT? i’m giving the universe mixed signals, but it’s because i haven’t quite figured out what’s more important. on one hand, i really would like to meet my forever person, the love of my life, the man who will give me what i’ve wanted more than anything – a child, and we will become a family and be able to buy a house, and make a home in that house and make memories and attend the birthday parties with the other moms and dads where we’ll have a cocktail at 11am while bragging about our kids accomplishments, and then go to home depot because we’ll obviously be renovating something, have some kind of project going on. people at home depot always have some kind of project going on. and we’re in synched on our schedules and date nights and it’s relaxed and easy and we just get and support each other and we grow old together and just are so in love. and on the other hand, i want to travel the world – uninhibited by the responsibilities of kids. and be able to do whatever i want whenever i want. have fun dating, and gain confidence in my sexual abilities. have the time to be able to dedicate to deep self reflection and self care. but as my mom said on saturday, why do those things have to be mutual exclusive? can i live, in the present, uninhibited, until the universe presents me with the time for the other thing. the kid and family thing.
so, i guess the takeaway from today is – i’ve just gotta do monday. i just gotta do valentines day. and that means just living in the present. even if where i’m staying is rooted somewhere in the past, while i work to figure out my future.
here’s the thing about boundaries. they are so hard for me to have, and yet when i do have them i recognize how much better off everyone around me will be.
the last few days have been absolutely brutal with work. starting my day responding to emails the moment i wake up, working until 10pm, eating at my desk, meeting after meeting, charging my phone multiple times a day from the sheer amount of battery power used in talking on it, you get the drift. last night, things started slowing down around 7p so i decided to make dinner and treat myself to binging a few episodes of yellowjackets. mid-way through the first episode at around 8p, i got a text from a producer asking if i wanted to catch up on a job. she had called me the day before when i was on another call, i called her back when i was off and texted her that i was available. she never called me the rest of that day, or anytime during work hours the following day. and now, when i was having non-work time and enjoying my evening, she wanted to talk. i texted her back and asked if it was urgent or if we could catch up tomorrow AM to which she replied we could. and texted a couple more times but i had already set my phone to the side and continued enjoying my evening.
this morning, when i called her back, i was calm and collected. i had rested the night before and was able to chat with her without being annoyed (even though it was super annoying stuff she was calling me about). and i realized – this is why you have boundaries. if you don’t have the mental capacity to deal with something, don’t. take a pause. come back later when you’re ready to deal with it. and it makes you feel good to take care of yourself.
so, boundaries man. they work. they make you feel good. and sometimes people don’t trust your yesses, until you learn how to say no.
i swore to myself i wasn’t going to write one of these 2020 reflection posts, but as i was changing my sheets in preparation for an EPIC NYE clean sheet night, i couldn’t stop my mind from reflecting. maybe it’s the taylor swift, maybe it’s that i actually do need to write this in order to fully purge 2020 from my brain.
this year was challenging, to say the least. i found myself financial insecure for the first time in 8 years. my old friends anxiety, depression, and greif came back for an extended visit. i was terrified, stressed and overworked for most of the year, my self care thrown out the window. i had a horrific plumbing incident in my apartment on my 37th birthday after driving home 7 hours, which i am still fighting my landlord on. with so much in this year so uncertain and scary, having your safe space violated by literal shit was the last straw. i had a relationship end, fully, because i couldn’t emotionally support both of us during the pandemic. i lost my drive to exercise at home. i was ghosted. our family dog penny died after a short battle with kidney failure.
but, i have to say that there were also highlights. i got to travel to NY in january (with ruby!) and curacao in february and spend time with some of my dad’s family. i found a love of film photography. i took a series of screenwriting classes, where i found out that i’m a highly intuitive writer who is amazing with characters but struggles with story development, and was given tools to help (which i’ve still avoided doing because i tend to only do things that come easy to me because pain and growth is hard). i got to officiate my brother’s wedding, and i freaking married people, yo! and gained a new sister in the process. i was able to travel to san francisco and half moon bay, and went on a road trip with my mom and discovered my new favorite town of ferndale. my dermotologist was able to clean up my cystic adult acne and aside from the sugar/gluten/dairy zit i’ve just sprouted today because 2020 had to pop up once more. i watched more shows than ever before, including rewatching girls and mad men which i highly recommend doing over again. i cooked A LOT and found new recipes i make weekly. because i was working from home, i got to go to the farmer’s market in culver city every week in the summer which quickly became a highlight, and got the best tasting peaches and cherries i’ve ever had in my life. i cleaned up graffiti. i discovered how healing the beach and a sunset can be. i had surgery, which was challenging during the recovery but have am now far enough away from it to say that i’m so grateful i was able to do it because i feel so much better. i got to celebrate thanksgiving and christmas with my family, which i will never take for granted again.
and all the firsts! i dyed my hair while facetiming with my hairstylist. i was able to facilitate transferring our workflow to completely remote. i will get my first feature credit ever. i went on a 2 zoom dates! i joined tiktok (and one of my videos went semi-viral!). i stopped putting on makeup. i wrote a cover song. i created and edited a music video, and a few pieces of content. i started to learn premiere. i got a new couch!
i guess it’s important to do these sort of reflection things because without it, i would have just said FUCK 2020 YOU SUCK. but in reality, the good outweighed the bad, even though the bad was so so hard and painful to go through. and yes, i still have visits from my friend anxiety right now. i still compare myself this year to every other person on instagram who seems to be pregnant or buying a house or adopting a dog. but i want to leave that behind in 2020. the comparing. i want to move into acceptance and gratitude of where i’m at, and be ok with the little bit of weight i put on because i emotionally ate and drank for 9 months. and be ok with the fact that i’m not financially in a place to buy a house. and that dating is ROUGH in a pandemic, and if i needed to rely on nostalgia of old flames to get me through, that is ok. i want to love myself, for exactly who i am and exactly where i am in life. because i am enough.
i held out exactly 21 days of november before the holiday spirit crept in and i started to crave the tinny sounds of the charlie brown christmas cd. maybe it was the visit to the grove or west elm or any of the stores that have started to deck themselves out in holiday decorations. but, it really truly made me happy when i put it on.
it’s so funny how music has a way of transporting you back to another time. it’s like time travel without the machine! the charlie brown christmas CD was on REPEAT my senior year of college. i can taste the peppermint mochas from starbucks that i was drinking at the time while trying to cram for finals before christmas break. i can feel the guilt i felt about supporting starbucks because they were a big box corporation and i was a young, woke college student who swore off fast food and giant corporations after watching supersize me and reading the canadian magazine adbusters. funny enough, i just realized i bought that magazine from barnes and nobles. guess even the adbusters gotta make money.
i don’t know what changed that year, but i almost suddenly decided i wanted to work in advertising. did i happen to read “dry” that year, the augusten burroughs novel? it’s quite possible. i was obsessed with running with scissors and it only makes sense where my new love of advertising blossomed. and guess what. i manifested that for myself. indirectly, of course. but i set out to work in advertising and advertising i did. but oh how that college student, so young and hopeful and naive, could see me now.
it was fun at first, advertising. the parties, the glamour. the alcohol. the cute creatives. the trips to NY. weirdly, the most fun i had in my job was when i was making the least amount of money. does anyone else have that? or maybe it’s just a fun time, getting your first job right out of college and being in your 20s when all your friends get together and hang out and there’s so much hope and promise.
not that it’s not like that now. i mean, of course not right right now, pandemic and all. but somewhere in the last few years my tolerance for advertising has waned. the creatives demanding rather than cute. the parties tiresome. not excited by the projects. it’s hard to get it up for advertising these days.
so how do i get my groove back and form a love affair with my job? is it a career change? or is it making myself fall in love with advertising again, and remembering what that 21 year old adbusters reading, charlie brown christmas cd listening, peppermint mocha drinking girl thought she wanted?
i’m writing in hopes that i figure it out. that the answer is somewhere buried deep within me, under the layers of fear and shame and doubt and guilt. why guilt? guilt is always there, whether i want it or not. so here’s night 1 of the experimentation. the what do i want experiment. the help, i’ve fallen and i can’t get up experiment. the falling in love with life and finding joy again experiment.
