DEAR 20's: Twenty-Two To LA
Dear Twenty-Two,
You’re scared. Actually more like terrified. It’s the last week of February, icy grey snow blankets the ground and it’s time to either shit or get off the pot. All of your belongings (or what you haven’t sold or given away) are finally out of the apartment you can no longer afford and you’ve taken up temporary residence in Ma’s living room. You say you’re leaving.
It was just the previous October that you sat outside the Clark Avenue Starbucks and listened as your boyfriend declared your misery had become palpable. Jas, you’re stuck. Chicago isn’t for you. You want more than your blue-collar hometown can offer and quietly, you’ve been thinking about LA. The feast or famine life of production is wearing. Besides you know deep down if you really want to give Film & Television Producing a shot, Los Angeles is where you need to be. But on that unusually warm morning last fall this all seemed like a daydream – something you talk about but never actually planned to do.
Then autumn turned to winter and the bottom fell out. All of the production jobs dried up, seems you couldn’t buy a temp gig and you got your first real taste of just how hard adulthood can get. Funny how that happened, right? You don’t realize it now Jas, but that was The Universe stripping away all of your excuses. And it’s led you here, to the living room.
Dad has just left – angrily – as you sit surrounded by your entire life reduced to three bags, in tears. Everyone supports your move except him. And his support is what you think you need the most. Your father wants you to stay, find a ‘real job’, ‘grow up’ and handle your business like everyone else. He says you’re being unrealistic, stupid even and stormed out after calling you ‘trash.’
I know. We’re Daddy’s girl. Who is this man? And why all the sudden does he hate us? It’s devastating when someone you’ve relied on your entire life is suddenly no longer on your side. It makes you doubt…well, everything. Like you’re doing right now. Maybe this is a dumb idea. You barely know the cousins in Compton you’ve arranged to stay with, you only have a few thin leads for work and including the insurance bond Ma helped you cash out, you’re moving across the country with less than $1000 to your name. He doesn’t get it. But do you? Your gut says this will work. And that Jas is the point. And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk to blossom*.
Almost a decade later, I sit here thinking about you on that morning in February and what I want to tell you is this: You’re doing the right thing. You can’t see it now but one day you’ll look back on this moment and realize by disapproving, Daddy has unknowingly given you the greatest gift he possibly could. The most important decisions in our lives are ours to make alone. This is your life, your approval matters more than anyone else. What you’re feeling – that overwhelming need for change – is real. It matters none that you’re the only one that can see it, because that really is enough.
The unshakable feeling in your gut is the voice that comes from the purest place and it trumps everyone: your friends, your partner, even your father. Learn to look for it, learn to expect it and understand that when that voice says move, you move. When it says stay, you hold. Trust it because when no one around you sees the vision, that voice is all the assurance you’ll need.
Trust me, Dad doesn’t hate you. He’s scared. His baby is moving 2000 miles away and there is nothing he can do about it. He knows he can’t stop you and believe it or not, this makes him just as proud as it does fearful. But sometimes the people that love us hurt us when they can’t think of anything else to do. Remember that love and forgiveness are one and the same. It’ll be ok. By summer he’ll be out to visit and you’ll get to know him not as your father, but as Joe. Though that’s a story for another time.
I wish I could tell you LA is going to be easy. It won’t be. I wish I could tell you, you’ll soon find your groove but honestly, that will be many years to come. Oh and that boyfriend who supported your move, even rode with you to the train and shed real tears as he watched you pull away? We’ll talk another time about how that all played out. But often what we think is the end of the world is really the start of a better one. Take my word for it, everything works out in the end.
On that cold morning in February 2003 you don’t know any of this yet, but you will.
Now get back to packing. You’ve got a train to catch.
Love,
You
*Anais Nin