Keeping that one part of me still alive
Little over eight years ago I decided to stay in Los Angeles for good.
A year earlier, the day before Christmas Eve 2005, I had a major burnout.
I was driving home from a script meeting with my mom, when I felt that the future was a black hole that was going to eat me.
Not a symbolic “there’s no way out” black hole, but a real cosmic black hole.
Today I can’t imagine how I could have taken that thought seriously, but I did.
Twelve months preceding my bizarre black hole experience, I had worked my ass off, traveling 12 times abroad and living on protein shakes and energy drinks.
In hindsight, it wasn’t the workload that had pushed me over the edge, but my own thinking and fucked up emotional life.
But back then, in 2006, when I was recovering from the burn out, I thought I would never ever want to write anymore. Not for work at least.
I also didn’t think I'd survive another dark winter in Finland, so I escaped to California sun.
I wanted to reinvent myself and started working as an assistant.
My first assistant job was at the legendary Hollywood night club. Then I worked as a personal assistant for an eccentric music lover. Finally, I became an assistant for a small agency for commercial DOPs and production and costume designers.
It was my beloved eccentric boss who renamed me “Kat”.
She liked the sound of it better than my real name “Katri”, which no American could pronounce right anyway.
I liked the name too. It felt light and fun and snappy.
Plus baristas at Coffee Bean and Starbucks didn’t spell wrong “Kat with K” as often as they misspelled “Katri”.
So I started introducing myself as “Hi! I’m Kat… from Finland”.
(That last part saved me from question “where’s that cute accent of yours from?”)
During my second year and third job in L.A. it started to dawn on me that working as an assistant wasn’t what I was born to do.
I returned to Finland for “a vacation” and went to see a few of my old producers. At the end of 2008, I was already back in Finland working as a screenwriter.
To me my two years in Los Angeles were kind of Narnia experience — a magical and weird place. I had a crazy adventure, just to return home changed.
A classic hero’s journey, if you will.
A few months after I returned to Finland I met "The Man". He made me laugh harder than any other man had.
We just celebrated our 7th New Year’s Eve together. We have to sons, 5-year-old and almost 2-year-old.
Most of the time I love living in Finland. I like being near my relatives and Finnish friends.
But I often feel like one part of me is still in Los Angeles.
I want to keep that part alive.
That’s what this blog is for.
Thank you for reading.