This week marked 18 years since I moved to LA. As I’ve mentioned in my other LA anniversary posts, I moved out here to go to college and I’ve never left. It’s always felt like home to me and I’ve been happy here. I never thought about leaving and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It feels like I was always meant to live here.
I mentioned in my birthday post that this pretty much splits my life into half. With half my life being in the Bay Area and half my life in LA. I think technically it will be a few more weeks before it’s really half and half, but that’s just a technicality at this point. I do see my life as half in one place and a half in another. But at the same time, I still can’t believe that I have been in LA for half my life. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long and at the same time, it’s hard to remember when I didn’t live here.
It feels like I’ve lived a million different lives since I moved here. I started out as a pretty typical college student. I think that only lasted my first year of college because by my sophomore year I was taking a lot of acting classes outside of college. By doing that, I earned college credits and was able to graduate early. Then I had a few different day jobs before taking a “real job” for a while. I was miserable at that job and was going to quit when I found out I would be getting laid off in a few months (my boss was awesome and let me know when I told him I was thinking of leaving). After that, I lived off unemployment for a while and tried to focus completely on acting. Then I had to try to find a balance with day jobs and acting. Doing that took several years and more day jobs than I would like to remember. Finally, for the past few years, I’ve had a sense of stability and have been able to try to find a few other things in life to focus on because I need to have more of a life than just work.
In the 18 years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen a lot of friends move here and leave. Some left because they got an amazing job offer somewhere else. Some of them left because they hated LA. Some moved here to pursue acting and gave themselves a very strict timeline and refused to budge if they didn’t reach the level of success they felt they needed by their deadline and left. I’m proud of myself for sticking it out because it’s not easy. I’m not judging the people who have left because they all had valid reasons for leaving. They wouldn’t be a reason I would leave, but the reasons I stay wouldn’t be reasons they would stay either. I am sure I could have a much easier life living somewhere else and doing something else, but I don’t think it would be a happier life. And I have realized that my happiness, at least for now, it more important than having an easy life.
Just like I’ve said in other timeline or milestone posts, this is not where I thought my life would be at this point. I had no clue where I would be after 18 years in LA. I don’t even think I thought about it. But to think about the friends, adventures, and memories that I have gained in those 18 years is pretty amazing and I am proud of what I have accomplished. It hasn’t all been positive, but the positive definitely outweighs the negative.
Just like I didn’t think 18 years ago where I would be now, I’m not going to try to predict where I will be in 18 years. The only thing I will hope is that I will still be happy (and hopefully still happy in LA). Life has taken so many interesting twists that I can’t even try to guess where things will be in 18 months (or at this rate, 18 days). But I know that as long as I keep moving forward and making sure that I am staying true to myself and focusing on what makes me happy, things will turn out the way they should and hopefully I will have dozens of more LA anniversaries.
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