It's a different city: the streets are packed with teslas and range rovers, the parking lots aren't littered with tents and half built ply wood "homes" on a good day if the breeze is right I can smell the ocean, any type of cuisine can be mine with $15 dollars and a short drive. But my favorite part is the people.... surprising for a city where reality has long been forgotten, even though most of my clients are on "reality" TV and girls make money from the heavily edited bikini pictures on there oh so curated Instagram feeds, the people i've met in my first Two months here have been the best i've met in years. I've said in the past 5 years "I don't do friends" because of my irrational fear of abandonment, I say "irrational" because no one in there 20's really abandons you they just move on and it wasn't until recently that I realized I've done that to many people who I called friends but I couldn't be the perpetrator could I? Wrong. I have been, between moving from coast to coast to my last minute camping trips when I had prior commitments but my heart was aching and the woods were calling. I've left everyone so why did I think I deserved some "ride or die" friend group who always picked up the phone. I always thought "I'd do anything for the people in my life" when in reality I only did it when it was convenient, when I wasn't acting as if I was in Eat. Pray. Love. where I got to pack up and move whenever I felt like it but everyone else had to wait. This city is my newest project, I did New England than "van life" than my home town in the pacific northwest and now on to the land of movie "magic" and stunning lights. A city where every one has a gimmick, ah the men I meet

"I came out here to do Music, but I got stuck in the event gig now I'm a coordinator" or

"I came out here to be an actor but now I edit podcast for Youtubers" and then they ask me "why are you in LA?" and I say with my whole chest "It's my next project" and they look at me bewildered as if they expected me to say excitedly "I want to hold a boom mic for a failing NBC sitcom!" sometimes when I'm looking to get a reaction I say "my dream is to show my boobs in a student film" which is ACTUALLY on my to-do list while I'm here.

I've always felt that the places I live are just projects, what can I gain? what experiences can I get myself into HERE that I can't do anywhere else, And I go into these new places with no expectation or rather LOW expectations because I'd rather expect the worst than expect something amazing to happen and be disappointed. The morning of my move here I sobbed so hard on the drive to my new job, I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to move again, to restart, to have to rebuild my life as I had already done 3 times before in the last 5 years. But I had no choice, I was living in a small mountain town with my parents, going to beauty school and working at a chain restaurant and I thought cosmetology was going to be my career, I'd graduate and move back to Portland or New England and finally have a normal life. Until 6 months into school I decided to hop on the dating apps and meet some LA guys as the city was only 2 hours from my parents house and as my luck would have it I met the worst one out there. I won't give him much credit because yes he's an asshole and he hurt my feelings (which is not a hard task) but he could have been anyone. When I decide I like someone I'm ready to risk it all and I know what you're thinking..... no I in fact did NOT move to LA for him. I moved to LA DESPITE him. When my heart breaks I have an uncontrollable urge to run, usually it's running away from the person but this time was different, I'd spent time with him in LA and fell in love with the city so when he tore my heart out and shit on it I decided LA was MINE not his, and that's where I was going, it is the 2nd biggest city in the country after all so he could have his corner and even if I went into it I'd PROBABLY never run into him.

My first few weeks at the new job were rough, I was lonely and drinking every night and sometimes going to bars to do drugs with strangers only to wake up in my apartment every morning sobbing because I wanted someone with me. Thats when the magic happened one of those sobbing mornings I decided.... It's time to go to the beach so I went to the beach and swam in the glorious ocean and soaked up the sun and felt like myself again, at work the next day my coworker asked "what'd you do this weekend" and I giddily replied "I went to the beach!" and he said "with who?"

"ALONE" always alone I thought. Later that week a different coworker said "hey do you wanna come over for dinner tonight?" and I said yes and I met his girlfriend who has the same wonderful mental illness as me and we took shots of vodka and I cuddled with his dog on the couch and they made me feel safe and heard and loved even though we were virtual strangers. Than a few days later I went to the beach and made friends with 3 attractive men and we boogie boarded all day than went out for fish and chips. My female coworker who I admittedly have a crush on asked me to watch her cats for the weekend while she was out of town. I went to my first LA party at my coworkers house where there was a nudist and jungle juice. My point is I started saying yes, yes to PEOPLE not just my own selfish desires and crave for lonely adventures. One of the men on the beach said to me "If you give a little to this city it will give a lot back" so thats why I love the people because it's the first time in my historically insane adult life where I've leaned into people and as these relationships mature I am even learning to lean ON people.

She was the kind of woman who didn't demand much attention, she simply took up her allotted amount of space and oxygen in the world. She didn't mind being walked over or around. There were few things she put up a fight for and I always longed to be one of those few things. Even years later I cannot help but let that longing consume me in times that I am rejected by someone else. Why was she so magnetizing to me? Was it the short stature and gentle movements? Or the simple advice that would travel from her feminine lips to my terrified brain? Was it the way she didn't demand much attention.... The way she just let things be and let the hurt flow into and out of her. While I fought so hard to push any amount of hurt away, until its pushed to the farthest reaches of my psyche. Where it is piled upon every other piece of hurt I've encountered, with the rotting blobs of the word "no." and "You're not the one for me." Next to the memories of hands touching me in ways I never asked for, all while that one phrase she always said still echo's in my head "You get to choose." She still lives in the dark reaches of my mind because I simple cannot let go of that phrase and the longing to be fought for by someone so gentle.