Four years

California, I couldn’t understand why on earth people wanted to live here. If there weren’t earthquakes there were mudslides, if there weren’t fires there was intense drought. In fact in grade school social studies class I learned that it was predicted that there would be an earthquake so fierce that California would eventually fall into the Pacific. (Maybe Porfirio Diaz knew that when he sold the land to the U.S. for a million dollars.)

Why am I here in this city destined to fall into the sea?

Was it manifest destiny that made me pack up all of the belongings I could carry on a de-iced plane from MSP to LAX four years ago? Was it that I wanted to become an actress/model/recording star? No, it was none of those things.

I honestly had not done anything outside of my comfort zone since going to an arts based high school. Not since sixteen, that is way too long to go without risking something big. I didn’t want to be on my deathbed in the Powderhorn, Cochran or Hale Page neighborhood and think to myself “Wow, I haven’t done anything risky since I was a teenager. Who is going to feed all of my cats”

I was told by people before I had moved that Los Angeles would eat me alive, I guess I am here to say four years later that maybe I am not that tasty.