While it's been a lot of beautiful sights and delicious food (I am officially a boba tea snob and can no longer go back to sub-par boba, just sayin'), I have to admit my first year here has been overall tough on many fronts, not just intern year.
First, moving to California was tough. No family or close friends nearby to help, but I was lucky enough to have a family acquaintance relatively close by who kindly accommodated me for a few days while I hunted for an apartment, and then my dad came over for a few days to check my sanity and to help me move in literally for a few hours. I didn't even have a mattress/bed for the first month (or 2 months) of residency, and slept on an air mattress that was actually terribly uncomfortable and in retrospect sleeping on the ground would've been kinder on my back. But somehow I got through it. And now I share a pretty nice junior 1 bedroom apartment with my boyfriend (!!! I know!), and we're still slowly decorating it, making it as swanky as swanky can get on our measly salary.
I think the toughest part of this year though has been figuring out what this next part of my life is really supposed to be about. California's culture, which is pretty different from East Coast culture, is turning out to be the perfect instigator for this change. I realize that back at home, I had a pretty cookie cutter life, and when I arrived here, especially after starting a pretty serious relationship with my boyfriend, I got into the mindset to set up my East Coast life on the West Coast. However, as I painfully realized, Los Angeles just wasn't taking that set up. I wanted it all, right now. The same network of friends I cultivated over a decade, I wanted it ASAP through my barely there efforts made on my sleepy days off every month or so. It just wasn't working out. I blamed the people I was trying to mold into my "best friends," I blamed myself, and I am still kind of blaming the city, ha. I've been such a whiner. But a conversation with a long time friend who's now living in Japan has been so enlightening. When we move to a new place, we have so many expectations, but that's not healthy. We think that the worst case scenario is when we don't end up making lasting roots, and we "fail" and move back home. But, worst case scenario is really not letting yourself enjoy the moments and the adventures that are actually laid out for you. Even if I don't cultivate the same kind of life that I had back on the East Coast, even if I don't come out of this with life long friends, even if I do move back east, the greatest pity would be to leave the place not having made any memories - even if it's with people you only hung out with once, not taking advantage of what this city has to offer, not having lived to the fullest.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ― Joseph Campbell
Have a great week! :)
