image from: RedCarpetTips.com
Fifteen years ago I moved to Los Angeles. After paying first and last months’s rent on a studio in Los Feliz I had exactly $250 left in my checking account.
I moved to California on a bit of a whim. I had become exhausted looking for creative work in New York, had graduated from the acting conservatory, and my roommate in Park Slope was starting med school and moving into the city.
I had zero fears about taking a leap. I was young, I was excited.
I was certain that somehow I would land on my feet.
Here is how you know that I was fearless:
1. that studio apartment in Los Feliz? I rented it without ever seeing it.
2. I moved to LA without a car
3. I moved to LA without a job
4. I moved to LA knowing exactly three people who lived there
One of the reasons why I rented the apartment in Los Feliz was because it was one block away from the famous Dresden Room. I thought it would be so CLEVER of me to become at a regular at this place. Marty and Elayne would great me like Norm every time I strutted to the bar, I would become buddies with all of the staff and they would begin mixing my cosmo as soon as they saw me…
Big dreams, right?
The first weeks I lived in LA was right out of a comedy. I had no car so I had to rely on those three friends to pick me up to take me places. Those three friends consisted of a girl I went to college with, a boy I was “kinda/ sorta/ depended on the day” dating and his roommate. We had all, at one point, lived in the same dorm in New York.
The girl was the daughter of a famous cinematographer. Her family was bold, loud, large, and welcoming. I had dinner at their home almost every night in my early LA days. We would sit outside gathered around a large table and the food would be amazing and the wine would be wonderful. Every night there were guests – it wasn’t just me. The other guests were mostly film people: directors, producers, actors.
I soaked it all in. Silly banter and passing the salt to academy award winners was my new life.
The boy I was dating was working as a production assistant. Mostly commercials. He worked on shoots that lasted 18 hours in a row. When he wasn’t working he would pick me up and we would go back to his apartment and play Tetris for 5 hours and work on perfecting the recipe for the best bbq chicken pizza. Very romantic, right?
His roommate was one of the funniest people I knew. We both worked the late shift at the front desk of the dorm in NYC and I still laugh about some of the absurd 2am moments. He had landed a job as an intern at a production company on a studio lot and was working on finishing a film he started his senior year.
The 2nd month that I lived in LA my Grandfather loaned me $500 to buy a car. I bought a 1983 VW Rabbit from a man who was being deported. It was a convertible and very temperamental but I loved it. Once I had a car I was able to seriously look for work and a day after registering at a temp agency I was sent out to work.
The 4th month that I lived in LA I got a cat and a job at a production office. (yes. The same one that my friend interned for.) I clicked into ambition and was recharged by working long hours. By the 5th month that I lived in LA you would not have recognized me.
Over the holidays, on a whim, I decided to rewatch Felicity.
(I only made it to the end of season 2.)
While rewatching the show all of these memories flooded back. College life in New York, the close group of friends that had funny overlaps, the angst, the romance, the drama, the hope, and most of all – the bravery.
For the last several days I have been sweetly nostalgic for my early 20′s. I can not imagine what my 20 year old self would think about me now. I think she would be sad for me, curious about the single mother stuff, shocked that I lived with my Mother, possibly horrified over the size of my ass.
I also, probably, would have been relieved to know that I am ok.
{disclosure: I got very little sleep last night and most of this was written in the wee hours of the morning. I only share that tidbit in case, in the light of day, this post is seriously meandering.}
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish I had taken chances like that in my 20s – I’m not that kind of girl, though.
Perfectly coherent.
Ah, but don’t just think about what your 20 year old self would think about you now. Think about what you could have taught her, with the wisdom and experience you have now. I think my 20 year old self would be party excited at the thought of being me, and partly horrified! But there’s a lot I wish I could tell her (like to be freer and have more fun and more sex, to proudly wear bikinis at the beach and that she’s NOT fat).
Good for you for being fearless. I think way too often in my life I’ve been fearful because of my childhood. And I liked to play Tetris with my hubby then boyfriend too! Great post and makes me wonder what I would tell my 20 year old self too!
It sounds way more fun than my 20′s! You were fun and fearless!
I also think that my 20yo self would be sad for me because she didn’t know that happiness can take many forms. She would be disappointed that her dreams and visions of her future are not what I have. And she wouldn’t understand that my idea of happiness now is far more real, far more attainable, and far more likely to actually make me happy. And all those accessories my 20yo self wanted for me at my age – well they’re just not that important anymore.
On the other hand, I’d like to think that she was deep enough to realize that I have the essentials on her list – my health, a nice home, friends, and a daughter. So maybe she wouldn’t be too devastated about the mansion, the summer chateau in the South of France, etc.
I love your L.A. story! I moved to L.A. when I was 20 on a whim with a boyfriend who wanted to be the next Tom Cruise. I had $200 and that’s only b/c my parents gave it to me before I left, while simultaneously telling me not to go. 13 years later and I’ve managed to do okay, but honestly, what was my 20-year-old self thinking!?! It would be so fun to have a cup of coffee and talk L.A. stories…
I loved this story.
So brave. Then and now. I love it.
I love learning about where people “came from” and their past experiences that make them who they are now.
Sometimes i catch myself wondering if i went back to my twenties knowing what i know now in my forties not only if i would do things differently but if i could do things differently? i spent many years living under the shadows caused by my moms religion and its taken me so long to begin to move away from them. i dont know if i would have had the strength then to do what ive done now since even now its a struggle. It’s stupid or funny depending on your perspective that Taylor Swift songs make me nostalgic and wistful for those days when you were so crazy infatuated with some boy. Then I remember all the times I cried over some boy who never realized I existed unless I made an ass of myself and nope, pretty sure I wouldn’t go back.
Dresden I think I love you. What an amazing experience. I wish I would have done something like that when I was younger.
I’m waiting for my 40s to go balls to the wall brave. My 20s were spent raising a child. I can’t wait until 40!
I am thirty now and still feel like I scared little child more often than not. I hope I get brave at 40, and have your kind of twenties then, because I spent my twenties drunk. :-/ Woohoo sobriety!
I also bought a 10 year old convertible rabbit as my first car when I graduated from college. I loved that car even though it leaked in the rain and was so noisy on the freeway. I was sad to give it to charity when I was 8 months pregnant and it was 20 years old with a cracked frame and not safe for my new precious cargo.