Sup.
Hi. I’m here. I’m healthy. I’m happy.
Ever since moving to LA, I’ve felt a little awkward whenever people ask me how I’m doing. Do I tell them the truth? Where do I start? Because the truth is, I was completely unprepared - emotionally, mentally - for my move to LA. I underestimated how comfortable I was in San Francisco, and I foolishly thought that closing the distance in my relationship would trigger an immediate and lasting happiness that would translate into all parts of my life.
Needless to say, I was wrong.
It’s no secret that the past year and a half have been difficult for me. Moving to LA had the unintended effect of plunging me into a deep and abiding depression that’s been difficult to crawl out of. At some point after moving, I lost the sense of autonomy and independence that I’d cultivated during my time in San Francisco, and I fell back into old, immature habits of attaching my happiness to Chris - whether he was spending enough time with me, lavishing me with attention, being available whenever I needed him. Even though I knew I was being unreasonable, I was insatiable - I demanded more from him, needed more from him, I soaked up his attention like a sponge and still found myself wanting. It took a long time for me to realize that what I should have been doing is demanding more from myself.
How cliché is it to admit that I had to relearn how to love myself before I could accept that Chris’ love was enough? I suppose it’s easy to forget when depression sits in your brain like a dense fog, clouding all rational judgement. I’ve had to teach myself how to start from scratch and cultivate a new identity, an improved LA iteration of myself that built upon who I was in San Francisco.
Recently I’ve felt like I’ve turned a corner and have discovered how to be happy in this new life, in this new city. I’ve taken more time to discover the nooks and crannies of LA, and have learned how to appreciate the ample space and sunshine that only LA affords. I’ve made strides in reconnecting with long lost friends and acquaintances, and I’ve made a concerted effort to incorporate outside social interaction into my life on a daily basis. I’ve started personal training to kickstart a gym habit in LA - something I’ve been sorely lacking since moving. Most importantly, I’ve learned how to find happiness from within, which is so much more satisfying than depending on others to hand happiness to you.
I’m optimistic about the next few months and what they have in store. And I look forward to the day, hopefully in the not-so-distant future, when someone asks me how I’m doing and I can say with complete confidence that I’m doing great. I’m doing just fine.
2015 In Review
It’s tiiiiime.
Anyone who’s followed my blogs for any significant period of time knows that I’ve been doing this survey every year for over a decade (with the exception of 2010). It’s a tradition that traces its roots back to Xanga and Myspace, back when they were the blogging/social media sites de jour.
The questions are juvenile and not conducive to truly personal revelations, but I don’t know, I have an affection for it - this survey is kind of like a mini time capsule that I leave myself every year. My year condensed in 40 questions.
Every year I also find myself feeling the need to justify why I continue to do this survey, so this year, I say fuck it. I’mma do what I want. This year I resolve to stop feeling the need to justify anything I do or why I want to do it.
Past years for reference:
2014
2013
2012
2011
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
1. What did you do in 2015 that you’d never done before?
I played real ass shuffleboard in NYC. I successfully landed in eka pada galavasana. I ate monkfish liver and sweetbreads. I got comfortable parallel parking and became a true LA resident in the process. I achieved Southwest A-List from my travels to and from San Francisco - so long, “B” boarding group!
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2015 goals:
- Work out 3-4x/week: Total fail, as far as consistency goes. But still, the fact that I work out on any regular basis is impressive to me, considering the years after college in which I literally did nothing except watch TV and feel sorry for the pounds accumulating around my midsection (and thighs, and arms, and face).
- Dress like a grown-up: 100% success. High-fucking-five to me.
- Save more money/stop spending so much money on food: Lol. As usual, I failed at this, as I do every year. I mean, I had dinner at The French Laundry again this year, if that’s any indication of my lack of fiscal responsibility. That’s two more times than I ever thought I would go in my life.
- Read more, write more: I definitely wrote more, but alas, didn’t read more.
- Learn how to code: I got halfway through Codeacademy’s Javascript section and realized that I don’t really want to be a programmer, I’d really rather do something more creative, like get back into graphic design or some other artistic pursuit. Basically what I’m saying is I got toe-deep into Javascript and nope’d the fuck out of this resolution.
- Make friends/find new hobbies in LA: I halfway achieved this, I would say. I definitely made more of an effort this year to reach out to old friends and acquaintances in LA and foster those relationships. I didn’t meet any new people, but I’m looking forward to the opportunity to build deeper relationships with the people I do know in LA, and I think that’s a good start. I also got a little closer to dabbling in new hobbies, but not as deep as I would have liked.
My 2016 goals:
- Stop using Jojo as a mental excuse for not working out, going out, being productive, etc. This year I found myself justifying not going to the gym or not going to my coworking space because I wanted to hang out with Jojo. It was a flimsy excuse to rationalize deeper problems - my laziness, my depression, my light agoraphobia that I’ve started to develop in the past year. Next year I’d like to focus on refining my daily routine and allocating appropriate time to work, to Jojo, and most importantly, to myself.
- Follow through. Beyond just following through with my hobbies and promises to myself to work out more, write more, read more, etc., I’d also like to be better at following through with other things. Like when I tell someone let’s hang out, I want to follow through on all aspects of this process - reaching out, making plans, responding to texts in a timely manner, being punctual. This year I noticed that I would sometimes reach out to people and check that box on my list, so to speak, but then would be terrible at actually responding to texts within a timely window. While I’m an extremely reliable person in professional settings, next year, I’d like to translate this sense of reliability into my personal life as well.
- Gain expertise in a new hobby. I don’t know how this will take shape just yet. In previous years I’ve focused on improving myself in areas I know I excel in, like writing and yoga, but I languished, I think partially because I’m already pretty comfortable in those areas. Next year I’d like to tackle something new, something foreign, something to really push myself outside of my comfort zone. I have a lot of peripheral hobbies - things I’ve dabbled in in the past but haven’t touched in years, like web design, graphic design, photography, collage art and hip hop dancing - I’d like to revisit these and reattain a sense of competency in at least one of them next year.
- Develop weekly grocery habit. I don’t have this, and honestly, it’s what contributes to most of my eating out. I grocery shop so rarely, I don’t know how to do it. It’s crippling. I’m paralyzed by the idea of cooking at home, but if I want to save money and develop healthy eating habits, I know I need to do this.
The illusion of time.
The cold always has this effect on me. This melancholy that sinks, plunges, dissipates. It’s a productive feeling, conducive for self-reflection - something I so rarely have occasion for these days.
With every year that passes, I realize how difficult it is to carve out dedicated time for myself on a consistent basis. I have to remind myself that the idea of “more time” is a fiction we tell ourselves to justify the speed at which we live.
But the reality is - when I tell myself that I just need to get through this event or this work trip or this campaign or this activity, “more time” will not be waiting for me on the other side. It’s an illusion, a desert oasis hallucination, a lie I choose to believe to propel myself from one moment to the next.
This year has been a haze of airports and hotel rooms. When you’re constantly packing, unpacking and wheeling around a suitcase, it’s easy to lose your sense of “home.” For me, nothing really feels like home anymore; home is what I can pack into my suitcase and fit into the overhead bin.
I feel like I only exist in transit, in the distance between cities. I’m never settled, instead always biding my time until I have to be en route again. And I’ve made a lot of excuses for myself because of this. After a brief spell in San Francisco, I’ll come back to LA and convince myself that it’s ok if I don’t leave my apartment for a week, it’s ok if I hole up in my room with my puppy and interact with no other humans, I deserve to relax a bit. But then the week is up and I’m back on a flight to San Francisco, rinse and repeat.
It’s a dangerous cycle, vacillating between such extremes. When I’m in LA I transform into a sloth of a person - I crawl out of bed with little to no urgency, don’t wear makeup, don’t leave my apartment, don’t bother to wear real pants. But when I’m in San Francisco I’m social, I’m chatty, I’m charming, I’m the superhero version of myself. It’s exhausting. Most of the time I just feel like an emotionally vacant husk of a person, running on auto-pilot from point A to point B. It makes me uncomfortable to think that my identity and ego are somehow tied to what city I happen to be in.
I tell myself that when I have “more time,” that elusive, slinky creature, “time,” I’ll make more of an effort to pursue my hobbies. I’ll go to yoga. I’ll immerse myself in art and culture. I’ll dance. I’ll write. When I have more time, I’ll live more purposefully, I’ll leave more than just a pile of dead skin cells behind. But I never have “more time,” I only have the present time, a fleeting, finite resource.
Consider this a conscious effort to accept the time I have, to fill it with what brings my life meaning, to remind myself that my identity extends beyond the boundaries of my suitcase.
Hi.
I’m not dead. Just working on things, big big (ok, moderately sized) things. In the midst of pushing forward on some personal projects that I’m hoping will see the light of day before year’s end (and that can be shared here with you, all 2 or 3 of my remaining followers!).
In the meantime, here’s a somewhat recent picture of me and my puppy sitting in LA traffic.
