A Year of Goodbyes.

I've been sitting on these words for months, folding and unfolding them in my head, waiting for the right time to reveal them. 

2016 has been a year of goodbyes. I said goodbye to my job of the past 5.5 years, and by extension, goodbye to San Francisco, a city for whom my love is well-documented. I said goodbye to Penny, my sister's beloved 12-year old dog who left us suddenly and unexpectedly, almost without warning. And I said goodbye to my 9-year relationship, one that I'll always think of warmly, filled with laughter and love and mutual respect. 

A lot has changed. 

I'm currently in the midst of a 3-month funemployment stint, and I've spent the last week both thrilled and terrified at the now seemingly endless amount of time at my fingertips. Suddenly the "more time" I've been craving for years is here, now, stretched out before me, waiting to be filled. After spending the last several years chugging away like the workaholic that I am, it's almost intimidating to be faced with nothing but responsibility to myself. 

So I've been going to yoga, I've been writing, I've been reading, I've been cooking, I've been checking things off my life to-do list that I'd been ignoring for years, activities I had previously shelved for more immediate matters. And there's still so much more I look forward to doing over the next few months - finishing this website, figuring out how to use my camera, getting into the fittest shape of my fucking life, etc. 

A few of my friends have asked if I'm planning on traveling during this period. While I do plan on going on some local trips during my break, mostly I'm looking forward to not having to get on another airplane for an indeterminate period of time - no more boarding passes, no more airports, no more pre-planned outfits packed into my suitcase, no more life lived in transit. I'm looking forward to growing roots into this city, pulling this LA life over me like a blanket and really settling in. 

I've learned that you must make yourself vulnerable in order for new doors to open themselves to you, and when they do, you must be brave enough to walk through them. I'm grateful to have lived the life that I have, because even in my darkest moments, I've been guided by a sense that at the end of the day, whatever happens, I will be ok.

I don't know what other surprises lie around the corner, but when I meet them I will greet them warmly, and welcome them to this new life. 

Rivver // Am I Ok (feat. Milk & Bone)

I’ve been living in a hotel in San Diego for the past week, and will continue to live in it through the rest of this week. 

The week before, I was in San Francisco. Next week, I’ll be in LA. The week after that, San Francisco. Then Vegas. Then Portland. Then back to LA. Then NYC. And then it will be early June.  

And I’m ok. I’ve acclimated to this life lived out of a suitcase, and I’ve learned how to love it, how to be grateful for it, how to feel centered in the midst of constant movement and travel. 

I’m writing again, reading again, working out and going to yoga regularly again, and as a result, I feel like I’ve been able to rediscover my sense of self. I’m breathing more deeply, walking more confidently, venturing out alone without experiencing a crippling fear of the unexpected - a feeling that punctuated my first few months living in LA when I didn’t know the city and didn’t know myself inside of it. 

I think too often we forget about our malleability, of the way we evolve over time. More recently I’ve been reminded of how I hated my first year living in San Francisco. I could barely afford to live in the city, I worked at a job that I didn’t believe in, and my relationship was in a precarious position. It’s funny to think of how much I pined for LA then, how I thought switching geographies would cure all my self-doubt and general dissatisfaction. 

Then I got a new job and (perhaps subconsciously) dedicated the first year of my long-distance relationship to myself. I started going to yoga, changed my entire wardrobe, and made a conscious effort to spend dedicated time alone and with friends. 2012, despite being a really shitty, challenging, lonely year, was also a transformative one. I made a lot of mistakes and said and did things I, in retrospect, shouldn’t have said nor done, but I still sometimes think wistfully to it, to what that year represented in the timeline of my life. 

I came out of 2012 with a staggering overconfidence. I thought that I had learned everything there was to learn about myself and became complacent. LA forced me to confront the reality that I’d outgrown that identity, that it was time to cultivate a new one. I was clinging to a life that no longer existed, and holding on to a version of myself that didn’t fit into this new life. 

I think perhaps our lives are marked with these periods of transition and transformation, where we shed our past selves like an old skin and come out refreshed on the other side. 

I can feel it now like I felt it before. And it feels ok. 

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. 

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.