Escape to Reality

It's strange going back to a city you love after seasons at a time. People change, buildings morph, staffs of family fade into faces you don't know. But all the reasons you fell in love in the first place remain in tact. 

I sit currently in a coffee shop with a vegan donut and a heart of longing. The weather is perfect, the flowers budding, the world shifting back to the one I first associated with freedom, edge, identity and awareness. I love who I became in this city; even now I still have the habit of coming back and getting inked; permanently ingraining this city into myself. 

The people are honest and tough; the town alive but subtle: the art present, but self contained. If I were more content in my discontent I would live here. I still dream of ruling the biggest town I can find. I want to orbit the earth; it's not enough for me to cause a storm.  But this is my backstage, it's where I grow and prepare for the masterpiece I want to share with the world. So I travel back to make it and find myself surrounded by angels singing my name as I pass. Friends who share their lives, pets and loved ones. Trees humming patiently for my next return. 

I love it here. 

It was the perfect escape. 

 

 

Yes, It Was Sunny

I am so in love.
    With a city.

I went back to Philly for the first time in almost a year, and I am so happy. I was there for just for a day and a half, but I feel more alive than I have in awhile.

Monday night I saw eight friends in four hours and got $1 tacos and good beer.  Yesterday was a whirlwind of hugs and love, and I was able to connect with about two dozen people.  Two dozen. 

I forget that I've loved that many people; and with each one, there was still an effortless connection.  Whether that's asking about their growing families, artistic endeavors, or pets...I remembered a piece of everyone's essence, and I realized how beautiful they all are to have shared so much with me.  Plus anyone that picks you up and swings you around when they hug you is a definitely keeper.

Leaving for LA was a bold move, and the realization that I was happier where I had been was one of the most difficult ones I've faced.  So to know that almost two years later my Philly folk still hold so much love for me...it's the closest I've felt to having a family in a long, long time.
And being around those who were my community reminded me of my purpose; to them, to our little world there, and to the bigger one outside.  I know a little more about the person I am going to be.

I absolutely cannot wait to visit again.

(Plus the metallic nails, strawberry-lavender donuts, and perfect weather definitely doesn't hurt.)

A Happy Check Point:

Hello my loves.

I’m in a good place today.  I’m hopeful.  I’ve slept enough, it’s not unbearably hot in my apartment yet, and tomorrow is Spencer’s birthday.  (Don’t worry, more on that will come.)

As far as work goes, I love my job.

Yesterday I got to help a crowd of people easily understand ideas so complex that if I told them how complex they were, they’d insist they were too advanced; I’ve found that people’s biggest obstacle in learning is themselves.  So getting past that and helping them learn was incredibly rewarding.  

After that, I spoke to a young guy I swear will change the world.  We discussed how people value the wrong things these days.  Certain sports shoes are popular out here, for instance, and he was saying that people only like them because someone told them too; a blog post, a celebrity, a friend.  That most of the people he knows gets them just to look at, not even to wear, and, again, not because of their own passion.  And he added that he knew two people who were killed for their shoes.

I was speechless at that point.  What can you say when you’re confronted with a society that values shoes more than a human life?  We talked more on what matters to him, and how he cares about originality; someone who follows their own happiness, not what others say they should value.  He was a magnificent soul and I hope the right luck finds him, because he absolutely is a visionary.

And this was someone I’d probably never meet outside of our store. 

Demographically we have little in common, and yet — I want to say spiritually, but by that I don’t mean some greater force guiding us, but rather the yearning that we both feel as humans to make something out of this short time that we have to be alive — and so spiritually we completely understood one another.  Nowhere else would I have been given the time to get to see this stranger so truthfully.

I’m so happy restoring from back up can take a few minutes :P

I also met a law student who was studying for the Bar Exam, and every time she was waiting (for her appointment, for the answers about her computer, etc) I would quiz her on what she was studying.  In that small time, I could see her kindness, and tell that she’s going to be an incredible lawyer.  Not one that entered that field for money, but rather one who prides herself in defending children and victims, who speaks up for those that are voiceless.  She is selfless.

And I also worked with a fellow poet, and got to share with her my new favorite gadget for creating.  She also complimented my look, and in the spirit of honesty and not vanity, I get that a lot at work….and that’s exciting.  I am different and always have been, and it’s great to know that it’s manifesting into something notably confident and distinct.  It gives me hope that when I start acting again, that when I walk into the room, they’ll see that too, and perhaps that’ll give me opportunities that I long for.  She also had that look to her, not my style per se, but something completely different and thus compelling.  It was a wonderful way to end the day.

So I love my job.  I get to connect with strangers, as I enable kindness, growth and art, both within them and myself.

So it’s no wonder then that I don’t want any other role.  That’s why I’m not in Philadelphia right now.  There was one position there that went to someone else, and I don’t want to move there an wait three years for another opening in the role that validates who I am and who I want to be.

So instead I’ve been looking for cities near Philly (so I can still see my love bugs there) but where I can also work this job and towards a career in art.

Have you guessed it yet?

I had an interview this week for a store in New York.

And I almost started crying, it sounded so amazing.  Their trainer team is twice the size of mine, which means the community openly embraces coming in to learn.  And most of what they do (PHOTOGRAPHY WALKS IN CENTRAL PARK) is so unbelievably brilliant and beautiful that I can’t believe it’s real.  They’re ideas you’d entertain for half a daydream, and then realize there’s no way that could work…and yet a someone there it more thought, and found a way to turn those dreams into a reality.

Soooooo clearly I want to be there.  To work in an environment so open to possibilities and growth and change?  That’s my dream.  I’ll hear about what’s next soon and will write more then.  But I’ll say this: it feels like the right path for me.

***

When I was seventeen, I was taunted about wanting to study theatre in college.  An unwanted authority boomed that I’d be “missing the boat to [my] life.”  I skipped the fight and instead wrote my response in one of my notebooks: that “there are enough people in this world and enough things to do, that you might as well do the thing you love.”  I still stand by this.

And I know New York is another city, but my main complaint here is that I can’t get anywhere on my own.  I want to explore, and to run errands, and to feel safe after the sun sets, and to get places without it taking two hours in each direction…and this city is isolating.  You don’t talk to strangers, or make friends in line at coffee shops….and that’s clearly a huge part of who I am.  I want to feed that part of my soul.

And I also love moving.  Not the act of dragging everything I own from place to place, but being somewhere totally new.  Being frustrated with something from your old world and going somewhere where that isn’t a problem.  It solves things, it creates new opportunities, adds new places to explore, and best of all: there are new people to meet.

The store in New York that I’m talking to…has over seven hundred employees.  Just that alone is awing.  Seven hundred people with a common shared experience to talk about….how can I not find at least a dozen new best friends?  Not to mention the millions of others who live in that city.  How could anything feel mundane ever again?  Life wold be extraordinary.  And I’m hoping that dream is another the store turns into a reality.

Here's some of what I've created at work this week:

It Has Been A Year

     A year ago was the day Spencer and I started our voyage across the country!

I'm still so grateful that my wonderful friend came to see me off, and imortalized that moment with a photo of me with my hopes and dreams stuffed into a very heavy backpack, and picnic basket with Spencer inside.

          It's always sort of jarring to be able to look back at who you used to be. I've lost half of the items in this photo, but also gained a lot of perspective.  This has been a tough year.  To be completely honest (as I have always been on this blog) one of the hardest things was coping with regret.  Wondering how much happier I could’ve been if I hadn’t moved.

          The hospital was when my perspective really changed.  Starting then, I’ve lost an average of one person a week.  Best friends, the closest I have to family, who knew how much I loved and valued them, and with this year’s challenges knew how much I needed them, deciding they could no longer do it.  And I don’t blame them.  My life is tough; some days I feel like I’d opt out if I could.

And in these hard thoughts, I’ve considered, what if I hadn’t gotten sick?  Or if I hadn’t moved? Would I still have those people in my life?  Are the people that I have left only still here because they weren’t in the same city to be challenged as my friends here were?  Am I doomed never to have people consistently in my life?  How much of this could’ve been avoided if I had stayed in Philadelphia?

          But you know what?  When I went back to Philly I found those same friends and some new ones happily waiting to hug me after almost a year apart.  I used to think no one would be in my life for longer than a year, and my friends vanquished that fear.

          And just like I’ve lost half of what was in that photo a year ago; I’ve gained a lot too.  A year ago I thought dreams were more important than reality.  Now I’ll never gamble my current happiness for something that I hope is better.  A year ago I thought I had to be in LA to do TV-Film; now I know that art is who I am.  No matter where I am I will be creating.  And after a year of mostly trying to survive, I know that I’d rather go where survival is easier and to the friends who won’t let me feel lonely.  A year ago I thought that love could conquer all.  Now I know it’s a little baby that you have to nourish and care for and protect.  A year ago I left a city thinking that life outside college would always be that great; now I know it was that city that made life so magical.  A year ago I left behind friends that I knew I would miss; now I know that they are my family.  A year ago I was lost and now know where home is.  

          So I can’t regret this year.  It’s helped me learn to really invest in that and those that I love; and that being where you are happy is more important that going to where you think you “should be.”  As far as health goes?  This year was rough; and now I know that no matter how invincible I think I am, that hospitals are always a possibility.  So I want to spend investing in what makes me happy and what will help me pull through when things get rough.

Now that it’s been a year, I’m ready for the next adventure. 

Seven Lessons I've Learned This Year

What I've learned this year:

1. Just because you've found happiness where you are, doesn't mean you're guaranteed to recreate it wherever you go. And there is nothing worthy of sacrificing that happiness. 
2. There is something far greater to me than my passion for art; and that's my love for people. When I was sick and bedridden, I didn't spend my days sitting there writing screenplays, practicing monologues or looking up auditions for when I was healthier. I spend it dreaming of people: to hold my hand when I was in pain, to go on adventures with or even just errands, to celebrate when I could eat or help distract me when I couldn't. I yearned for people; not for art.  
3. Art is still in my life, no matter where I am. Whether I'm the token creative one in a political science class in France, or on a staff in LA who collectively would rather be out making movies, or even just covering whatever I can find (menus, napkins, one of my many many notebooks) with lines of poetry: Art is how I breathe. It functions like an organ inside of me and it keeps me alive.  I can go anywhere and it'll come, too; it is with me until I die.  I will be an artist no matter where I go. 
4. And so I am going. I gave this city a shot AND a second chance. Yet this is where I lost my childhood and earned the scars that I carry. It's where I was first diagnosed with Crohn's, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, eczema, and hyper-mobility and where I experienced what gives me PTSD.   And this second time around.....?  Well you know a lot of that. I'm still not back to 100% after being in the hospital and out of work for four months, living in five homes in under a year and losing essentially all of the support group that I had previously grown.  I knew I had nothing keeping me here when when I lost the woman that rescued me. The first person to say "you have no idea how easy life should be: you are abused."  And yet I am thankful as this group still helped me get to where I am today, but if I am seen as a burden or even just a disturbance to their lives, then it is absolutely time for me to go. Because from my trip I learned that:
5.  Philadelphia is my home. I didn't live there as a child, nor did I ever plan to spend a significant amount of time there. I was angry we even had to sign a year lease, not nearly expecting how much more I would grow into myself there, than I had in any of the eight other cities I had previously lived in.  And Philadelphia wasn't even mine. It was his home that I was staying in. And though I look back on those days having learned that an attempt at a career out here was not nearly worth leaving that world behind, and though I still see him as fool for equally learning the magnitude of the happiness we created and deciding to run from it - that doesn't mean that happiness isn't still available to me.  I went back and was immediately returned to the world that fed me. Grew me into the passionate, empathetic, proudly quirky sprite that I always had in me. It's where I grew confident in my art and in myself. Where I got my nose pierced and my first tattoo. Where I learned the types of artists and people I want to surround myself with and where I knew I could find them.  Philadelphia is my home now, not just his, and though I lost a love and his family with him, that didn't mean that I lost my own. 
6. Because my family is you.  The people who've told me how worried they were when Spencer was missing. The people who've uttered the phrase "I read your blog."  The strangers and best friends that have sent me messages, assuring me that my tales have inspired them: a goal that I've had through all of this.  You are my family.  I may not be able to come home for the holidays or Skype with you when I have a tough decision to make.  But I do write during those times and you are the ones who read those thoughts and support me with your love.  And so you will be happy to know that the people that I longed for when I was too weak to get out of bed, the hands I was wishing to hold..... Philadelphia houses caring souls who equally yearned to hold my hand and help me up those stairs.  And yes, part of me worries if they're only still here because they haven't been subjected to the toll it takes on my support group when I am sick....but at the same time, I had requests from individuals I had never met to spend time with me so that they could learn more about the person they already loved.  That gird me hope in them to last through the hardest times. And I am so ready to love them.  I think there is magic in that city.  And I may not be there forever, but
7.  I know I need to be there now. 

So there's more to come on what exactly that looks like and when it's happening. But my happiness quest focused on why I was happy in Philadelphia; and now I will focus on the how to get (that) back. 

I also have already become sicker since leaving Philadelphia, so no doubt this move will ultimately help my health. 

So I guess there's also:

      8. I am absolutely a nomad. 

I look forward to the happiness that's ahead of me. 

Loving you lots,

Me

To Build A Home

And at last I stood on the outskirts of my struggle, staring at what had become my home.  From a distance I saw my once supportive beams, now fallen, splintered and harmful. I recalled how that roof over my head had become toxic, and how climbing out from under it had left me bruised and exhausted.

I was still sore, still sick and still on my own.

I finally realized that here I was, stuck in a pit of my own creation and my own demise. 

To fill it and rebuild sounded like more effort than it was worth.  I had fought so hard, and what had it been for?

This empty pit. This lot of nothing, a painful reminder of my efforts at construction that quaked into a wasted year.  I had already discovered this spot as turbulent and sterile, so why was I still trying to make it my home?

It took me a lot of time to see this clarity. It was as if I needed to escape the pit and wait for the dust to settle to finally see. And as soon as I did, I booked a flight and went back to my old loves. 

I wanted to look at my old home.  Though I did worry how much of its stability was rested upon the ex; was he the reason it hadn't collapsed?  And now without him, would it still be the stable home that I needed?

And the answer is yes. My friends, those coworkers turned to loves, are my beams of support and light, even helping me find more people to keep building up my life. 

Perhaps he was my windows, my guide to the outside world, but with the warmth of those I adore, my house is well heated enough not to need his glass panes. (And who really wants to rely so heavily upon something so fragile?)

Even as a visitor, I feel more at home here than I've felt in months.  Some had said well I only had a year to build that western home and yet I had the same time here. And between an empty pit and a cozy and warm cabin, there's only one choice:

Happiness. 

This is the city where I fell in love. With my love at the time, with my coworkers-turned-to-family, with my jobs, this city, my life and myself. 

So considering that in under a week a rediscovered more happiness than I found in a year, no, I don't want to go back to that pit.  

I didn't waste my time, as I learned there that no path is worth permanently leaving behind a home where you are happy..... I just wish I could have learned that without the constant struggle of this last year.  

So I'll see what it is like to go back to the pit.  And if it doesn't seem worth it, I know where my little cabin is, with loves waiting to adventure with me. 

Happiness Quest 2016

Quests in video games (yes girls play, too) are like divine intervention by the game's creators.  They need you to accomplish something in order to further the plot and the story of your character. Usually you have some sort of glowy oracle who guides you, helping you to unlock your characters future. 

I have been stuck on the same level for a long time. Maybe the goal of my game is to be healthy and have a home and a family, for it seems that no matter how hard I try, there's always a bigger boss that crushes me, sending me back into the hospital or on a housing hunt, and making my precious actions seem worthless. 

Sure, I've collected a few coins along the way. Gained a heart then had it broken. Found some shiny stones to hold onto for good luck, but I'm nevertheless feeling stuck. 

And this level, this west coast sunny side search for a career and happiness - I have failed. Or maybe it has failed me. Nevertheless I am unhappy and feeling too overwrought to continue upon this path. 

So I'm returning to my previous level, my Philadelphia one, because that level rocked. I flew in that world, surrounded but helpful trees and wonderful spirits. I was happy there. I beat that level with flying electromagnetic colors. 

And so I want to learn why. Why that level was so amazing, what did I do different then, and whether I can bring those skills to my current level. 

And maybe I can't. Maybe I'll move back to level Philly until I'm strong enough to progress, or maybe I need to explore somewhere new on my map. Unfortunately I have no oracle, just a burning desire to travel, explore and learn, and so I'm following that passion to learn more about the world, myself and where I need to be. 

And thus begins: my Happiness Quest. 

Update on My Life

A 700 Word Essay on the State of My Life. And some food.

A Vegetarian's Lament

POWER COUPLE