The 4-Year Mark: 1460 Days In Los Angeles

I moved to New York at the age of 18 to learn how to do.

I moved to San Francisco at the age of 21 to learn how to see.

And I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 22 to learn how to feel.

This week marks my 4th year of inflated emotions induced by the City of Angels. This week marks nearly 1460 days of my delusion, of my dreaming, of my grasping at an often-manic sense of self. This routine fear that I’m not cut out for this shit or that I am too cut out for this shit or that my Mondays have become Sundays and my Sundays a reminder of my lack of routine: this is L.A. This is the city yelling, blathering: you came here with a purpose so leave with a purpose and remember that it wasn’t Los Angeles’ fault, it was your own.

My frantic relocation from San Francisco to L.A. occurred in the middle of the night. As with a majority of nights spent living in The Bay, I awoke to the sound of a drum circle stationed in Upper Castro. My laptop was playing “X-Files” episodes on loop and I was hungry. So so hungry. I hurriedly got dressed and stampeded outside, making my way to Market where I could watch Twin Peaks blanket itself in fog. It was 1am. I could hear the drunks, the gays, the hippies, the babies and I wanted none of it.

In a deliberately hyperbolic act of 22-year-old rebellion, I raised my arms and belted, “Go fuck yourself San Francisco.”

By 2am my car was fully packed, I had changed out of my yoga pants and into a properly fancy dress and began racing down the 5. This – above all else – felt right.

I don’t remember my first week in L.A., nor that cold brevity experienced the first night in a foreign bed. What I remember? I remember the sky. The way the sky stood still as if welcoming me home. I remember the smell and that distinctive grey/blue coloring featured in the catalog of L.A. luxury. I remember thinking, “I should have done this sooner.”

Here in lies my battle with Los Angeles. My better half cherishes the celluloid moans of this city re-appropriated. While my even better half despises the past that led me elsewhere, allowing me to steer so off course. It has become nearly impossible to love this city without regret. It has become a destructive love. I asked for this. Lest I forget, I came here to feel.

And I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 22 to learn how to feel.

I am often described as, “wearing L.A. well.” This city personified as a mink coat, or a bakelite bracelet, or a studded crop top decidedly illuminates the extravagance of Los Angeles. I was forced to replace my soul with New York and my skin with San Francisco. I arrived naked to L.A. and allowed the city to accessory me, to doll me up. The old cliché rings true: clothes don’t make the man; man makes the man. This is fully realized in L.A., where the city is meant to highlight yet never obstruct the pure you.

Dearest L.A.: look in the mirror, study your look and add one more item. You will be glad you did.

And now – in my finest furs and excessive bangles – I reexamine my relationship to this city in which I have flourished. Do I belong here another day? Or has L.A. done its fair part and now it’s time to begrudgingly move along? I am addicted to the run, the art of escape. I want to leave and tell no one where I went. I want to lose and mourn and eventually regain and love. That is the ultimate definition of freedom.

But yet I have chosen to stay. L.A. My gateway drug. I am yours.

Imagine a year of births, marriages, deaths, shortened summers and never-ending cold, diplomas, illness, stark contrasts between youth and adulthood. These milestones create movement and clear-cut distinctions between then and now.

In L.A., ritualistic time ceases to exist. This season-less fault line between heaven and hell paves paths lined in varied bang lengths, and heel height and palettes geared more toward red and white wine. These are the details that reset our wristwatches and prove that although our aging has stopped, time is continuing to advance.

Los Angeles: the city of immortality. A whore, a maniac, a shape shifter. A city whose foundation is composed of regret and smog. That lesser-than wasteland that I call home.

I came here to feel. And goddamnit, I have done just that.