September 21, 2018

I am going to backtrack to the previous leap of faith that I had taken moving from NJ to LA. In 2012 I took a short vacation to Los Angeles with my friend Regina. During this trip I had the overwhelming feeling that I needed to live in California. For the next few years, I toyed with the idea but kept talking myself out of it because of all of the creature comforts that I had in my life. I couldn’t possibly find a new waxer or hair stylist. I graduated from Rutgers with my BA in American Studies in Spring 2013. I had been working as a nanny during college and had no real plan for after graduation. At the time, it seemed like everyone I knew had their entire life planned at 22. During senior year, I had gone to visit my friend Grace at school in DC. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I remember her saying that she was dating intentionally because “now was the time to find a husband.” This really blew my mind. People my age are thinking about MARRIAGE?! Wild. But as Juliana would say, I am a different chicken. I ended up working as an admin in a doctor’s office for 5 years. While I absolutely loved the doctor and his wife, I felt super stagnant and aimless. At the end of 2017 my cousin Alyssa approached me about moving to LA. Her boyfriend, Mike, wanted to get into the film industry and they thought moving there would be ideal for his career. My response was “fuck yes, I’m in. Just tell me what to do.” I feel like I need to note that she is an anxious human and I fully thought she would not go through with the move. Slowly but surely, she started planning. She booked a U-Haul and was on the hunt for an apartment for us. Honestly, I have no clue how she found an apartment to accept us when the three of us had no job or income. A true miracle, but hey, when the path is supposed to open it will. I hadn’t told anyone about this because I truly thought that she would bail before I did. She would book things and buy things and I would just send her my share. In the beginning of summer 2018 she texted me that the official move date would be September 21st. She had planned a two-week cross-country road trip stopping to see family on the way. Now that I had a date, I needed to tell my parents. I dropped the bomb on them at the end of July and to this day feel so guilty about the way I handled it. I should have told both of my parents that I was planning on moving to LA as soon as I knew, but I really thought Alyssa would bail. I am so #blessed that both of my parents are incredibly supportive, even if they don’t understand what I am doing. My mom immediately got to work buying things that I would need for the apartment. My father started giving my supportive magnets and signs from Hobby Lobby. “She Believed She Could, So She Did.” I quit my stable job with benefits and left everything that I knew. It. Was. Terrifying. I had a few months’ worth of money saved to carry me through finding a job. The doctor’s wife offered me part time remote work charting for him which was a Godsend. It took countless interviews and two full months before anyone made me an offer. And where I ended up was one thousand percent where I was supposed to be. Connecting the dots backwards after everything that has happened really shows me that there is something bigger at play. None of this is coincidence.