“But bringing people together is what music has always done best.” -Rob Sheffield, Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut
““There are all kinds of mix tapes. There is always a reason to make one.” -Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mixtape
It’s never as easy as it seems. It takes patience. It takes moments upon moments of planning the perfect time in which to introduce the next piece. It’s a gift.
The best ones are few and far between. They are the ones that you come back to time and time again. Sometimes, they are the ones that you set aside for awhile, but they always find a way back to you.
And there’s some that should be lost forever. Because sometimes, you just need to let things go.
“A warning sign/ It came back to haunt me, and I realized/ That you were an island and I passed you by/ And you were an island to discover…./ When the truth is, I miss you/ Yeah the truth is, that I miss you so” -Coldplay “Warning Sign”
There are times in life when you find yourself searching to fill a space that you never knew was empty before. There are moments when you know that you have found something much bigger and more meaningful than anything before it. It haunts you. You try to move about your life without it, but you always find yourself wandering back to it. Nothing holds a candle to it. It is the ultimate. It may be a place. It may be a person. It may be a passion. Whatever it is, there is a void without it. Don’t think that it will always be there though. Don’t just let it just slip away.
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/ And next year’s words await another voice.” -T.S. Eliot “Four Quartets”
The bright Wednesday morning bubbled around me in the corner of the cafe. People buzzed by on the street and chatted with one another as they made their way through Lake Merritt. In that moment, I got lost in how much can happen in just a year.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I finally felt at peace. It suited me. And over the past six and half years, I have managed to find a community of wonderfully talented friends in what could be the loneliest city. I have met people and had experiences that are uniquely L.A., and as much as I despise the traffic, I would never trade my time in L.A. for anything in the world.
But just like anything, there is always a moment when you need to open yourself up to new opportunities. So, in the matter of six weeks, I was accepted to a school and found myself packing everything up to move back to the Bay Area. And while I was so excited to go to this amazing school and start something new, a huge part of me was sad to leave my life in L.A. behind.
As I move further and further into this new year, I feel more at ease with letting go. Last year was an obstacle of its own-things that I want to keep and things that I want to leave. Things that I will always remember and things I am trying desperately to forget. Things that brought me so much happiness and things that broke my heart. And while I have no regrets of anything that happened last year, I am ready to hear a new song-a song of 2013 and a better me.
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” -Saint Augustine
There was a slight rain hitting my window pane last night as I stared at my ceiling talking on the phone to my best friend like I did in high school. I twirled my hair and laughed, “You know what we need to do?” Katie giggled, “What?” I bounced up, “We need to make this 26, un-married and childless thing work for us. We need to go somewhere. We need to travel.” Before I knew it, we had a list of places and were doing research online as our enthusiasm gained momentum. After we hung up, I pulled out one of my envelopes. This one had destinations written on it and crossed off to make way for new destinations. And in royal blue marker, I wrote the name of my next destination.
Because, why not? Why not go and see different parts of the world with your best friend? Why not allow life to happen to you? Why not try and find yourself a city, a little piece of the world that you can fade into? Because until you do, you’ll only be daydreaming.
“We gonna come together, we gonna celebrate/ We gonna gather ’round, like it’s your birthday/ I don’t wanna know, just what I’m gonna do/ I don’t care where your going, I’m coming along with you” -Kings of Leon “Birthday”
Three months ago, my fortune cookie knew something that I didn’t, and so far this week and today, it has been beyond right.
It’s amazing how much a year can change things. A year changes everything. So, it’s fitting that this morning I found this blog post that I wrote a year ago Wednesday for skirt! Magazine. It’s funny how so many of the things that I felt this time last year are still the same, just the circumstances are different…much different. So as I find myself still falling forward, I hope that you find yourself falling too…into something old, something new or maybe something that you never expected. And no matter what it is, I hope that you find what you’re looking for.
Falling Forward
“I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing.” -Donald Miller (Through Painted Deserts)
I tend to order the same thing at my favorite restaurants, and I hardly defer from my regular coffee order. I am by definition a creature of habit. Change in my life has never been a little thing, so at times I can be very resistant. But I have always known when I need to move on. I think sometimes, we get caught in the comfort of life and fail to see that we need to move past where we are. Since moving to Los Angeles three years ago, I have found an amazing community of people that fill my heart immensely-some more than others. Maybe it’s just the way that life is, but I have found myself moving in a much different direction than many people that I used to be so close to. I have found my time being filled with new projects and people that are very far from the people that I used to know. Sometimes, it makes my heart a little sad; it almost feels like we were never apart of each other’s lives. Where I am going is where I always needed to be, and maybe everyone won’t make the journey with me. However, I will never forget the ones that I met along the way because they made me who I am today. They helped me fall into the woman that I was always supposed to be, and I will never be the same.
“Oh, in 5 years time, I might not know you/ In 5 years time, we might not speak/ In 5 years time, we might not get along/ In 5 years time, you might just prove me wrong” -Noah and the Whale “5 Years Time”
As we are moving, shifting, laughing, loving, experiencing, hurting, creating, and leaving, there is always a hope that we will find our end point. We hope to find that moment when everything comes together just as should, just as we hoped it always would. There is a constant struggle to have that breath of fresh air when we’ve figured it all out. But as we navigate our way through life, we start to realize that things might not end up as we hoped; maybe, it would be something much better. And letting go of things we hoped for is the only way to know if they were every really true if they ever come back.
“Is it any wonder why we all leave home? People say, ‘I knew you when you were six years old’/ And you say, ‘But I’ve changed, I’ve changed, I’ve changed, I’ve changed.’” -The Head and the Heart “Ghosts”
“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.” -Donald Miller “Through Painted Deserts”
“Amanda, anyone can get married, but you don’t want to marry just anyone. Believe me.” -My Mama
The phone cackled a bit as my papa’s hearing aid interfered in our conversation. From 3,000 miles away, he asked me my favorite question of all, “So, you datin’ any boys out there?” I rolled my eyes and half-laughed, “No, Papa. I just let them take me out to dinner, but I definitely am not calling any of them out here my boyfriend.” He scoffed, “Ooooh, so you just ride around with ‘em, but you just don’t call ‘em your boyfriend.” Um. Awesome, Papa. I think that you just called me a slut….
Even a year later, I can still hear my papa’s soft judgement from all the way in South Carolina. It always seems to be a popular question for my family members and people in general about if I’m dating someone, and if I’m not, how can a beautiful girl like me not have a boyfriend? Um. I’m hot. And I’m awesome. I don’t date just anybody.
Facebook is a constant bombardment of engagement photos, engagement announcements, wedding photos and baby pictures. That new notification of newly engaged, married and baby arrivals on Facebook is just taunting me. It’s almost as if the only reason people want to have Facebook anymore is to announce a new relationship status or a new baby. If you can’t provide that, people aren’t so interested. Good thing, I keep wine on hand to battle this treachery. And it’s also a good thing, that I recently discovered through an amazing friend (thanks, Logan!) the insanely appropriate blog, My Friends Are Getting Married, and I’m Just 25 and Drunk. A girl after my own heart. I just can’t get enough of this hilarious blog that expresses every thing that has every been said to a single girl, and her inevitable response. So, relax and laugh because chances are that if you’re single and feel this way, there’s an army of women that feel the same way too. And what the heck, we can all get drunk on good wine and watch Say Yes to the Dress (because you know that you watch it….don’t deny it…we all do).
“I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.” -Morrissey
Dearest Los Angeles,
It has been four years today that I packed up my car and started my life here (again). I started in the Valley, found my way to Los Feliz, and now call the Westside home. I have been extremely lucky to have found some of the most incredible people to call my friends. I discovered the waffle brownie sundae at Cafe 101. I fell in love with improv. I survived a plethora of car accidents. I went back to school. I came to know all of the homeless people in Hollywood. The Santa Monica Farmer’s Market on Sunday mornings cannot be beat. I might be one of the only people to not be stoked on the Hotel Cafe, but that probably has to do with being shushed by the lady next to me eating dinner while I was singing along with Kevin Devine at the top of my lungs. I did not eat nearly enough strawberry rhubarb pie from the Trails Cafe. I came to enjoy exploring you all by myself. My drives up PCH were breaths of fresh air. The Los Feliz 3 became possibly my favorite theatre. I learned that you should not point and yell at a widely known and convicted gangsta while you’re intoxicated at Saddle Ranch. I also learned that you should never go to Saddle Ranch. Ever. Griffith Park became my safe place. I escaped the first Carmageddon. I went on far too many first dates with “men” that ordered salads. I also realized that dating in L.A. sucks. I found a new satisfaction in wearing my Giants shirts around town, especially when we BEAT L.A.! Kay ‘N Dave’s became a staple in my life. I loved the three or four overcast and rainy days that reminded me of home. I avoided LAX like the plague and flew out of Burbank every chance that I had. I discovered that I could never be done discovering you; you were full of surprises.
So, thank you for being good and bad and everything in between. You were not what I expected, and I know that I was not what you expected either. Lets continue to be unexpected, and if the time ever comes for us to part, I will always love you and carry a piece of you with me forever.
