Introduction
His arms were out to each side, taking in the world for all that it is. His joy was infectious and I had caught this jovial sickness. Just watching him, the corners of my lips began to curl upwards and his existence in that moment gave me the hope that I did not know I so desperately needed. I was driving to class when I saw him on his red rusted dirt bike, hugging the air and steering with his knees. He was so free, so youthfully spirited. He exuded gratitude for being alive. Looking at him, I began to reflect on what I was doing as a person following the annoyingly trivial, obnoxiously stereotypical step-by-step manual to life. My body knotted thinking about which front desk agent job I was going to get a call back from. I am crossing my index and middle praying that no one can tell I was lying on my entire resume. My work history from the past two years is not something I can write on paper and get hired for. At least not a job that involves wearing clothes and going to bed before midnight anyway.
I was nineteen when I moved to Los Angeles. I begged my parents to let me TRY to live my dreams and take my shot at independence without any idea what true independence was. I was a child, who was always told I was too mature for my age. I was told this so much so, I formed an oddly specific "too grown up for my own good" complex - extremely common in traumatized eldest siblings. The truth was that I had an older boyfriend that had graduated college and was planning to move to Los Angeles no matter if I came with him or not. I won't go too much in depth about him, he was mildly important to the cause of why many things came to be but I hate giving my phase of him any type of significance so we will come back to him later. We moved to Los Angeles from Monterey on July 1st of 2020 ; it was the beginning of the pandemic and everything was shut down. He broke up with me a week before my birthday in October and I began to experience the real meaning of independence.
I was all alone in my 400 square feet apartment. Everything was white and marble with new appliances, extremely modern. There were mirrors on every wall, including one right next to the fridge, which I always thought was odd. I remember being so excited because the bathroom was gorgeous with two brand new showers with the extravagant silver faucets that made the water look like it was rectangular and smooth. I would sit on white marbled counter top and do my makeup. I felt like a princess getting ready in that bathroom. The apartment on the outside was questionable, extremely run down with chipped red and beige paint on the walls and shutters. The building needed more than a lot of work. The inside was a wonderful surprise. It was almost like licking a lollipop and getting to the center a realizing its a tootsie pop. My unit was privately owned so it looked completely different than the rest of the apartments in the building. It was bought by a sweet Indian family who wanted to have an investment and eventually sell it for three times more than they bought it for. The location was so far north you could barely call it a Los Angeles address, but I was ecstatic to have my own place and experience life away from my parents in one of my "this could never actually happen, I can't believe this is happening, holy shit I am really here" cities. My rent was $1400 a month which is almost unheard of. Most studios in Los Angeles are $1700 or above but I guess I got lucky. Lucky not including the horrid cockroach infestation that swarmed the entire building and most of Winnetka.
Even with my rent so low, for the city anyway, and occasional help from my parents, I was extremely broke. Spending $20 every two weeks on groceries broke. I was trying to find modeling gigs, since that is fractionally what I moved here for, but I had not idea where to start. My search for independence turned into a childish puzzle game that I had a really hard time figuring out.
When I began my single life, I was all alone. I was a little girl in a really big city who could barely speak up for herself or order food through a drive thru intercom. The loneliness crept in consistently, almost felt like I was in this awful repetition of going on drives to the beach, going to work, and going home to smoke weed. At the time, smoking numbed everything for me. I loved it. I relied on it. I mean, there was really nothing else to do.
My first job after moving was working part time as a hostess at a famous dim sum restaurant. It was like the Cheesecake Factory for Chinese food but slightly nicer. I would dress up in black slacks, a black button up, black non-slip dress shoes, hair in a low bun, a black cotton mask, black gloves that I wouldn't even wear when dying my hair, and a plastic face shield. To say the least, it was a humbling experience getting ready for work.