We Find This Life, Somehow Alright

This is a life
Slow and sudden miracles
View of other worlds from our window sills
With the weight of eternity at the speed of light

From This is a Life by Son Lux & Mitski & David Byrne

It’s interesting how standing on the other side of a dream feels.

I always pictured my arrival in Hollywood to be one of those cinematic situations where I sell everything, hop into a hypothetical convertible, and drive out of South Carolina to claim my future while singing “Heads Carolina, Tails California” at the top of my lungs with Jo Dee Messina. Or maybe an opening montage of me becoming a line streaking across a map, Muppet-style. Worst case scenario, I would arrive in the Jungle on a bus chewing on wheat (maybe the bus passed through Nebraska?). Instead, I achieved my dream of becoming a professional screenwriter, first, and then I hopped off the plane at LAX literally wearing a cardigan and carrying a $100 gown, George Benson singing about Broadway in my earphones.

I wasn’t expecting to be there, and I certainly didn’t think that I was going to stay for long. I was in Los Angeles for Emmys Weekend. I was an Emmy nominee for the first time, after my first screenwriting job. I was excited, nervous, anxious, and felt like the whole thing was a mirage. I think that’s the standard feeling one has when you arrive in LA, but that could be because of the chaos of heat, bus exhaust, and freeway traffic that greets you when you step through the LAX arrival doors. But I was there, hoping that I was at least exuding Hollywood glamour instead of airplane sweat (it was a mix of both). I was THERE, and ready to celebrate with my fellow writers. But wait -there was more!

A week before I boarded that flight, I got more news from my agent and manager - I had been hired to write on a new show, a reboot of a popular kids’ show (that’s all I can say!), a four-month job that was starting the next week.

I had to jump into logistics mode and pivot quicker than I thought possible. I found an Air BnB to be my temporary base while I figured out the city, prepared for my new job (and a new audience wildly different from my first job), and prepared for the biggest event of my life in the space of days. Of course, being the Super-Capricorn that I am, I figured it out, but in the context that this was a four-month adventure, I was going back to South Carolina (and reality) at the end of it.

But something changed within me. Being in Los Angeles made me realize that this was not a dream at all, but a reality for which I had worked hard (and sacrificed). I wasn’t a visitor or tourist to this life and this city. I was a professional screenwriter with credits of my own, and a major industry award nomination to go with it. This transformation didn’t take hold when the plane landed. It happened in the car, sitting in traffic on the 101, heading home from a notes meeting with my headwriters about an episode of television that I wrote about a subject that meant a lot to me. I was trying to decide if I was going to stop by the grocery store on the way home or go home directly to jump into applying those notes to my next draft.

And then it hit me. I was HERE. I was home and had been home the whole time. I just had to wake myself up to realize it. After that, I found a permanent place to live, took a clandestine trip back to South Carolina to pack up my belongings and say goodbye to the people that I love, bought a few plants, and permitted myself to settle into this new life of mine. It hasn’t been easy, of course. I miss my family and my best friends from home fiercely, I’ve had some medical issues arise, had a few depression battles, and right after my second job wrapped I found myself in the middle of a historic labor strike. But it’s also been so Good. This is the first time that I have fully unpacked an apartment. I’ve never been able to get comfortable because my instincts told me that it could all disappear in an instant. But it hasn’t. I’m surrounded by new friends, I’m performing on stage with improvisers that I admire, my plant collection has grown, my loved ones from home are cheering me on from afar, and I feel more settled than ever before.

This is my life. I’m here, and I love it.