Week 2: Los Angeles is to me what visit to the therapist is to person in mid-crisis.*
This is not to suggest that it is at all a nice, healing place. I don’t know of anyone who could, with a straight face, say that Los Angeles is America’s big, warm hug. Los Angeles is a kick in the teeth.
Have you ever been in the middle of an intense crisis? A therapy visit can be absolutely paralyzing. It is anxiety inducing in and of itself sometimes, even on a good day. I often go to therapy kicking my feet the entire way, propelled only by the knowledge that I have to do this. I attend therapy by pure will or on principle, with no real desire to do so as I drag my body to my therapist’s office. But at the end of every session, after the last tissue has been pulled from the box and my mascara rests in pools on my cheeks, I am thankful for the opportunity to grieve, to lament, and to work through the laundry list of “issues” that I brought right along with me to LA. I go in feeling empty, apathetic, or anxious and leave with some sense of relief.
This is what Los Angeles is to me. Living here and attending a university here is task that I must complete with the knowledge that when I have finished here, there is promise of relief and/or a sense of gratification. At the end of this tedious and emotionally tiring journey, there is a Ph.D. There is the potential to return to home and find work there. Truly, the reason I was willing to leave Texas was so that I would eventually be a more attractive job applicant in my home state.
I understand that I am being afforded an incredible opportunity, but the reality is that it has forced an uncomfortable and emotionally grueling shift in my center. What is therapy if not the regular confrontation of your ugliest feelings? But that’s the thing. You have to work through the ugly. Therapy forces this confrontation and sometimes even a sense of horror, and yet these negative feelings are a source of tremendous growth. Los Angeles is forcing me to grow and expand.
There is beauty in something, in someone, falling apart. There is great bravery in it. This is another reason I use the therapy/crisis analogy. In LA, there’s always a silver lining to be found, always something softer tucked away behind its thorns and brambles. Sometimes the beauty of the sunset or the utterly unexpected niceness of a stranger (hey, it happens) is enough to get you through your day.
* I am a certified crazy person, currently on enough psych meds to make Eeyore crap a rainbow. I make these jokes with great love and with an intimate knowledge of what it means to tango with depression and flamenco with mania.