…deciding what I want in life.
A week or so after my job ended I had very long talk with a good friend of mine. He likes to give me advice and weigh in on what I should or shouldn’t be doing with my life. I don’t mind too much, because I keep going back to him for advice, so I’m either glutton for punishment or I must think he know what he’s `doing.
Anyway, I digress.
It is no secret, and hasn’t been for years that I have very specific and high aspirations for my career goals. I won’t post them here directly, but let’s just say the job I want involves getting my ass up at some ungodly hour and being sent all over the world/US tracking down great stories and covering big events. And well, those goals can’t actually be achieve in Los Angeles.
This is something I’ve written about in past blogs, and journals. The eternal, do I live where I love to live, or do I move 3000 miles back to east to work where I would love to work. Because I can’t actually have both. (though I do looooove NY!)
So I actually had the discussion out loud with said friend, for the first time. He told me I needed to decide what I want and what was more important to me, living Los Angeles, and giving up the long time dream of said job on the east coast or giving up living in Los Angeles for an attempt to get the job that I’ve always wanted.
Sounds so easy. WRONG.
The conversation went on for awhile and it end with him just flat out telling me I needed to figure out what I want, because he couldn’t help me if I didn’t know what I wanted.
So I thought about it, and I had made the decision that I wasn’t going anywhere, I loooved Los Angeles, most of my best friends from college where there, I had a support system, a ridiculous number of flip flops that I could wear all year long,, an apartment that I loved (despite the roommate situation) and I couldn’t ever see myself giving up my car.
So it was settled, I was staying in Los Angeles, and I would just have to find something else to set my heart on as far as work went because I though staying in LA and finding a new goal would be easier than moving again trying to reach one goal.
So I went on about how I wanted to start dating (see post about online dating here) and how, once I found work, I wanted to settle down and buy a couch and a big screen, a king size bed, and get a nice 2 bedroom or large 1 bedroom for me and my beloved kitty cats.
This lasted about a week. Slowly the realization came that no, no I was not willing to give up the dream I’ve had for I don’t even know how many years. I got into television to do basically 2 things, having already done the Olympics twice and realizing that if I wanted to do more I’d probably have to be on the east coast for that anyway, it dawned on me it was time to start actually pursing my number 1 television goal of working for above aforementioned job! And no, I couldn’t do that in Los Angeles.
I realized that while sure I wanted a couch and a big screen and a boyfriend (and gasp maybe one day even a husband and family) getting all those things on the west coast was crazy, because one day I knew I was going to roll over on my king size bed, next to my cats (or boyfriend) and head off to work at a job that was so far away from what I set out to do that I would have to realize I might have made a mistake. I couldn’t buy a couch in LA and expect to take it 3000 miles away to NY if I decided to move there later in life. I couldn’t meet a man in LA and promise to stay in LA forever, knowing in the back of my mind I gave up the possibility of that dream job on the east coast and that someday staying in LA forever might not be in my plans and our relationship would end. That my friends was when I decided that in addition to NOT in anyway being able to give up the dream of working for the aforementioned job, I couldn’t become a grown up in LA because I knew even though I loved it I wasn’t always going to want to stay there.
So , after a long discussion with roommate and good friend B, when the crazy of idea of moving to NY at the end of the month to stay with my parents or extended family while I canvassed the entirety of the eastern sea board looking for work that would actually help me achieve the goal of working for aforementioned job, started to make more sense then staying in LA unemployed on my Ikea bed frame, where I didn’t own any furniture other than a futon and a cheap papas an chair , it was really time to go.
So, my readers, I set a date, started packing, and made the decision to actually move to New York!
If that’s not a big step in the year of putting myself out there I don’t know what is.
I put myself out there and decided I want to live in New York, work in New York and maybe even find a date in New York!
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