Leaving Los Angeles

No, I'm not leaving.

But it seems like everyone else in my life is.

My neighbor who I've been best frenemies with since March 1, 2012. A ride or die who I've traveled around the world with. People are leaving for NY, SF, Connecticut, Boston. People have already gone back to Indy, Florida, DC, Texas and Chicago. I have attended more going away parties in the last five years than weddings. It's weird, it's sad. it's confusing.

Often times a going away party can feel like a funeral for your friendship. Sure social media makes it easier to keep in touch, but moving forward your relationship will change. Your friend is now the visitor, all the time is spent catching up. No more random pop ins on a Tuesday evening to complain about a bad date and just crush two bottles of wine. No more late nights on the patio talking about the future. Because the future is now.

I've spent a lot of time wondering how LA fails people. What exactly were people expecting from this place? To get rich and famous, party with Kendall Jenner at a Lisa Vanderpump owned restaurant in Beverly Hills? (Lol JK only a tacky tourist would be caught at SUR) Or maybe LA was always a short term rental. A bad boy that you could leave when you were ready to get serious about life. One can find stability here, but it's much easier in the land of strip malls and reasonably priced real estate.

Others may feel the need for a jolt in the arm, a hard reset. Five years ago I would have called this a quarter life crisis, but at the age of 31, do I really think I'm going to make it to 120? It's shocking how quarter life can turn into midlife in the blink of an eye. If you feel like you're just treading water here, maybe the only prudent thing to do is rip off the band-aid and get a fresh start.

To be honest, I've fantasized about it, running far away to where no one knows my name. I could reinvent myself and be David, the soft spoken gardener in Tucson. I could date a nice woman that I met at the library. Maybe we would get married and have kids that would grow up to play golf at Arizona State.

Because in LA I'll always be the homie you know. I've tried to change before, but I always slide back into my old habits. It's really freeing thinking about a fresh start. I'd like to see those Santa Monica parking tickets follow me to Vancouver, where I could get a job at a cycling shop and maybe stop drinking so much. I could drop a beard and go vegan, get into CrossFit. No one there would know that for 10 years I didn't make my bed, ate Taco Bell seven times a week and pissed away all of my romantic opportunities because I was too much of a coward to say how I feel.

But then I see the sunset and I realize that this is where I belong. It doesn't matter if I never make it as a writer, it doesn't matter if I live in a three bedroom apartment the rest of my life. I had a dream, and that dream was to escape the land of Outback Steakhouses and Applebees (no offense to either obviously) and plant a flag in the sand.

And that's what helped me realize why others are leaving. Maybe living by the beach just wasn't enough for them, maybe they had other goals and leaving was the best way for them to attain those. As the star in my own (sometimes pathetic) story I need to take a step back once in a while and realize that just because I feel a certain way doesn't make it the truth.

Often times I think Los Angeles is objectively the greatest place in the world. But to be honest, it probably isn't. There are pros and cons to every city. Accumulating wealth and starting families are likely important to a lot of my peers. Perhaps pursuing a love interest, or maybe just shaking shit up for a change. And while moving is never permanent, I need to learn how to let people go and stop taking it as a personal failure by me that I couldn't make them happy enough to stay.

So with that I say, all my friends that have left, are leaving or will some day, I wish you the absolute best. I hope you make it back west of Lincoln some day, but if you don't that's ok too. You have your own journey and I hope it brings you happiness. I'll be keeping an eye on you from afar, and if you ever need anything, feel free to let me know.

In the mean time, there are some people that I have been actively recruiting to (attempt to) fill your spots, and the push is about to intensify.