was something that kept us from fully giving ourselves to one another which meant that’s we’d never get what we wanted and needed from each other. I think in an ideal world we would have built a life together. But she was just as unfulfilled with everything as I was, so there was no point in lying to ourselves. She didn’t want to lose me and I didn’t want to lose her, but we both knew it was inevitable. I had to go. Everything has a beginning and an ending and there’s no sense denying or fighting it. It was time for me to move on and see what else was out there. Everyone had a different reaction to my decision to leave but of all the people I talked to about what I was doing and planning to do, I think my father was the most nervous. He was always a worrier, and I asked him how his heart was doing before I ever brought it up. If he had told me he was having
health problems I wouldn’t have even said anything. Not sure how I would justify that he’d have to send things for me to other people, but I’m good at making things up on the fly. He wasn’t okay with me leaving like this or with what I was planning on doing but he learned awhile ago that he had to make peace with a decision I had made, even if he didn’t agree with it. He was the one who single handedly tried to convince me to stay and finish college…to no avail. He made some good points about what I had for myself here, and the truth was that living here really did make an impact in my life. I’ll never forget how I thought moving here would be the end all be all. I planned on being out here forever because there was opportunity here that no other place in the world can compete with. Even though things hadn’t worked out the way I envisioned, LA was a place where anything was possible. And I would miss that. I would also miss the elation I still got every time I stepped onto a studio lot. I would miss the friends I had made. I would miss the sense of self-importance that oozed out of the entire city. I would miss the Pacific time zone, where everything happened last. I would miss knowing that at the end of the day, I was living somewhere that almost everyone wanted to be for one reason or another. And no matter what our past meant or what our future held, I would miss Michelle. My father didn’t understand why I would want to give up what I had here but I think he was just trying to give me reasons to stay because he was concerned about what would happen to me if I left. Of course, even some of the things I did that he knew about were worse than this particular venture so I really didn’t understand what he was so worried about. I guess it was just his nature. My mother on the other hand didn’t seem to be quite as concerned, for various reasons. For one I had often told her the things I didn’t like about living here, and the traffic was at the top of that