There's Something about LA

I thought about it on the drive home tonight.  No matter how many times I tried to leave, something has always pulled me back here.

I set down my green tea on the seat by my front door and unlocked the handle.  The door opened and the silent darkness greeted me.  I picked up my tea, hung the keys on the hook by the door and switched on the small lamp attached to my desk.  I closed the door behind me.  Isolation.  Silence.  Nothing. 

I stood there a long moment, looking back at the two sets of yellow eyes staring down at me from the top of my closet.  My boys.  I loved those cats.  There were days they were the only reason I came home at all.  They needed me.  They depended on me. 

My apartment can be quite depressing.  It's cold and quiet.  Lonely even.  There's a mattress on the floor and a tv smaller than my laptop computer.  There are shelves I bought at Target and built on the carpet of my studio.  There was a wardrobe where I hung my coats and work uniforms because my own closet was too small for everything.  There was my desk, that I hardly ever used anymore due to time demands.  And there, on top of my closet, above my bed and looking straight down at me, were two little cats who were happy I was home.  They didn't say it.  They can't.  They're cats.  But I could read it in their faces.

I moved to California on December 5th of 2012, almost 11 years ago now.  Since then, I've loved and lost several times, been married, got divorced, moved more times than I care to recall, made friends, made enemies, made enemies of friends and lost people I've loved.  But the one thing that has always stayed a constant, no matter how I've tried to change it from time to time, is the city I called home.

I'd traveled, sure.  I'd gone places.  In 2003 I went to Germany, Switzerland and Prague.  In 2004 I went to Arkansas and New York.  In 2006 I traveled the country as a sales person, doing dealer visits and trade shows in places like Washington D.C. and Denver.  In 2008 I went to Fresno for the first time.  (Hey, it counts.  It's not Los Angeles.) In 2009 when Pete and I split up, I moved to Utah for a couple of months and got a job as a waitress.  I knew then I had hit rock bottom.  I was living with my mother and father at nearly 30 years old.  I regained my common sense and hightailed it back to LA the first opportunity I got.  I hadn't realized it until then, but Los Angeles had become my home.

Yet, for some reason, in 2010 I went to Scotland to see how well I would like it.  I loved it.  And in January of 2011 I moved there.  I couldn't wait!  I lived in Scotland for a total of five months, but it may as well have been a lifetime for all I went through.  When the opportunity finally presented itself, I couldn't wait to go back to the states.  I could have gone anywhere, and even thought about New York City.  But I came home to Los Angeles.  Like puppet strings, I was pulled in a direction and all I could do was go with it.

In 2012 I had the chance to go to Paris and London for a few days and I jumped at the opportunity.  Then in December of 2012 I went to Michigan for the first time to visit my brother, Patric, and his family.  It was on the flight out there I met a wonderful Flight Attendant by the name of Leslie who told me I would probably love the job - and she's the reason I am now a Flight Attendant myself.  I'll never forget her kindness.

Then, this year, I found myself in Salt Lake City for a month with no earthly idea where I would end up after my training.  I could go anywhere.  I could be sent to Chicago or Denver or Houston to live by this company, and I was willing to go.  I'd go wherever they sent me.  I bid for Los Angeles, but we were all told in the beginning that there was no way we would get it.  None of us would.  There wasn't any space available in LA, so I bid for what I thought would be the most interesting cities to go to.  By a stroke of luck, through some sort of miracle (or was it fate?) I was sent to Los Angeles straight out of training.  I wouldn't have to move.

Since then, every time I've started to even think about moving again, finding another city where I could just start over and renew myself, something has happened to quell that chain of thought and I've ended right back where I started from - my studio apartment with two yellow-eyed cats, a mattress on the floor and my quiet existence. 

I guess it's where I belong.  There's something about this city, something about LA, that keeps pulling me back here.  I guess maybe there's a reason.  Someday it may present itself.  Then again, it may not.  But whatever it is, it's my home now.

Say what you will about the city, the traffic, the people, the noise, the smog, the pollution, the population... I see another side of Los Angeles. 

I set down my green tea on the seat by my front door and unlocked the handle.  The door opened and the silent darkness greeted me.  I picked up my tea, hung the keys on the hook by the door and switched on the small lamp attached to my desk.  I closed the door behind me.  Isolation.  Silence.  Nothing.

I was home.  I am home.  THIS is my home.  No matter where my travels and adventures may take me, this is where I belong.