on changing everything

uncertainty, and the promise of los angeles

Hello! Happy New Year!

I just got used to writing 2023, and now we’re here, so that’s great. 

In March, it will be a year since my ex-boyfriend and I broke up. My friend said it felt like we had been “broken up for ages,” but to me, it feels like just a few hiccups ago. 

One moment you’re together (and by moment, I mean three years, give or take), and the next, you’ve been broken up for an entire year, and life is taking you in entirely different directions.

Oh, how time changes everything.

I spent the first week of this new year exploring what will most likely be my new city by summer—the beautiful, busy, mysterious Los Angeles.

Six days certainly weren’t enough to see it all, but my partner and I both walked away with a stronger feeling of sureness about the decision to try it out, and by try, I mean move all our shit across the country and sign a year lease. Y’know, just to see what happens!

How did this decision come about, you ask?

Well, a bout of gnawing restlessness, a conversation about being open to change, and an impromptu road trip are all a little to blame—not to mention the promise of opportunity for our respective career ventures.

It all started in late October. Hot off the heels of an inspiring discussion about living in a way that welcomes change, I decided to make the seven-hour drive down to New Mexico to surprise my partner at his show in Santa Fe. 

About two hours in, a thought began ringing in my ears.

“…Los Angeles?”

Just considering what the city and all its associations brought up for me was nauseating, which is usually how I know an idea can’t go on uncontemplated. 

I called my mom about it. I called my twin sister. I even called my partner, who somehow believed I was “running errands” that involved being on the highway for the entire hour-long phone call, and definitely not on my way to him. (The surprise remained successful.)

Everyone’s first response was, “Why not?”

To this, I have dozens upon dozens of very good reasons why not to move to Los Angeles. Reader, I know for a fact that off the top of your head, you already have at least three.

And yet! 

The quick trip to Santa Fe was exhilarating and wonderful, and on the drive home, I was beaming with what-ifs. What if my every day was different? What if I changed everything?

In 2019, I changed everything way too many times. I worked five different jobs, moved six times, and was on and off with my then-boyfriend too many times to count. The change culminated in a grand finale of moving from my hometown of Oklahoma City to Fort Collins, Colorado. 

It was the most painful favor I ever did for myself. I owe who I am and how I live my life to the sweet slowness of this town. Here, I learned that joy feels a lot more like peace than any other feeling.

I learned what it means to be a good friend and to have them. I learned how to close myself off from chaos and make room only for what is nourishing. Fast forward four years later, and here I am, leaving behind the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

When does a good-enough day-to-day life become not good enough? When does pursuing uncertainty become more appealing than a certain way of living? As Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief wrote, “My certainty is wild, weaving.”

On our last day in Los Angeles, I went on a walk by myself. We were staying with family friends, in a house perched atop a hill overlooking the entire city. I stayed on the hill til just past sunset, taking in the glittering downtown, the foothills, the traffic, the coast. 

Nestled next to the questioning was a quiet sureness that said, “You’ll be okay here.” And in the deepest parts of me, between the terror of upending the life I know and the hope for something greater, I know I will be, with time.

Time, and time only.