I am sort of starting to understand the whole East Side-West Side divide, though also not really. Maybe it will finally click in when I move to the West Side. Or maybe it won’t. Is it distance? Is it culture? Is it both?

This period in Silver Lake and Los Feliz has been uncertain and intentionally lonely. It’s been about rediscovering and initiating the process of rebuilding without actually doing the rebuilding part. February was my Silver Lake hideaway period and my introduction to LA, a period when I was open and excited and yet tentative and hidden. I didn’t have a car, so I would Uber or take long walks to the gym. Hours would be spent looking up at the ceiling fan.

Los Feliz and Silver Lake are literally blocks apart, and where I ended up living in Los Feliz is actually closer to parts of Silver Lake than I was when I was actually living in Silver Lake! And yet, they are worlds apart. Silver Lake is like Williamsburg, or at least like Williamsburg used to be. Edgy, cool, artistic, raw. And yet, not even that anymore, as the edge moves further in the direction of the edge towards Echo Park, Highland Park, and who knows what lies beyond that. I haven’t bothered to study a map. Listening to GPS without actually looking at the map moving hasn’t helped. Being generally oblivious to my surroundings hasn’t helped either.

So when I moved to Los Feliz in March, I didn’t realize that I was moving a few blocks away and yet to an entirely new city. A quieter frumpy city – Silver Lake grown up and perhaps more moneyed. Park Slope but with celebrities. I wish I had the ability to recognize celebrities because they must be in my midst. March was largely a travel month, spending a weekend in West Hollywood and traveling to Seattle, DC, Boston, and NYC. I learned to drive again. I traversed the city, going to yoga in West Hollywood (WeHo…wha?) every day and even twice a day sometimes. Joining a gym where I have to park and enter a ticket to leave. Getting multiple parking tickets because I don’t understand how to understand the rules of parking. Driving to the supermarket where I have the luxury of pushing my cart out into a parking lot to put groceries into the car. I bought a lot of water that continues to sit in the car because I don’t have a cart to take water from my garage to my apartment. Well, I’ll ferry it over to Venice.

My apartment in Los Feliz is nestled on a beautiful street. There’s greenery like in the suburbs, and I wake up to the sound of birds every morning. And yet…I’m just not a fan. Or maybe it’s that I’ve finally stayed in one place for longer than a month, and the stability is killing me. The instability of stability. Also the instability of not knowing what I’m doing with my life. I believe I’ve transcended by becoming comfortable with my situation. Given the circumstances of most people in the world and in this country, I am blessed, beyond blessed. Why agonize when you know that the worst case scenario is still extremely good or otherwise unavoidable?

April has been the loneliest month. Intentionally lonely, as I said. I sat in my apartment for nearly the entire month. I kept my yoga routines local. I stopped playing guitar and only wrote some music. Most of the month was spent feeling extremely tired, so tired I couldn’t move most days, and writing a tome about my childhood. 280 pages in 3 weeks. It was heavy. Socializing was kept to a minimum. Yoga pants didn’t come off. The sleep-wake cycle was mostly kept steady. I was constantly fatigued. I started to look sick. I got used to hearing nos and accepted that some opportunities were beyond my reach. That these things were sometimes meant to be. A match would come when a match was supposed to come. No complacency but at least some degree of surrender would be needed.

May was a reversal. I wrapped up my writing and started to get serious. I celebrated my 1-year anniversary of unshackling myself from corporate servitude and general bad vibes. I cut off toxic relationships and influences in my life. I stopped doing things I didn’t want to do (for the most part). I started becoming more aggressive about getting consulting gigs and working semi-seriously on my tech startup. I contemplated a real life plan that might endure some weeks, months, or at least days. A life plan that was sane, less punishing. The first item? “Stop giving people second chances” (with an asterisk of course). I let myself eat what I wanted. I went out for drinks periodically. Sometimes I didn’t go to sleep by 11pm. I decided I wanted to find a real romantic partner and met someone I really liked for the first time in many years and then sadly had to say goodbye when I realized he wasn’t good for me. This newfound discipline and facing of facts is encouraging. Much better than my usual approach of trying to draw blood from a stone. Then I went on a bunch of first dates instead of committing to the first guy who liked me.

Being purposeful in this way feels right.

I’m not going to miss Los Feliz. I see it as a necessary chapter and can almost see in the rearview mirror the purpose it was meant to serve. I’m sure there will be greater insights in the future on this trajectory and how it’s all woven together. Isn’t that always the case though? The past always changes as your chronology and story advances. Each moment of the past means something different in relation to where you are now.

On to chapter 4 of my LA life – Venice. I hope the beach will ground me instead of pulling me out to sea. But if I get lost in the swirl, so be it.