Last week on my way home from work, I drove for a few blocks behind a bubblegum pink Rolls Royce SUV as it poorly navigated its way across busy streets. I often think about the unique aspects of my life (there are many) but that particular moment stuck with me as something that could only happen while driving through Beverly Hills. I’m still getting used to the fact that I live in Los Angeles, a place with abundant streaming service billboards, a charged air of creativity, and a collective hive mind focused on the use and misuse of cars. In which case, I guess I can say I’m an official LA resident now, because I can’t stop thinking about them either.
In the middle of palm tree lined roads, LA drivers stop without signaling. Hazard lights are an afterthought. A jeep with a giant photo of Lana Del Rey stretched across the tire cover parks at my apartment building every day, it’s driver a mystery. I watch wide turns made swiftly, across multiple lanes toward an exit. Nobody really honks. I listen to the Subaru mechanic tell me that I need to replace my entire fuel line insulator and decided to forget about it when I realized it would cost $600. I drive to take a walk. I drive to pick up my girlfriend from work. I drive to see a friend. I avoid seeing friends because I have to drive too far to get there. I drive away from my parking spot at the Griffith Observatory after looking up to watch stars appear from nothing, and looking down to try and guess which road it is that keeps on going for miles and miles in a perfect straight line before me.
Of course, the roadblocks I face are not only ones involving my actual car. There are friendship delays and relationship emergency lanes and dead still traffic in the way of me and my career goals. There is internal rage about the signs people around me selectively listen to, the choices they make without thinking of others. The routes I take again and again through dark crevices of my mind exhaust me. Even though I know they lead nowhere, I keep circling back, waiting for it all to make sense, waiting for a reason to stop.
The other day, I realized that I was unhappy, and I journaled about it. After I finished writing, I read every entry I’ve made for the past two years, and all but one sounded exactly the same. I have come a long way since 2021, but realizing that similar issues and frustrations and self-agony remained a problem for me was far from comforting. I moved from one coast to another, worked multiple jobs, wrote things I’m proud of, made friends, developed a relationship – but how was it that the same things were making me feel stuck?
I’ve found that the amount I try to alter my habits means far less than the way I respond to my inner self when it’s speaking. When you spend most of your life people pleasing and abandoning your own needs, it can feel unnatural to reflect earnestly on what it is you’d like to do with your life, AND to trust yourself enough to believe you are valid. In my journal, one of the loudest themes included a disbelief that my desires, dreams, or instincts were worth listening to. That there was someone or something else more worthy or morally sound I should mimic instead. I’ve forgotten how to hear myself… or maybe I never knew how to in the first place.
Life is hard, but I’m still trying. For now, I’ll try my best to keep my eyes directly on the road in front of me. That’s all I really can do. I know that everything will be okay. Although there’s so much for me to wade through and overcome in the near future, I find comfort in small truths that keep me going. I am brave, I am resilient, and no matter how tough life gets, I’ll always be a better driver than nearly every Californian.
Keep going, you are indeed brave and resilient, and a talented writer. People say 'you should write a book' to many people with a dalliance in writing. But you should, and I think you will.
A pleasant surprise to receive your latest post and appreciate your sharing inner travels!