The sunlight gently tiptoes through the open blinds, filling the apartment with a pale and settling glow. It is four PM, and it’s just me. The light, though it brightens the earth, has a chill, like you’d still need a second layer to go outdoors. It gives off light blue and yellow and peach and grey and makes me feel like I am alone in a old shore house in New Jersey during an off peak season. I sit, racking my brain for the words to articulate the emotions bubbling to the surface, and still I come up blank. Alone in a house with two floors, begging for more inhabitants. I reminisce of summers past, in an attempt to find inspiration. Nothing. Between every sentence my left hand dives into my bag of dried Californian peaches, as I begrudgingly stuff my face with a snack that pales in comparison to what I’ve been feeding on lately.
I lean back onto my sorry excuse for a bed, in my room that has no door, in an apartment that does not bare my name. A sorry excuse for a home. I lean back, and thoughts and memories and hopes and disappointments whir above my head, clashing against each other with no one thought emerging above the others. My cell phone dings. Another casting notice. Instant feeling of guilt and annoyance. I’m guilty because of how terrible I’ve been at pursuing my dream, and annoyed at how often a casting notice reminds me of that guilt.
I’m just a girl, who exists coincidentally in this day, with no clue of how she got here. I’m just a girl who can’t figure it out. The closer I get to thinking I have it figured out, there goes another fastball straight to the gut.
I take another glance out my informal dorm-sized window, and I feel a shock of guilt for the way I’ve let the worst parts of me drag down the best parts of me. I don’t know whether I’ve been in this room for three days or three years, but the outside feels so unfamiliar and eerie. Like if I walked outside and spoke to someone, I’d find out firsthand that English was not California’s first language anymore. It looks quiet, like I could be the only person on earth. Just me and the birds. My imagination runs wild with anxiety. I’ve been having more vivid dreams, dreams that make waking up less desirable. The longer I am a recluse, the wilder the world of my imagination grows.
So I sit, bathed in the chilly grey light, eyes lightly closed, fantasizing about the day when my life will be together. When I have a door and address, when I have a therapist, when I am enrolled in acting class, when I have an agent, when I have credibility, when depression doesn’t take it’s form in me through eating habits, when I am having good sex, when I am confident, and when I have all these things that seem so far. I sit here and fantasize about it, until it hurts to do so. That’s when I close my laptop.
So, I sat down about an hour ago to air out how I've been feeling, and that piece came out? I realize I've been inactive lately. I don't have a clear answer for why. The inactivity has nothing to do with my lack of interest in blogging, so if you we're hoping I'd stop, then I give you some wise words from the man himself, DJ Khaled: "They don't want me to blog, so I blogged."
The more time that passes since I lost my job, the more it sets in. I think recently I've really been able to wrap my mind around it, and realize that I didn't just lose a part time job. I lost my structure. I lost my second family. I lost some confidence and security. Most of the time my main character trait is positivity, but for the past few days I've been self-sabotaging. Of course, I can only let these reflections come pouring out when I'm back on an upswing, because that's the only time I can look at myself rationally and critically. When I'm smack in the middle of one of those phases, I'm like a bear in hibernation. I'm embarrassed of myself, so I try to not exist in the real world for a little while.
But now that I'm on the other side of my minor pity party, I decided to post what I had written this afternoon in an attempt to rebuild. Also I thought I'd share the newest collection of photos I've taken! There are photos from the dog cafe which was AMAZING and I would have happily stayed there for hours, (but I only paid for two) photos from a hike that leads to the Hollywood sign, and of another puppy I met at a brewery this week who was just the friendliest guy ever! Enjoy, and leave a comment! (If you wanna, no pressure.)
Thanks for tuning back in and not forgetting about The Jones. You know, it's really hard to come up with content when your day to day is completely decided by whether or not you want to leave your bed. For the first time in a long time, LA feels like a foreign city to me and I feel like an alien, so it's harder and harder to leave my apartment. But, for the good of The Jones, I promise to try a little harder.
Have a bomb ass week. XO