So much has happened, so much has been going on. where do I begin? Well, if you didn’t know I am actually back in California. I know, surprised me too. I didn’t think I was going to make it, suffice it to say that the end of the summer was a lot like your first time–quick, confusing and strangely anticlimactic. We’ll fast-forward through the events of getting here, and the trip out and spending the past month or so relatively homeless–those stories are for another entry. And instead I think i’ll focus on the past week or so.
Last week I finally found a place to live, so breathe easy I am no longer homeless. My dad, awesome guy that he is, used his position in the Methodist church to help me contact some incredibly compassionate people to help me search. You may imagine how difficult it is to find people genuinely concerned for your well being in a town like Los Angeles. Altruism is hard to find in this place. So it was a great relief when I got such a magnanimous offer within twenty four hours. Ms. Hamilton goes to the church my dad called, and happened to have a free bedroom in a very large house in a very nice neighborhood. I went to talk to her and within a week I finally had my own bed for the first time in a month.
It’s been a week since I’ve moved in and things are going pretty well; but as I pause to reflect on the situation yet again, I still can’t get over how incredibly different this place is compared to everywhere else I live. I guess the biggest difference is just how quiet it is. I’ve lived in the dorms for three years, I spent a month with my friends–I have been constantly in the midst of a hive of activity and conversation. Hell, even when I’m living at home my family is there, going and coming stirring the air at least enough to be noticed. Now it is just me and her, an 87 year old hard-of-hearing woman who is retired and keeps to herself most of the time. This is her house, I am simply renting space in it and as such it’s a little difficult to understand how I fit in to the place. She has been in this house for a long time, and been living on her own for only a little less than that, so it’s easy to understand that she’s established some routines. Problem is that I have too, needless to say it’s a little difficult for a college student and a senior citizen’s routines to really mesh up.
I guess the biggest thing I’ve noticed is how lonely it feels there–feeling out of place, further away from my friends than I’m used to, like everything around me is really fragile. My family is 3000 miles away and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss them. I remember telling a good friend of mine when she was thinking of moving out on her own to Los angeles, this town is tremendous and very frightening–if you’re not careful it’ll swallow you whole without a second thought. It’s why it’s been so important for me to spend time with my friends lately, I am afraid of being eaten alive. Around this place you need a family, and around this place they are my family. I don’t know how to really tell them, but I love them and they mean the world to me. If it weren’t for them I don’t know if I could survive this place, I know I couldn’t do it on my own.
