Los Angeles: One Year Update

I truly cannot believe it’s been a year. It’s honestly mind-boggling. Someone said to me recently – 90% of your life is a transition. Your life is in a constant state of change, adjustment and transition. But it’s the way you accept and gracefully deal with transition that is going to positively impact your life. Truthfully, when I first moved here, I was completely overwhelmed with the transition and was wondering when in the world I would get settled in. But does anyone ever actually get “settled” when your always trying to evolve and grow?

As I reflect on this past year, I think about it in 3 “waves” or months of time that sort of became phases of transition as I made LA my home.

Wave 1 – The Move
July – October was a complete and utter whirlwind. I was traveling constantly for work and weddings (lol), didn’t have a car, was trying to find an apartment and was really, really stressed at work. Those months were a total blur – one of the hardest changes of my life that I truly wasn’t ready for. I expected everything to fall into place fairly simply but didn’t really take into consideration the whole moving across the country thing. I was sleeping on people’s couches, living out of a suitcase and was Uber Pooling everywhere (since I was still looking to buy a car). While this was a really hard time, I knew that I had still made the right decision and I just had to work at slowing down and giving myself some time to actually start a life here. After I stopped traveling so much in the beginning of October, bought a car, really made my apartment “mine,” I finally started to feel more calm.

Wave 2 – Orange County
As most of you know, my boyfriend (Matt) and I moved to California at the same time but he moved to Orange County for a job and I was obviously living in Los Angeles. At first, I loved the idea of him being down there (about and 1 ½ hr. away) because I wanted to make sure I built my own foundation and friends in Los Angeles without him so we didn’t have to rely on each other (I could write a WHOLE other blog post about this). But then, I quickly realized that going back and forth to OC every weekend was impeding on my own schedule and routine. On top of that, Matt was going through his own struggles moving across the country and was looking for a different job opportunity. We are both the types of people who find a lot of self-worth in our careers so when something is going bad at work, it tends to reflect in our relationship. To be honest, this was a pretty rocky time in our relationship and I truly believe that our communication and ability to be honest with each other is what got us through. Matt then found a new amazing job and moved up to Los Angeles – enter wave 3.

Wave 3 – Making LA Home
Ah wave 3 – the best wave. Once Matt moved to Los Angeles after the New Year, everything truly started to fall into place. I wasn’t living out of a weekender bag and going back and forth to Orange County anymore and started to truly fall in my routine (which you guys know, I love a routine). I was able to plan out things I needed to get done on the weekends like brand collaborations, photoshoots, trying out restaurants, running errands etc. I’m in wave 3 right now and feel like the benefits of moving across the country are really starting to pay off. Overall in my life, my stress level is SO MUCH lower than when I was living in New York, I feel like I am living a life that is more proactive instead of reactive and feel like I could build a life and family here. It’s the first time in my adult life where I have the time to reflect on myself, who I am and who I want to become. I am turning 27 this year and so far, have done exactly what I set out to do. As far as my career, I still seek to find a balance between my full-time job and blog but feel like I have so much more of grasp than I did a year ago – which is something I worked really, really hard for. My daily schedule all around, while packed, just feels slower and more manageable than it used to. I have a great core group of friends who I love being around, an apartment that I adore and never feel like I am “working for the weekends” because honestly I just feel like I wake up happier here? I was talking with my friend the other day who said “My happy level in LA starts a certain percentage higher than it used to.” I feel that. And that, I think, is an accomplishment.

Posted By: mimosasandmanhattan · In: Life