Being asked to write this piece felt like fate. I love writing, especially the deep, personal stuff. It’s cathartic and works better than any form of therapy I’ve ever tried.
I say fate, because this past year has been one of the most transformative years I’ve had in a long while. From my personal life, to my career, and even my sense of identity and style. So, what better way to commemorate that than through this essay.
Funnily enough, this has also been the last year of my 20s. It’s a weird feeling, losing your “youth”, and I didn’t think I was affected in any way by hitting the milestone of age 30. But weirdly enough it hit me two days prior (in the form of deep nostalgia, tears of happiness, and some mania). I could blame this on mercury being in retrograde, my PMS, or my childhood best friend getting engaged. But if I’m being honest with myself, it’s probably because I was leaving my 20s behind.
In the few months that followed my 29th birthday, I secured a green card for the United States, got rid of most of my belongings, packed up my entire life, and moved myself across the world to LA. It was the biggest risk I’d taken in a long time. Most people questioned why I’d even consider starting my life over from scratch at 29, but I told them all the same thing: complacency is the enemy of growth and I was guilty of becoming complacent in NZ. What is life if not to be challenged?
And oh my, challenged I was. Looking back, (from what is my 30th birthday and 6 month anniversary in LA – funny how life works sometimes, right?) the version of myself who moved over here with her positive, Kiwi ‘she’ll be right’ outlook on life had NO idea what she was really getting herself into.
Anyone who’s moved to a new country only knowing one or two people, or not knowing anyone at all, will understand how isolating and lonely the experience is. It’s something I really wasn’t prepared for. Especially considering how ‘exciting’ the whole moving overseas situation is and how amazing everyone tells you it is.
What they don’t tell you is, you’re constantly dealing with the feeling of loss: losing familiarity with your surroundings, losing your friends and family being right around the corner, losing your favourite coffee shop, and even losing the banter with your local dairy owner.
It’s interesting, the feeling of self reinvention that you go through when you move to a new city. I honestly think it happened within about a week for me. I suddenly hated everything in my wardrobe (to be fair I was only working with 3 suitcases) but nothing felt like ‘me’ anymore. I didn’t feel as though I fit in, everything felt ugly and frumpy on my body, and I didn’t have that inherent sense of self confidence I’d worked so hard to develop and preserve over the past few years. I remember crying on FaceTime to my sister because I felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Don’t worry though, I’m not about to get all ‘sadness from Inside Out’ on you. Once I got comfortable in LA and worked through all those feelings, I had so much fun reinventing myself (for want of a better word). I basically have an entirely new wardrobe, new makeup routine, and have even started using the word ‘vibe’ unironically (but maybe that’s LA coming through…)
I think many people view that as a bad thing, but I truly believe that the negative perception of changing oneself really needs to be left in the past (positivity and growth is very brat summer). And right now, I couldn’t be happier or prouder of the journey I’ve gone through.
Anyway, the point of blabbing on about all of this was to share that sometimes you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable (in whatever situation that may apply to). Because as cliché as it is, you’re going to grow through every experience and every year, until one day you look back and you start crying because you’re so proud of what you’ve been through and who you’ve become.