I have many fond memories from my childhood, one of the oldest and clearest memories I have is the dream of one day moving to Los Angeles.
Hollywood and the City of Angels were as magical to me as the kingdoms talked about in fairy tales. The city where dreams came true and where sunshine was constant, sounded like a daydream to my overly creative chubby child self living in Seattle; a city that seemed more like a place where dreams came to die in my adolescent mind. I was so obsessed with LA that it was the destination for our annual family vacation for FIVE YEARS (yea…I see now how I missed out big time on exploring more places…oh well.) I turned 18 in August of 2007, I was moved into my Los Angeles apartment on Oct 30th of the same year. I haven’t regretted it a single day.
Many people hate LA, and if they come here thinking it’s paved in golden roads, they soon realize the roads are more likely to be covered in tears of dreams never seen to fruition. This is the very negative outlook on LA. Let me be clear, this city is as awful as it is awesome and it’s completely up to YOU which experience you have.
As a dreamer myself, this city has always been as magical as I imagined. Sure, I haven’t been “discovered” walking down the street like so many Hollywood stories claim BUT I am living on the world’s largest backlot. You know you’ve officially adapted to Hollywood life when your actual day to day life is affected by filming, i.e. being late to work because a star wagon is blocking your driveway. This is the perfect example of love vs. hate outlook –
Hate – DAMMIT! THEY’RE ALWAYS FILMING!! I CAN’T ESCAPE!!!
Love – They’re filming on my block?! oooooooooo what is it, what is it?!
I still think it’s incredible that I get to drive past movie studios EVERY DAY. They make movies in there guys!!!! Where else can you drive past a star ceremony on Hollywood Blvd., cut down to Sunset Blvd. and drive past iconic music venues like the Whiskey where the who’s who have played, and drive through famous neighborhoods like Beverly Hills where fiction is more prominent than reality? When you have a city made up of the craziest and wildest dreamers it’s no wonder that often times life here feels like some warped version of reality. The very air (granted…smog has a lot to do with it) makes the terrain and sunset look like it’s been glazed over with an Instagram filter.
Many complain that in a city where you live in your car it’s hard to meet people and therefore, this is a very lonely city. I agree AND disagree. Yes, you’ll probably end up spending more of your time in your car or a Lyft/Uber than your apartment, but that hasn’t stopped me from making the biggest most incredible group of friends I could ever dream of. You just have to find your people, and luckily if you came here for something creative, you’re in luck because so have most of the people living here so there’s already thousands of people you have a common interest with.
This city is full of just as many kind and supportive people as the mean, competitive and shallow ones. Unfortunately society is set up to hold on to the negative and forget about the positive. People think of LA as being the destination for people to have opportunities handed to them. What they should be talking about is the groups of people creating their OWN opportunities, the people sitting at Birds on Franklin drinking microbrews and collaborating on their next script.
This city has become the city of creating YOUR dreams, not the place where you wait for your name to be called from the lottery wheel. This city is full of so much beauty, so much inspiration, history, support and creativity. Don’t let the jaded people take away your butterflies. Don’t let anyone make you feel stupid for loving living here, for being proud to be pursing your dreams in the biggest production of make believe on the planet. And if for any reason you’ve forgotten or lost that loving feeling, take a cruise down Hollywood Blvd and BLAST “City of Angels” by 30 Seconds to Mars.
IT. WILL. CHANGE. YOU.