Home is the place you love & hate the most
AKA why Los Angeles sucks and is amazing at the same time
“You should just move back to London then,” says my date while we sit on the grey padding at Hollywood Boulders. This is his response when I talk about how challenging I have found moving back to Los Angeles at the age of 25 and trying to make a new life.
“In London, everything just flowed. In London, you could be spontaneous. I’d be walking home from work and stumble upon an art gallery having a preview event. I’d pop in, grab a glass of free wine, start a conversation with another alone-person admiring a painting, and then leave! It was beautiful. That is impossible here. Here, A. I wouldn’t be walking home from work. And B. There would definitely be a guest list, and as a high school English teacher, I would not be on it. And friendship is just different here. In the UK, people cared about relationships more, here people care more about work.”
He looks at me like I’m pretentious. I probably am. He’s never left the country. He grew up in Illinois and then moved to Los Angeles, and has been here for the last twelve years. “You’re making sweeping generalizations. Maybe in LA, but not all of America.”
“You’re right,” I say and fall silent. Not a good start to our fourth date. Spoiler alert - there will not be a fifth. I feel so triggered that I stop talking out loud, and start talking inward. “Regulate Sammy, regulate. Yes, it was a sweeping generalization, just doesn’t understand. Can’t he see the trauma and pain I’m in. He’s a teacher, too, he should be able to validate, right? Maybe it’s a trigger for him, having never been to Europe. Maybe I’m making him feel insecure. Regulate.” I feel like crying, but can tell he is not down to emotionally support me.
I decide that he is not someone I can safely be honest with. Hence, no fifth date, but he doesn’t know that. He was the one who said he just wanted to be friends at the end. Which I’m pretty sure he just said to be polite because we both kept making the other feel insecure, and I have enough teenagers doing that to me at work.
Later, I learn that he didn’t even eat dinner and came straight from work after a long day that went from 7am to 7pm. Aka a WORKAHOLIC.
But this post isn’t about my dating life - although I’ll be opening up about that very soon- this post is about my love/hate relationship with Los Angeles and why I chose to stay here instead of move back to LA even though it’s the worst.
LA feels like a city designed for cars and not humans. It’s seems a city designed by white affluent males with no disabilities, no empathy, and no pets/kids. They are obsessed with freeways, parking lots, and gates. They hate going to new places and love department stores and 7 Elevens. There is very little logic and an urban sprawl that transforms a 4 million person city feel like a never-ending suburb.
And yet, we have the largest national park in a major city that is absolutely gorgeous! The Santa Monica Mountains, Griffith Park, the beaches are so so so beautiful. We have hiking and rock climbing and mountain biking. The nature is astounding!
We have so much arts and culture and opportunity, although it may be hard to access for many. The Pantages, the Hollywood Bowl, the Greek Theatre! So many theaters, so many music venues, so many movie theaters, art galleries, museums. Gorgeous bookstores like the Last Bookstore, Vromans, and Skylight Books. Thrift stores and vintage markets! Netflix, Honda, Disney. Important international corporations that call this place home.
We have incredible diversity, people from all walks of life and so many backgrounds. We have so many immigrants. Did you know 27% of Californians are immigrants, and the other 25% are first generation? There is no need to travel the world, the whole world is already here. My friends here are from Japan, El Salvador, and Kenya. They are from Ukraine, China, and Colombia. It’s amazing! And that’s not talking about the people from all the different states, which are as different as the European countries.
About now, you can probably see why I chose to stay here. Los Angeles really is wonderful, it’s just our unhealthy obsession with work and our narcissistic city planning that needs to change. That’s not so bad. We can change that, right?
What do you love and hate about the place you call home? Do you think you have the power to change your home and improve the things that cause you and your community so much pain?
Love you lots!
Sammy
Los Angeles is like you said full of diversity and is basically a mixing pot of many ethnicities, cultures, religions, and people that make Los Angeles what it is and what it could be. It's been an experience living out here for the passed 3 plus years. I am intrigued by what this place has to offer