I was thisclose to just staying in the airport today.
I’d landed in L.A. from Boston and had an eight hour layover before my flight to Auckland. I was feeling sluggish from the flight and was starting to seriously dig the book I’d just cracked and my backpack was heavy from the three other books I was lugging because I refuse to get a Kindle. Might be best to head to the Admirals Lounge and call it a day, I thought. I’ve made a handful of solo day trips in the past two months, thinking each would be a nice change of pace or a little adventure that would take my mind off things. All they really did was make me feel lonely. So when I reached the junction of escalator up to the gates and EXIT No Re-Admittance, I surprised myself by hanging a right and walking out the double doors into the sunshine.
One overpriced cab ride later (for real - that meter ticked up a buck fifty every 90 seconds) I found myself in Manhattan Beach. I picked it because it’s a 15-minute drive from LAX that avoids all major highways. It wasn’t until I got out of the taxi and started walking around that I remembered I’d been there before. Almost sixteen years ago. When I graduated from college and moved out to L.A. with the intention of writing screenplays for the rest of my life. I rolled into town as a newly minted 22-year-old with no job, no car, and no clear plan for obtaining either. What I DID have was a roommate named Hunter. And what HE had was a girlfriend, who was still an undergrad, whose parents lived on the beach just outside the city.
Hunter picked me up when I landed on a blindingly sunny day in 2004 - all my worldly possessions in a roller bag that definitely could have made it as a present-day carry-on. The lease on our crappy apartment in West Hollywood didn’t start until the following day, so we drove out to Manhattan Beach where his girlfriend’s parents had generously offered to put us up for the night. (Side note: Hunter had learned to drive about six weeks prior, specifically so he could get around in our new home town. The hard braking and uncontrolled acceleration of a first-time driver on the streets of Los Angeles had me rolling up to our destination sure that I was going to throw up all over myself.) It took us a while to find his girlfriend’s parents’ place because we couldn’t find their street. There was Highland and Bayview and Ocean Drive - but The Strand we couldn’t track down no matter how many side streets Hunter lurched us onto. Turns out that’s because The Strand is a walking path - right on the sand.
I have only a handful of memories of that August day in 2004, but I remember the house. It was a palace. Four stories, all with floor to ceiling windows facing the ocean. I remember walking up to the top floor where the dad was sitting at his desk reading the paper, with his back to the glass, as the sun set spectacularly behind him. I remember thinking: I will never let myself get that desensitized - that deadened - to something this magical. I remember him cracking a bottle of wine that even now I’m sure I couldn’t truly appreciate. I remember going home the next morning with an armful of tupperware the mom gave me when she found out we didn’t have any plates or bowls to eat from. I remember missing my mom and dad. I remember feeling like my real life was starting.
I don’t know whether one or some or all of those memories lured me out of the airport and down to the coastline today. But I was just about finished with an hour-long walk along the sand, thinking it was probably time to order an Uber back to the airport, when I looked up and realized - I was looking right. at. the house. 1820 The Strand. It looked exactly the same. It was just as grand as I remembered. I wondered if I should knock on the door. What are the chances they’d remember me? What are the chances they even live there anymore? If one of them did answer - what would I say? “I know I look like a sort of disheveled almost 40-year-old backpacker, but remember when you gave me that tupperware so I could eat my Honey Bunches of Oats with Strawberries?” So instead of acting like a normal adult I creepily took a couple pictures with my phone then booked it up the hill and out of sight.
I’d made it about five blocks from The Strand when I saw a pink glow spreading on the pavement in front of me. The sun was setting and I had my back to it. I took off my backpack, turned towards the water, sat down on the curb and watched the sun drop below the horizon. I sat there for a while.
I’ve started to feel old sometimes. Too old to feel as unsure as I do about where my life is at and what I want to change about it. Too old to feel as stuck as I do. Like there must have been a door somewhere along the way - maybe a lot of them - that would have led me someplace that looks more like traditional adulthood. But somehow I walked through a different exit. No re-admittance.
I sat on the curb tonight and I thought about the year I spent in Los Angeles. The year that my real life was just starting. I had three jobs, none of which I particularly liked. I needed $75 a month from my parents to make rent. I ate Honey Bunches of Oats and lentil soup and couldn’t afford beer. I was lonely for my friends who’d all taken responsible jobs in New York and Boston and Chicago. Sometimes when my mom called to see how I was doing I cried.
Sixteen years later my mom can still make me cry when she calls just to see how I’m doing. But I’m down to one job. It’s a big one. More often than not I truly enjoy doing it. I have a team of women I love and respect, who trust me with their careers. Tonight I’m heading to the other side of the world, in relative style, on my own dime to kick around the mountains for two weeks. When I come home it’ll be to a fridge stocked with really effing good beer.
And tonight I watched a California sunset, alone, and I didn’t feel lonely.
Progress.
