You know what’s hilarious? Opening up your website in the summer of 2023, complete with a blog to chat about all things mental health, trauma, grief, show business, and what it’s REALLY like to live in LA (with a mostly positive but still realistic slant)…only to almost immediately have a huge plot twist thrown in the works where after a perfect storm of events you decide to leave LA for a few months. Whoops. Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, am I right?

I’ve been hinting since mid-end of September that a lot of life has been thrown at me, hence my posting on here has slowed. (My Instagram has more or less spelled it out recently though.) The too long and didn’t read is: I walked into September 2023 with one life and by the end of the month I had a brand new life. I literally had four life changes, including one that was whiplash-y in the sense of one giveth and one taketh away as fast as I was given something-woof. Not all of it is bad, some of these changes are actually quite welcomed, but to say I have been reeling and have had my attention divided is understatement. Why I’m moving is really complicated, but the long and short of it is that my current living situation became untenable and while figuring out what do to both professional and personal reasons made leaving LA for a hot moment the best choice for me. My life has been pretty relentless since moving here, though none of it is Los Angeles’ fault. There’s a difference between life sucking and life sucking because of where you live. I want this to be clear because I’m still going to blog about LA and am intending to come back, so I want what has happened documented for reference and to not look like a hypocrite so I’ll explain my timeline of living here below:

October 2017 I moved here. This is exciting and positive, but as anyone who’s moved to a new city where you don’t know anyone can attest to…being in a new city constantly drains your battery. Always being on for every person you meet, having nobody understand your greater context, learning traffic patterns while not knowing where anything is, not knowing what any parking situation will be- these things add up, are draining, and it all makes it hard to feel too at home while navigating- even if things are going well.

June 2018 my mom dies. Grief is hard enough but grieving while in a new city where nobody knows your background, personality and behaviors outside of grieving, or family history to understand the nuance of how you’re grieving is for the birds and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Nuff said.

March 2020 the world ends. Okay, it didn’t end but I was finally (barely) out of active grief and the world kind of stopped. All career momentum I had was lost. Everyone has a pandemic story and I am not unique, but it was a lot after being still pretty new and having lost my mom less than two years prior. At this point I had had a lot of upsets and big life changes back to back.

End of 2020-2022 my mental health was a disaster. There were ebbs and flows but this will probably always be the darkest period of my life. In this time I got diagnosed with Complex PTSD and while that has helped me heal, it got way worse before it got better. Even my physical health took a nose dive because I was so dyregulated that I wasn’t eating enough and at times wasn’t sleeping.

2023 I’ve been picking up the pieces. It started kind of dark, but my new tools I’ve acquired while healing proved to be the horse leading the cart so I began rounding some corners while healing and have been rebuilding steadily since the spring. …and then a million good and bad wrenches got thrown in the works in September.

Again, none of this is LA’s fault as Los Angeles didn’t cause the pandemic or my mom to die. I also had CPTSD before all of this but not only did I not know it, but I knew how to mask and function despite being complexly traumatized until the end of 2020 where suddenly my old tricks weren’t working anymore (hence I sought out therapy). But sorting out and processing all of these experiences and feelings amongst strangers, some who became enduring friends and some who proved to be temporary, has been a lot. I think the common thread for my LA life is that I have had virtually no stability. If you’re in the entertainment industry this is going to be true no matter what, but it’s been hard (at some moments) to find solid footing even outside the industry. The fact that I haven’t even touched my career ebbs and flows the past six years is proof of how overwhelming life has been outside of show business- usually it’s the craziness of the industry that overwhelms people when living here! I was starting to feel more stable in recent months all around, but upon realizing I had to move out of my place I started to explore other options. I had quietly considered in the height of my unwell mental state “getting out of dodge” (there’s a joke for “getting out of Dodgers country” here…) but came up short with good alternatives. Plus I do like LA for the most part, so it was a lot of half baked thoughts regarding temporarily leaving until sometime in September.

Through a strange perfect storm, I got a huge gift from one of two women I consider to be my best friends (who are more like sisters to me, in all honesty) to crash with her for the winter in Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up with her, she was there the night my dad died, and she even drove across the country with me when my mom was dying. Concurrently, I got a new day job where they happen to need people in Georgia at this exact moment. I hemmed and hawed privately for a few weeks as there is no utopia as there’s pros and cons to both staying and leaving. But with the entertainment industry still being shut down while I was making the decision and knowing it will take months for it to be back in full swing once the strikes end. I’m weirdly excited about this new day job and seeing it as a company I want to invest my time in and possibly grow with, so this is exciting and one of the positives. But I also have some personal factors and events in my personal life that I don’t wish to discuss here but need to acknowledge because they helped shade my decision. Plus I’ve been genuinely craving the stability and connection only people who have known you for years upon years can provide. So the writing on the wall became clear that myself and my nervous system were opting to “winter” in Atlanta. (There’s some set timelines regarding some of the above reasons, hence it’s for the winter.)

Since I like to talk about mental health on here, I also want to state that even with the industry being shut down, LA has a lot of distractions. I need more time to work on my health. I need to hear my own thoughts so I can write my screenplays and sketches again. And while I have made a few friends who I do believe genuinely meet me where I’m at and have taken the time and energy to understand me, it’ll be nice to be with a sister type where the shorthand is there effortlessly after being in a newer city navigating both personal and global tragedies. Hell, it’s going to be amazing having a sister friend type in the same house as many of my close LA friends live on the other side of town (which can be 20 miles away!) and with traffic and schedules…it’s a miracle when schedules do line up. In short, I just want some space to be a person again (versus a trauma queen wishing things were more stable to no avail) and see where that lands me. I have a very complicated cocktail of emotions about this, but I ultimately am doing this because I think I need a time out and am chasing a few things in Atlanta that may grant me more longterm stability. I’m sad to leave but also know it’s going to be for the best.

Come mid November I will be back to blogging more regularly as I get settled. And the LA posts will be there and no, it won’t become a “fuck LA” series. I’ll still provide nuance with both the good and the bad that can be Los Angeles. That said, I’m curious how leaving LA for a few months will skew my perspective. I’ve been in survival mode since arriving and in trauma therapy I’ve been learning how to not mask or go with the flow as much if it goes against my best interests or comfort level. I don’t know if having some literal distance between me and LA if certain things will snap into focus and I’ll see them more objectively, and realize some things are as bad as some people say. Candidly, once I made the decision to leave, I was surprised at how much I began emotionally and mentally leaning into it. Again, I’m sad and frankly even have some anxiety about this temporary move (a la, what if it is a backwards step? What are my circumstances going to be when I come back? Will it be like starting over again? Will my friends even miss me? Wait, I AM coming back…RIGHT? Also, I’m about to launch my puppets on TikTok, how many do I need to bring with me because all 14 seems excessive…? Etc). I keep saying that it’s not exactly what I want, but it’s probably what I need.

Even with being relatively fine with taking a break, I’m gonna miss LA. I’ve been trying so hard to be present and enjoy this weird city while I can. Sadly I never made it back to Universal Studios (I had a pass and made it my personality at times on social media, ha) after deciding to move (which is fine because my pass expires this week anyway), but I did get to go to Downtown Disney with a friend two weeks ago for the first time (and us knuckle heads forgot to take photos!). Also this may sound dumb but I like Palm Trees a lot and have been trying to be really present and enjoy them my last few weeks. These are the things that make LA feel unique and special to me, along with the industry and doing cool shit in this town because I’m show business.

While socially I haven’t always felt balanced here, I do feel like I have a solid handful of friends I’m genuinely connected to and have known for years at this point and am blown away at how genuinely supportive they have been the past several weeks. (Some even sound low key jealous while most are like, “oh girl, you’ve been here for four years without leaving? Nobody can handle LA for that long without needing a break!”) To say I didn’t cry on the way home after my goodbyes to a few would be a bold faced lie. I’m also looking forward to sending them some very strange postcards the next few months as I’ll be traveling at lot before, during, and likely after my stint in Atlanta so…buckle up if you’re in LA (or a dear friend from another chapter of my life), have been a shoulder for me to lean on especially recently, and I have your mailing address ;) I’m nervous to leave as I had a few collaborations I was knee deep in (look out for a nepo baby duo coming VERY soon) or was about to embark on (like a puppet web series with a good actor friend of mine), but all can be continued in 2024. I’m also looking forward to better getting to know Atlanta and seeing if there’s industry and comedy connections I can make there since it’s now become a show business city, especially since realizing I already know a handful of people who relocated there in recent years.

I’m sad. I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m perplexed at what my life will look like upon returning. I’m all of the things. But in my bones I feel like this is the absolute best decision. So all of my stuff is in storage and I’m hitting the road with my little dog and leaning into that vagabond life for a while. I prefer some stability, like having a permanent mailing address, but I will be getting other forms of stability here and am embracing the adventure of it all that will come out of this. Get ready for more episodes of Creepy & Kooky Cali- nay USA- Vlog as I’ll be hitting up cemeteries throughout the country as I’m taking the long way to Atlanta to see friends throughout the country (all the more reason I’m NOT ending the series).

So, get ready for more LA posts and know that no matter where I land when I have more perspective being removed from LA, I didn’t leave because I hate it or had a bad time here. I just need a time out so I can get back to my best self. Please check out my social media (on the top or bottom of your screen depending on your device) to stay updated with this journey as well as blog updates as I get back to regularly scheduled programming in early-mid November.