Born to Lose
Hi everyone,
I’m trying something new here. Because I’m trying to write a book and hone in on the direction of my life at the same time, I thought…why don’t I let people into this process? Why don’t I let people see the debilitating instability, cataclysmic beauty, and profound uncertainty of following what makes you feel the most alive? Thus, I introduce to you, Born To Lose. My pseudo-book I’ll be writing here, chapter by chapter, on Substack — while I write my actual book in secret. I’ll be chronicling to you the discoveries I’ve made on my journey of being a writer with no home, no stable income, and no clear path forward. And maybe, together, we can figure it out.
Hoping, that somewhere down the line, many weeks from now, or maybe even years, holding my book in my hands, I will understand how it is I created what I wanted.
For those who are shaking as they walk in the dark,
Introducing,
Born to Lose
Chapter 1: It’s The City That Makes You
Leaving Los Angeles, I knew something was going to happen to me. What that something was and what it would entail was unknown. I just knew I needed to do something to spark it into existence. And sometimes, when you are in a place for too long, you lose what you need to ignite that spark. After 11 years in Los Angeles, I had essentially completed my dream to live there. Then the dream dies. It ends.
Well,
what takes its place?
To be truthful, I didn’t live out all of my dreams in Los Angeles. There was still so much more that I wanted to do. But, I came to realize, those dreams were not site-specific to that city. In fact, they might belong to another city. So, with my fresh title as a writer. I set off in August to find what new city that might be.
Cities to me are very personal. The larger a city, the more I see myself inside of it. I like being a little fish in a big pond. Seeing what innovation it stirs in me. I like watching what I do to become large again.
But, I’m in a predicament, you see. I’m a writer but I do not make a living as a writer. I don’t even really have any other jobs outside of the occasional commercial acting job. Which thankfully, pays very well, but is very unstable and infrequent to depend upon. So, here I am, an untethered writer with no financial resources in search of a city and a path forward.
But, first, I had to go back home.
“Home” — that’s a tough word. I’ve never felt comfortable calling Colorado my “home”, I more so saw it as a “place”, a place where I happened to grow up. But, nonetheless, homeward bound I was. The last time I lived at home I was 18 fantasizing over my new life starting college in Malibu. Now I’m 29, returning with all of my memories on my back.
Collapsing in my childhood bedroom, which my parents now converted into their office, I slept. I slept for days. I had a volatile and deranged moving experience filled with car problems and poor planning, so I needed at least a week of being a suburban zombie. All I did was sleep, watch reruns, and eat Chipotle (Chipotle is actually really good in Colorado because the company started there). It was oddly very relaxing. I didn’t have time to wax poetic over my leaving Los Angeles during my last weeks there, so here I was to reminisce while lazing around Aurora, Colorado.
That first week was healing. The next few were….not.
Aurora, a suburb outside of Denver, is um — yeah, well it’s something. It’s — fine? I guess. It’s not like outrageously terrible, but it’s not the most stimulating place to be. Denver in general is not the most stimulating place to be. It’s a city filled with nature-heads who have cool temperaments and are really, really nice. No one’s very flashy or gaudy. It’s quite the opposite of LA really. People have wealth and would rather not show it. It’s very white but there are a lot of people of color surprisingly. But, it’s still very white. Everyone is just very…..toned down. People live there to live good lives by the mountains. And that’s it.
I HATED growing up here. The hatred didn’t start actualizing until high school when I started growing a brain for myself and I started realizing people have choices in their lives and that they can live anywhere they want. That’s when the anger started spilling into me. When I realized I had a choice. So, come my senior year, I found I could finally live out that choice. I could go to a college to take me far away and finally be in the city of my dreams. Los Angeles.
But that was then.
This is now.
And I was back.
People ask me why I hated it so much and why I still kind of do but the answer is always tricky for me to explain. Because I never want to offend anyone. It’s not even just Colorado, I feel like I end up insulting anyone who doesn’t live in a big city when I say this.
But here goes, I’ll try. I’ll be honest with you.
I need options. I need a life filled with options. I need to see those options. I need to see an array of thriving human life that surrounds me and pumps me with the vigor of living. I am enthralled into aliveness when I am in a bustling, alive place.
You might be thinking, okay, how is this offensive?
Just wait.
I need to see these options of living because they remind me of what is possible for myself. If I am in a place, and I see no examples of a human living a life I admire, I cannot live in that place. Or even be in it for too long. Because the size of my life morphs into their understanding of it. So, to live in a mid-size city like Denver means that I am okay with living a life of that size. Mid-size. Because everything there is based on what is mid-size. The types of restaurants, the artistry, the people, the roads, the innovation — everything. Everything is accommodated for people who live mid-sized lives. Which, funny enough, usually means there’s more physical space. You have more space to live a more comfortable life. Yet, comfort destroys innovation.
That’s okay to want a comfortable life. I think of my parents who immigrated to this country and all I want for them is to have a life of ease and comfort. But some of us, some of us deranged folk, such as myself, do not want a comfortable life. I want a fucking ride.
So, let’s take a bigger city. Lives get bigger and riskier. Comfort is harder to obtain because you need more resources to obtain it. Surviving is much, much harder. But, on the other hand, you have more to work with. You have more people showing you how to make more with less. It may not be nature, or physical space, or nicer people. But you get something unique, pulsing, and ever-changing. You get a city filled with people filled with fire. Just being near spirits like that set me ablaze. Nothing feels impossible.
That’s why I need to be in a big, thriving city. Because that is my gasoline. The human will to persevere. I’ve noticed it’s become normal for people to say “I hate people” or “I hate humanity” — I don’t. Of course, there are people I would like blasted off this planet. But humans, make my life feel alive. The more people I meet, the more I understand myself. Humanity is my mirror. I need to feel the rush of all of us changing.
I love seeing what people do to differentiate themselves. How they make themselves their own “big fish” in a huge, gigantic pond. How their lives all stick and tangle with each other. How, in a way, the city breathes inter-connectedly.
Thus, after a stagnant three or so weeks in Colorado and a phone call from a very generous best friend opening her home to me. New York became my glowing next destination.
Now, I have always, always been in love with New York.
Well…technically not always. My first trip there when I was 15 with my two best friends actually was too chaotic for me. My easy Colorado teen brain wasn’t ready to encounter a city of such nature yet. I thought it was too loud, dirty, scary, and inconvenient.
I did really love shopping at H&M though.
But, when I came back again when I was 23 — everything changed.
To be Continued.
As I read this in the coffee shop, my eyes filled with tears... tears of joy. With so many personal questions about where my life will go next... this chapter gave words to the current feelings that I have that continue to go unnamed. Thank you for this. I look forward to reading the next chapter.