It’s been so long since I’ve last shared anything on here, but I’ve thought about this blog every day since I last wrote on it. For the very few who keep updated on my blog, you may have noticed some aesthetic changes and a couple blog posts that went unshared. But for most, this is my hello again!
My first big update: I graduated! Graduating was one of the most special milestones I’ve had so far, and it obviously brought about a ton of mixed emotions as well. For one, USC brought me some of the most impactful friendships and relationships I’ve had thus far. Well duh! It hasn’t been a very long life. Nonetheless, leaving behind a city where most of my support network was within a 15-minute walkable radius was as about as gloomy as you can imagine. But I remind myself: even if I were to stay at USC for another year in hopes of retaining that same proximity to my friends, there’s zero guarantee my people will stay. The reality is we will all move away from (many) people we love one day, and leaving USC just happened to be another reality to face in my life.
But more than that, I also left a city I was so fortunate to call home for the last 3.5 years. The city of Los Angeles is endlessly beautiful, but not in the way I had imagined growing up. The truth is – I always wanted to move to LA because I saw it as a sunshine paradise, where dreams are born and fulfilled. I saw this quote one time that said we all grew up with Los Angeles – so many of our favorite movies, ones who have helped shape our dreams, were filmed here. In fact, the one film that truly made me dream of moving to LA one day was Starstruck. Easily in one of my top 5 movies ever, it truly was every LA stereotype to a tee, and I wanted to live out my dreams of surfing in Malibu and strolling in endless sunshine.
So when I got into USC – a school I truly didn’t think was in reach – and it was the school that surprisingly made the most financial sense for me, I felt like my dreams were starting to fall into place. Without going in too deep, I struggled a lot with academics, but most importantly with my mental health, during high school because of some family challenges. I grew up in the same house my entire life, which was a blessing and privilege in so many ways. But in the years leading up to college, I felt so ready to say goodbye, because it just didn’t feel like home anymore and reminded me of a lot of difficult times.
Another massive transition at the time was the fact that my dad had decided to sell our house in Florida and move us over to the Sunshine State, Florida! This was actually a more welcome change, but it kind of reminds me of exactly how I’m feeling now (which I promise I’ll actually get to). High school, while hard, was transformative, and I also walked away having experienced friendships, conflicts, and connections that resonate with me to this day. But in high school, just like college, we really do go our own way. Even though it still makes me a little sad that a majority of the people who made me the person I was going into early adulthood were no longer near me, we’re never as alone as we think we are! At the end of the day, we each went through huge changes following high school, and mine just meant no longer having a physical home in the county I grew up in. But I still carry amazing memories and have “home” in so many pockets of New Jersey + New York City, which I’m endlessly grateful for.
So that takes me back to USC…I promise, the end of this update about the last four years is almost over. Moving to LA in January 2022 was a little rough - it started off during a COVID wave, which rendered the beginning of my first semester in college to be pretty restricted. But that first semester, I had my older sister in the same city(-ish), which always gave me the warmth and support I needed in this first long period away from “home.” But to be frank, living in LA was pretty much nothing like the movies. Sure, the weather is mostly great (and I’ll never take that for granted), and the food scene has got to be amongst the best in the entire world. You simply cannot beat the diversity in cuisines, options, and prices you’ll find in that city. It’s beautiful. But the harsher reality is also how difficult it is to get around in the city. I explored enormously on the bus, and I also took the bus to work almost every day. It WILL get you places. But it’s not particularly enjoyable, nor is it particularly reliable. I started to feel like my life was about planning how to get to a place, rather than planning what I was going to do once I got to a place.
However, I’ll also never take the LA slander from anyone who hasn’t lived there. LA is resilient and bursting in culture and community, I don’t know that there’s a city quite like it.
I’m so incredibly lucky that I’ve gotten to be inspired by a city like LA at such a young age. But being away from home became difficult. My grandmother, while still lively in spirits, hasn’t been doing too great in the last few years due to her lack of mobility, and the guilt of being away from her – especially when her social network shrunk so much since we moved from NJ – became an increasing burden the longer I stayed in LA. Since my sophomore year, I had already been telling myself that I’d move back home after graduating, and that thought gave me a lot of hope over the last couple years – that I would eventually shake this feeling of sadness and even slight regret, that I was so far from her.
In hindsight, this did slightly damage my mindset in college. While I am proud of how I navigated USC, I do feel like approaching my life with this thought made me wish time away slightly. Wishing away time is the last thing I ever want to do, so it makes me a bit disappointed hindsight.
And the end eventually did come. To be frank – senior year took the biggest toll on my mental health. I actually had never felt so low in college until this year. The thought of moving back to Florida, a place where I could count all the people I knew on one hand, became nervewracking. I had said all these years I wanted to move back here, but it scared me now that the reality was looming. It all came to a head when I applied for what I thought was a dream job at the time, and I didn’t hear back after my interview. I completely and utterly crashed out during this application process in February, but this was the catalyst to me starting to repair parts of myself after feeling extremely fragile for so much of the year. The job was in Michigan, and in hindsight, it simply is not where I was meant to be at this time.
So I came into March refreshed and ready to make the most of my last months in LA, and I can now confidently say that these last five months of my life have been largely wonderful. Despite a few hiccups along the way, I made some of the best memories of my life thus far and graduated! I got to explore the foodie city of my dreams, see sights I’ve always wanted to, and had opportunities I could only ever dream of. And I think 17-year-old me who made the decision to pack my bags across the country would be proud of how things turned out 😊
It’s probably not hard to guess where I am now, but if you want the long update, head here!
See you soon,
Carissa 😊