It's been almost a month since I last updated this thing. To be honest, I've been trying to bottle a lot of things up but of course that never works, you just allow pressure to build until it explodes willy-nilly all over the place and threatens to ruin everything.
A lot of things have changed.
I got to do an incredible photo shoot in LA with one of my best friends Thomas as well as several amazing people. Natalie Alyn Lind, Tricia Pain, Steven Asbury, Mani Yarosh and Tyler Shields all modeled for me in addition to Thomas. Tyler is someone I've admired the shit out of since I was in college, he's an unbelievable photographer and one of the most talented, unorthodox, rock star artists in the contemporary art world in my opinion. I absolutely love him, and I was totally starstruck when he showed up on set. But he was really fun and kind to me, and gave me some great advice, and I got some incredible photos. The set was styled by Thomas and we had Sarah Ault doing hair and Kelly O'Leary doing makeup, and it was just this amazing space in downtown LA called Korova which looked like a big dungeon set. The pictures are being published in several outlets, including Dark Beauty Magazine issue #35, Living Dead Magazine Issue #4, and Solis Magazine. I had to spread them out over different publications because I got so many shots I was insanely proud of.
Unfortunately, this delirious night of creativity and collaboration was also kind of my goodbye kiss to Los Angeles. I still love the city and I hate not being there. I miss the palm trees and the cool night air and the neon of Hollywood. I miss my little apartment and the sushi place around the corner and the stars on the sidewalk. I miss everything about LA with my whole heart.
How can you be homesick for a place that wasn't home?
But it felt like home, a home of my own making, a home where anything could happen. I have a lot of friends there, friends who made me think the impossible was not only possible but probable.
Things with work unfortunately got crazy, and my boss couldn't really afford to keep me on anymore. I was hemorrhaging money because I was paying rent on my studio apartment as well as paying the mortgage on my house in Waco that was sitting untouched, plus all of my bills, plus my student loan, plus my credit card… etc etc. I was burning through money and with none coming in, everything was getting scary. I had other job offers and the kindness of friends but I knew that I needed to come back to Waco and deal with my house, either move into it to save money or get it sold quickly to pay off debts and stop pouring money into it. So I hired a moving truck, bought out of my lease, and asked Matt to come out to LA to help me move home.
Packing my things was more than a little emotional. It felt like I had just unpacked them, and every time I sealed a box it felt like putting more of my dreams back on the shelf to gather dust. I love Texas and Texas is home, but Texas has never inspired me or given me the confidence that Los Angeles did. I have friends and some family here, but LA had adopted me in the near-year I was there.
Of course, the night before we left LA--- after the moving truck had pulled off with the majority of my things--- someone broke into my car and stole things out of the back seat. The next day we were slated to leave, and so I had put some of my stuff down in the car already--- among them, my camera equipment. I had a large Pelican case full of lenses, a travel camera bag that contained my backup body, and a duffel bag with my lighting kit. All of these things were gone, my window smashed out. Matt called me from downstairs to tell me and it felt like someone punched me in the chest. I had thousands of dollars in equipment in there, equipment that I couldn't afford to replace. But more than that, equipment that represented a lot more than material things to me. My camera was my life. I started out a writer when I was a kid and thought I'd be a novelist, but I've had more fun and luck with my photography. I have embraced it since my mom gave me my first camera when I was a kid. My camera opened so many doors for me, gave me so much hope and ambition for a better life, better things for me. My camera went to movie sets with me and traveled around the country in my suitcase. And some jackass took it right before I left town, a farewell present from the city I loved so much.
I assumed that the items would be covered by insurance but of course there's a loophole, isn't there always, and the assholes at my insurance company certainly worked those loopholes with a vengeance. As a result, even though they appraised my stolen items at almost $7000, they only gave me a check for $750 and told me that was all I would get from them. That doesn't even replace one of the lenses that was stolen. My friends were kind enough to encourage me to set up a Kickstarter-type fundraiser to ask for help, and I did--- it raised over a thousand dollars, which is incredibly nice and generous of everyone, but it still won't come close to rebuilding what was stolen. It had taken me years of working and saving my money and scouring the Internet and swap meets and camera shows to build my kit and fill it with lenses I really loved and knew. I knew the limitations and the capabilities of every one of those lenses. I was anal about lens caps and dusting and UV filters and everything else to keep them as pristine as I could because I knew I couldn't afford to replace them.
And so, in tears, I left my apartment in LA. I left the keys in a drawer in the kitchen and walked out of Apartment 207 on Tamarind Avenue for the last time. The landlady, who used to be one of my closest friends but now doesn't speak to me, ignored me as I walked past her on the sidewalk. It wasn't the best terms to say goodbye to the city I adored with my whole heart; it was a bad breakup.
I made it back to Dallas driving cross-country with Matt. He is currently living in the spare bedroom of the house owned by two of our best friends and while it could certainly be worse, there isn't enough space for two people in that bedroom. I'm living out of a suitcase, cycling through the same few outfits while I frantically search for work and alternate driving down to Waco to try and prepare my house to sell.
I have sent my resume to probably 40 places this week alone. I've responded to job ads on Monster and Craigslist and browsed LinkedIn for hours to no avail. I've tried cold-calling, doing applications through official websites, and sending inquiry letters to most of the business contacts I have here in Dallas. And either I don't get a call back, the job is something scammy/inconsistent, or I go to the interview just to be turned down. I've been told that I'm overqualified, under qualified, and 'not a right fit' for things I've spent years of my life doing. I've been turned down for several positions I'm perfectly suited for because I have visible tattoos.
This is the first time in my life I've been unemployed; I got my first job when I was fourteen years old working at the amusement park my grandmother managed, and I worked there until I got the job at the comic book store which I held down for 11 years. I worked my way through high school and both stints of college. The only time I took any time 'off' was when my mom died and I took a year to recover and grieve and focus, both on getting her affairs in order and on finishing my degree with high marks.
Now I have an associate's in marketing, with a 4.0 GPA and I won several awards from my college. I'm a published writer and photographer with over ten years' experience. I've worked retail for eleven years. I worked in a call center for six months and consistently rated highest in my department.
And yet I can't even get a call back.
I am beyond discouraged, and disgusted, and upset with myself. I feel like an utter failure. I know there are other people, people who've been unemployed for several months on end or even longer. But I can't go on like this. I spend all day sitting in an empty house doing applications and resumes and job-hunting and writing and revising my cover letter, only to have no responses from anyone. I might as well be putting the messages in a bottle and throwing them into the ocean for all the interaction I get from them. My checking account is perilously low, lower than it's ever been in my adult life, and with no money going into it but the automatic deductions of credit card payment, house payment, utilities, cell phone bill and student loan, plus the expenses like groceries and gas for my car, I am scared.
I am on the verge of having to sell my childhood home, the last thing my mother left me when she died. I grew up in that house; we've lived there since I was four years old. That house is where I learned to ride a bike, painted my bedroom Pepto-Bismol-pink against my mother's better judgment, and convinced her to put a basketball goal in the driveway. I tear up thinking about giving it up. I have already sold off most of my possessions and my mother's possessions; the only things I've kept are clothes, my books and movies, and a few sentimental things. Everything else is pretty much gone because I needed the space and the money and I needed the freedom. But the house is something else entirely. And I know that even if I sell it for anywhere near it's appraisal, I can't buy another house in today's market for that kind of money. If I pay off my student loan and my credit card debt, I'll be left with less than $30K from the sale of the house, and that's IF I get the asking price for it (unlikely). That isn't enough money to do much of anything except maybe put a big down payment on a 'new' house and start the cycle of never-ending house payments and mortgage and interest rates all over again.
I am terrified that I've made wrong decisions, that I have ham-strung my future ambitions, that I have really made a lot of bad, detrimental moves in the last few years that are now coming back to bite me. My anxiety and depression are sky-high and the last couple nights I've cried myself to sleep. I've been stress-eating so I'm not even going to step on the scale because I know what it will say and my self-esteem really can't handle that right now.
Everyone keeps telling me 'chin up, things will get better' but that isn't how depression works. It isn't logical. If I could just switch it off, I would. No one wants to feel this way. I feel like I'm being smothered by a hot, wet blanket and it makes it impossible to even suck in a good breath. Everything I do feels like a failure. Every time someone raises their voice or speaks sharply to me I take it personally. I do my best to keep my head down and just please the people around me so that I don't inspire more negativity in my environment. I lay low because it's easier than putting myself out there right now. I feel too fragile, a girl made of soap bubbles, and the wrong word sets me off on a crying jag. The edge of the cliff is rightfuckingthere and all I can do is wish that my mom was here because she would know what to say or what to do.
I don't know how to make any of this stop. I don't know how to be 'good' for the people around me because I can't even be good for myself. I don't remember the last time I was genuinely happy, just laughing and carefree and not just these brief shining moments of joy in the sea of shit. I seize those little moments like a raccoon finding a shiny object on the ground, clutching them for dear life and thinking they'll keep me afloat for another day.
Sometimes they do. And sometimes I just lay in bed watching my email inbox wishing more than anything that someone would answer me back.
