Today is March 14, 2016. In other words, today is the
one-year anniversary of the day I moved to California.
Time has passed so quickly, and yet in some ways it feels
like hardly any time has passed at all. I think part of that is due to the
climate (there are no season here!), and so it feels like summer all year
round. Not that I’m complaining about missing New York’s winters, but it
honestly was a little disappointing to not see the changing seasons. You learn to appreciate the sun more when it's never around.
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| Who wouldn't miss beautiful view like this? Photo my my mother, Dawn Ogrodnik, aka, Miss Dawn. |
When I initially decided to start a travel blog about my
cross-country move, I had expected to be more diligent about it. Unfortunately,
due to various reasons (lack of time, lack of ambition, too busy with work, too
busy with my current novel, and flat-out laziness), a year has passed and I’m
only five posts in. Ack!
I don’t want this to be a lame “summary of the past
year” post, because that would basically make the rest of the blog pointless. Instead,
I can at least discuss how things have changed since I’ve moved out here, specifically how things have changed about myself.
For one thing, I’ve learned to be much more independent. My mom
has always told me that I’ve always been an independent person, and in some
ways I agree. As an introvert, I’m the sort of person who NEEDS solitude, but I’ve
always felt like I relied on others for several things, like to make friends or
to have someone to go out and have fun with. I definitely appreciate having David around to help me figure out how to do things in California, like how to
drive on a freeway (which I still avoid at all costs), how to lease a car
(that’s a story for another day), and to introduce me to his friends, but for
the most part, I’ve had to do many things entirely on my own.
For instance, I’ve generally hated going out in public by myself. During my last months in New York, I occasionally went to the mall by
myself, but for the most part, I hated doing that. I’ve always felt very
uncomfortable and awkward in public, and sometimes I still do, but it’s more of
a necessity out here. With no friends who live nearby, I’ve learned to always
do things on my own, like grocery shop, go out to eat, go to the movies, or go to
the gym. Do I still get uncomfortable? Yes. Do I still sometimes get so anxious
that I have to go home? Yes, but do I let that stop me from doing things that I
need or want to do? Absolutely not.
I suppose you could say the greatest change I’ve seen in
myself since I’ve moved to California, is that I’ve had to learn how to become an
adult. Technically we are “legal adults” at the age of eighteen, but as anyone
who is over the age of twenty-five will tell you, you aren’t really an adult at
eighteen. I’ve always been considered a mature person, but to myself, I’ve always
felt childlike. Part of that could be the fact that I’m only five-foot-two and
have a face that always gets confused for someone at least three to four years
younger than I am. It’s difficult to feel like “an adult” when people always
look at you with an expression that says, “Little girl, where are your parents?”
Do I now have all of life’s great answers since becoming an “adult,”
living in the awe-inspiring Southern California? No, of course not. I still
feel like a young person and like I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time, but I’m slowly learning how to get one
step further than I was yesterday.
For instance, not only have I figured out how to live 3,000
miles away from home, I’ve had to figure out how to juggle bill after bill
after bill (February was a rough month for that), and to work more than I have
fun in order to keep above water. If that doesn’t feel like living the “young
adult life,” then I don’t know what does!
In February alone, I leased my first car, got car insurance,
and a week later found out that I’d lost my health insurance and had to add
that to the list of monthly bills. I know I complain a lot about money
troubles, but I feel like that’s a good way of knowing you’re becoming a “grown
up,” as depressing as that sounds.
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| Where is this gong when I need it? Oh, right, in China Town, Los Angeles.... |
When I first decided to live in California, I knew I’d be
moving someplace with more job opportunities. The part of northern New York
that I’m from has a nearly-dead economy, and jobs are scarce and not very
different. In short, there’s not a lot you can do for work, regardless of
education or experience. I suppose I was a little idealistic when I moved here,
because I thought there would be all these wonderful companies just waiting to interview
me and add me to their team. I’d never had a difficult time getting a job in
New York, but then again, the types of jobs I’ve had were entry-level and very
different from each other. There was no upward mobility in those jobs, and with
the exception of perhaps one, they were intended to be temporary positions held
during or between college semesters.
I was partially correct about the jobs in California. There are
a TON of them, even just within the fields I’ve searched, such as culinary arts
and creative writing. What I hadn’t anticipated, was the amount of competition I
must be up against. In the year I’ve lived in California, I’ve applied to 136
jobs, which doesn’t count the ones I applied to before moving out here, or the
ones I forgot to write down. Out of those 136 jobs, I’ve had a handful of
interviews, maybe five or six tops. Out of those interviews, I’ve had only two
offers, and I took both jobs.
The first one was a part-time job as a bakery clerk in Vons,
a grocery store. The woman who interviewed me made it seem as though I got the
job due to my previous culinary experiences, and the fact that I went to a
vocational school for two years to study culinary arts. I thought that maybe I’d be able to do some
baking and decorating, and eventually gain more skills that could earn me a
higher position. In reality, I spent six to eight hours per day packing the
food that had already been baked (or, in some cases, pulled out of the freezer
and thawed), slapping price labels on the packaging, and putting it on
display in the bakery area of the store. I helped customers (some of which were
surprisingly angry for someone surrounded by delicious sweets), and cleaned and
cleaned and cleaned messes that I hadn’t even created. Normally, I spent the
entire shift on my feet, and sometimes I wasn’t given any time for a lunch or
bathroom break.
Yes, I know that’s a lot of complaints, and yes I know
everything I described is exactly what happens in entry-level, part-time jobs
everywhere in the nation because it is not the first job like that I’ve had. I just
want to state the facts.
At the very least, I learned how to write on cakes with
icing. That’s something, I guess.
I left that job to pursue a full-time position as a
front-desk associate at Massage Envy. In all honesty, it is significantly less
stressful than most of the other jobs I’ve had, and at the very least I can pay
my bills with this job and have some money left to put in my savings account. At
Vons, it took me literally an entire month to save up enough to pay my monthly
bills, and that was before I had a car and had to pay for my own health
insurance. There are ups and downs at Massage Envy, and I’m honestly not very
good at sales (in fact, I got written up for the first time in my life because I downright SUCK at sales, apparently), but I’m doing my best to improve and I'm learning a few new things that I didn’t
know before.
What I’m really trying to get at with my rants is how I let naiveté
get the best of me. What I’m discovering more and more with every ignored or
rejected job application, is that a vocational certificate and a Bachelor’s
degree are not guarantees for a dream job. Unfortunately, my generation and the
generation after me (those poor, overly-sensitive shmucks), were brought up to
believe that all you need is a degree, ambition, and a good work ethic and you’ll
get any job you want and all your hopes and dreams will come true. People in
Northern New York know how false that can be, as many of them will either never
have a degree, or if they do, they won’t find a job in their field anyway.
In California, I’m finding that I need to work twice as
hard, and I still might not have as much experience or skill as the twenty
other people jostling for the same position. Do I keep trying? Of fucking
course I do. Do I get frustrated and feel as though I’ll never have the job I feel
like I deserve, and will be able to live comfortably without getting an
ulcer every time I pay my bills? Yes, I do still have that feeling. However,
I’m also discovering that I need to rein myself in a little and focus on what I
really want, not just settle for what
I can get and pretend it’s okay because it’s a little less shitty than the job I
had before.
That’s partially why I’m writing this post today. I’ve had a
rough past few months, and yesterday was enormously stressful and emotional,
and when I woke up this morning I didn’t want to get out of bed. Rather than
pout and give up, I’m trying my best to focus my energy on one of the few
things that always makes me feel successful, even while I’m doubting every
keystroke: writing.
My novel is coming along slowly but surely, and one day I hope
to make some money off of it. On the days when I’m told my sales aren’t good
enough at work, I know I can always go home and become a better writer than I was
the day before. No, I may never be a famous author, but I will always be a
writer as long as I keep going. The best part is that I can only get
better if I keep practicing, just like any art. Like Neil Gaiman said in
his inspiring commencement speech, no matter what happens, “make good art.”
I hope this next year will be a good one, and even if it isn't (*knocks on wood), then I hope it will at least be a year of good art.
