This is long, so I’ll give you the Cliff Notes now: this is the story of how much can change in a year. It’s a story you’ve read a million times before and I promise there are no new life lessons that havent already been distilled into a chapter of Chicken Soup for the [INSERT DEMOGRAPHIC HERE] Soul. But it’s my story. And also, Medium is free and this got too long for Instagram, leave me alone.
Last year at this time, I was standing in 30 Rock trying to decide if I should buy this weird hat from the gift shop. I had just quit my job AND performed with Rage Friends for the last time, all in preparation to move to Los Angeles at the end of June. So my friend Jackie and I headed to New York to celebrate, not knowing that it was the week of Upfronts. (For the uninitiated, Upfronts is the week when networks set their upcoming fall schedules and pitch their new shows to advertisers to sell commercial space. Kind of like the NFL Draft + March Madness + the Apple keynote but for TV, I think probably, anyway it’s important to the rest of this).
As Jackie and I made our way through 30 Rock for our long-awaited studio tour, we kept catching momentary glimpses of the excitement surrounding the pilot presentations, even once we were several stories above the madness. At one point, our tour guide had to come back and sternly round us up when we lingered too long at the sound mixing booth watching The Good Place and Great News trailers silently through the glass.
When we finally got dumped out back onto W 50th St, we loitered casually across from the red carpet leading into Radio City Music Hall. Our patience was rewarded with a brief head nod from Seth Meyers on his way back to work and the adrenaline rush from our own general sense of adventure. So many of our television IDOLS were gathered just 500 ft (and an impenetrable Art Deco wall) away from us. But instead of star gazing and gaping, my eyes were trained on the bustling throngs of assistants and coordinators around the building. It should come to no surprise to anyone that I had always been excited by the prospect of working behind the scenes in entertainment in some capacity. But being in such close physical proximity to other people who lived and breathed television the way I did? It was absolutely invigorating. And I thought, “WOW, how cool would it be to be a part of something I already love while doing something I’m already good at?”. And then Jackie nudged me, and we walked back down 6th Ave in search of pizza.
This year, I’m spending Upfronts like all those exhausted, frazzled employees: working. I woke up at 5:30am on a Sunday to blearily drive to Universal Studios so I could launch social profiles and monitor social media feeds and engage with other television fanatics around the world. My job requires me to keep up with social media trends, talk to other people who like the same things I do, and come up with new, innovative ways to create a compelling social media presence for television shows. My interests, skills, and passions are finally professional assets, and not liabilities. Every day, I wake up and go to work with people who love pop culture and social media as much as I do. And every day I wake up and think, “WOW. How cool is it that I get to be a part of something I already love while doing something I’m already good at?”
When I left Phoenixville last July, I told everyone I was “giving it a year”. That I would give the West Coast a fair shake for the story, fully expecting to be back home by the time I was 30 at the LATEST (a VERY LONG WAY OFF, OKAY). “I’m a dumb kid from suburban Philadelphia,” I said. You really think that LA is going to be my final stop? I was coming to work in manufacturing, for goodness sake. I didn’t know what the next step, in any direction, would be for me. But my gut told me I was starting to point my arrow towards the right constellation.
In the last 366 days, I drove across the country, started a great job that I really liked but couldn’t love, moved into a dope apartment in a quiet but convenient part of town, made friends (like, REAL friends), and started my new position at MXM as part of NBC’s social team. I learned how to navigate LA’s notorious rush hour traffic. I sang karaoke. I went on midnight drives up and down the PCH until it was as familiar as the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I ended a mediocre date with a warm handshake. I let BJ Novak read my Venmo history to a theatre full of strangers. I paid way too much for brunch. I dove through the ocean waves all day, and let the Pacific rock me to sleep that night. I quit feeling like a visitor in my city, my job, and my body. I settled.
It took me nearly a year to fall in love with LA, and some days it still feels like lust. It’s tough and it’s vast and it’s ruthless and some days I look up at the palm leaves and down at the concrete and have to catch my breath before I drown on solid ground. But despite my best efforts to make it a pit stop, it’s become home. A place I assumed would have chewed me up and spit me out months ago has instead breathed new life into my soul. For the first time in a long time, I’m really, truly, dizzyingly happy. And guys? It’s pretty great.
Oh, and #client.
