how to grow up

a.k.a. how to pack up your entire life and move across the state. by yourself.

so. it's been a while. honestly. more than a while. sorry about that.

me, with my car packed to the brim, the day i moved to LA.

a year ago, i signed my lease for a studio apartment in los angeles, something i told everyone and their mother i'd finally do someday. and then i did.

so i found a job (actually, this job found me) and packed up all my stuff and drove 6.5 hours to hollywood and started my life and realized that, wow! this was everything i'd been looking for and more!

and that ended up being total bullshit. in the last 12 months, i have been, and am still, learning how to grow the fuck up. and i'm going to try and tell you guys all the things i've learned.

one. no matter how far you go, you will always be yourself.

wherever you are, there you are.

me at one of my first shoots with talkisrael.

i think some part of me thought that once i moved away from the part of the state i grew up in, i would morph into an entirely new person that i had nicknamed "LA Maya." yeah, she even gets proper capitalization. that's how unreal she was.

unfortunately, that was not the case.

no matter how light i bleached my hair, i couldn't scrub who i was in northern california out of my system. i couldn't turn into this new and improved model of myself simply because i drove a few hundred miles south. i learned this, honestly, i was forced to learn this, when LA Maya was in her apartment all alone on christmas eve, which shouldn't be depressing considering she is jewish, but that feeling of loneliness just kind of stuck. and it wouldn't stop sticking to me.

i wanted to wave all of that aside and just continue pursuing the person i thought i'd be when i moved here. i wanted to be the kind of maya who could survive anything. who laughed in the face of depression. of heartbreak. of loneliness. all of the things that i couldn't survive in northern california couldn't hurt me here. until they did.

and when the dust settles, i realize that LA Maya never existed. norcal maya never existed either. i was and always will be this one, infinitely individual, human being. and nothing, no one, no place can change that. and as soon as i realized that, things sort of started falling into place.

two. grown ups eat more than just mac and cheese.

a sink full of dishes is much better than an empty stomach.

i will admit, 90% of my credit card bill lately has been charges from doordash.

sue me.

but i always wanted to be like my mom was in the kitchen: surrounded with smells and music and bubbling pots with steam coming out of them, just fully and totally in control. unfortunately, my skills as a cook were maxed out to boxed mac and cheese (see: how to make the best box of mac and cheese you've ever had).

so i said, enough of that! actually, my stomach said, enough of that! by sending me to the bathroom with a stomachache after my third consecutive bowl of pasta in the same day. and i started learning how to cook.

learning how to cook looks like texting my ema, asking her to send me a step-by-step guide on how to cook something, and then reading that text like a bible. none of these recipes have failed me. which is why i have been cooking the same 5 dishes on rotation.

again, sue me.

but there's something really beautiful about putting so much love and energy into the food you eat. they mean it when they say the best meal you'll ever eat is one you finished cooking for yourself.

sometimes when you're in a rut, the best way to solve it is to just exist in your kitchen with a pan of brownies in the oven and something bubbling on the stove.

three. you can't hide from or run from any of the tough stuff.

the only way to get over heartbreak is to go through it. not around it.

things hurt like a bitch because your brain forces you to forget the way things hurt like a bitch in the past. it's literally impossible to prepare yourself for pain because your brain doesn't remember the feeling after it's subsided.

which is why every single heartbreak i've had since moving here has felt like a sucker punch to the gut. a roundhouse kick to my head.

a good, old-fashioned, curbstomping.

and i'm still recovering from the most recent one. i'm not really afraid to admit that going from caring about someone that deeply to complete and utter radio silence gives you the worst case of whiplash.

and this kind of circles back to the whole LA Maya thing. i thought i'd be stronger than this, but it turns out i'm actually not. when things reach a fever pitch and i'm alone on my green sofa in my empty studio apartment, i'll sob and cry for my mommy. because sometimes, all i want is my mommy.

sometimes, living in the loneliest city in the world gets really fucking lonely.

i tried to outrun the heartbreak. i tried to work it out of my system by getting on a stationary bike for an hour and just pushing myself to the point where my legs were jelly and my heart was pounding and my body was begging for respite. because if i was crying over the pain of this workout, then i wasn't crying over the pain of this heartbreak. but it doesn't work that way. sorry.

three. blood is thicker than water.

the people who love you the most are the people who will teach you the most important lessons.

sorry, this is going to be me dumping how much i love my family for a few paragraphs. skip to here if you want me to get on with this post.

so, you lean on the people who will hold you up. and those people turned out to be my family.

my little brother, ben, who bought me donuts and tickets to universal studios so i wouldn't be stuck in bed, crying until my tear ducts emptied themselves out. my little brother acted more like an older sibling than i ever could, saved me from hiding from this heartbreak until it consumed me whole.

he taught me that life doesn't have to end just because a relationship did.

my sister, leehe, who answers every text. every call. who listens to me when i sob and reminds me what strength looks like.

i look up to leehe every day. metaphorically and literally. heartbreak hasn't been kind to her either, but she manages to hold herself up and continue loving so fully and so deeply.

leehe taught me that you can continue loving even if it feels like the tap has run out.

my older brother, daniel, who has the softest heart. who never let me crumble to pieces whenever something reminded me of a person i wanted to forget. who made me laugh every time he asked "who?" when i brought that person up. for explaining everything to me, from movies to sports.

daniel and i have always been glued to the hip. when i lived with him in norcal, he'd knock on my door once before opening it to ask if i wanted coffee from starbucks. and it's his unwavering love that gave me the strength to continue going to work.

daniel taught me that i'm capable of amazing things. i just need to get up and do them.

i fucking love my siblings.

i lost my safta this year.

my ema lost her ema.

this picture is really tough to look at. when i went to israel in july for a work event, my mom had to drop everything and fly there because her mom wasn't doing so well. and it ended up being a blessing. i got to spend a few days with my ema, she got to do the same.

a few months later, safta yaffa passed away. and nothing prepares you for that kind of grief.

i'll forever get choked up when i talk about my ema. because you can see the love pouring out of her when you look at that smile on her face.

and she's all the proof i need that soulmates exist, because she's on this planet.

my mom has been through hell and back. everyone who knows her knows this. but she'll answer my call at the end of every day and listen to me complain about work. even if the world is crashing on her shoulders, she'll find a way to shoulder some of my grief.

when people ask me who i want to be when i grow up, i'll forever say her.

i can't tell you one thing she's taught me. because she's taught me everything.

four. hold onto the friendships that matter. and let go of the ones that don't.

it's really easy to love the people who love you back.

sorry, this is going to be me dumping how much i love my friends for a few paragraphs. skip to here if you want me to get on with this post.

moving this far away from all the people i love wasn't a death sentence to any of our relationships. it was actually one of the biggest blessings in disguise. now, every moment i get to spend with them is golden.

kayla came and visited me in january. it was perfect. she was exactly who i needed to see after a month of building my life here in LA. she gives me the kind of love that i can't really put into words. it's so unconditional that everyone else's love kind of pales in comparison.

i miss being able to kidnap her from her home in davis and whisking her away to eat stuffed crust pizza, but i'm happy to know that her love lingers in my home.

i haven't managed to shake mitchell and ashley off my ass. they just won't leave me alone.

seriously though, these two have carried me through some of the hardest parts of being an adult. and they've watched me turn into who i am now and have loved me through every single misstep, every tantrum, every makeover, every breakdown.

ashley is pink ribbons, sweet treats, gossip shared over french fries, shopping bags, tiny tops, photoshoots with digital cameras. she's everything i asked for in a friend and more. her love is fierce and unrelenting, and she taught me to expect the same standard of love i give them. forgive and forget? fuck that. hold grudges and remember forever.

mitchell is home cooked meals, belly laughing so hard you can't breathe, blurry nights with pitchers of cider, long drives with loud music. he is a friend that you don't remember making, because it feels like you've known him all your life. mitchell will let me crumble to pieces on the floor, shrug, and then ask if i'm ready to rally. he knows who i am and loves who i am even at my worst moments.

all of this yapping about the people i love has a meaning. it's that i don't need to do all of this by myself. i don't have to expect all the love i have for myself to come completely from myself, i can find it within others.

five. outsourcing can be your greatest enemy.

sometimes, this is your burden to carry by yourself.

i know it's a little weird for me to go from leaning on the people you love to going through things all by yourself, but life is all about balance.

you cannot expect every single person in your life to be there to rationalize all of the things that go wrong. it's only going to hurt more when you realize none of them have been helping you carry any of this, you're just running on adrenaline.

at some point, they're going to let go. you have to be ready when it comes falling back onto your shoulders.

how do you prepare? thanks for asking.

you need to remember that you're not simply the person you are today. you're still the person you were yesterday, the day before that, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. all of those versions of you still exist, and all of them have their own little wounds that get opened up now and then. you can't look at your middle school self in disgust because she's still there, begging to be loved.

the reason this rejection hurts so much is because there's a version of you that was holding onto it to stay above water. give them something else to hold onto.

i'm kind of still figuring out what else they can hold onto. but i know it can't be someone else.

so, maya. how do you grow the fuck up? you just remember these little things:

• wherever you are, there you are.

• a sink full of dishes is much better than an empty stomach.

• the people who love you the most are the people who will teach you the most important lessons.

• it's really easy to love the people who love you back.

• sometimes, this is your burden to carry by yourself.

good luck with everything.

love always,

maya (writeslotsofstuff)