My Inner Sisyphus

Have you ever been surprised by yourself, but not in a good way? Lately I've been giving myself a hard time, and I need to turn my ship around. So I'm gonna break it down and take a bit of advice that my lovely friend Eliza gave me a few days ago. We were talking about her big move to L.A.. She was encouraging me to think about L.A. as a possibility (so many more opportunities!) and I was expressing my deathly fear of doing so. I said something to the effect of - 'I don't know, I just don't feel like I feel right. I need to be more well adjusted and I need to feel good about myself' and then she said what I knew she would say as soon as the words came out of my mouth - 'You can't wait for that because you'll never feel 100% rightor good.' And of course, she's right. When you are afraid of something, everything becomes a battle on the level of sisyphus pushing that damn boulder up the mountain. Sometimes life requires a little danger and daring. Or at least faking it 'til you make it.

I've decided I will set aside a week in February to 'dip my toes in L.A.'. The prospect is looming over me like a cloud. Or a boulder. I keep thinking of all the reasons not to go - my lack of connections, my fear of L.A. driving, my fear of rejction, my age, and just not feeling right or good about myself. Maybe I will have an anxiety attack just as I'm about to sit down for a meeting. Maybe I'll do nothing when I'm out there and end up roaming the aisles of a giant super market at three a.m. stuffing my face with ho-ho's and ding dongs and regretting my choice of tasty snack-cake treat because of the bad aftertaste and film of arificial fat coating the roof of my mouth. But the worst thing - really, would be not to go at all.