Still, the process of writing is admittedly very complex and I think it deserves further exploration...just not right now. I have things of a more important matter to discuss at the moment. For example, WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE??? I mean seriously, that question has never plagued me like it has recently. Or rather I suppose the more specific question I have been asking myself lately is HOW DO I LIVE MY LIFE?
Ok, ok, you're probably thinking chill Jackie, you've only just recently turned 21 and you already graduated from college, miraculously with no debt, you live in a beautiful high rise apartment in the middle of Miracle Mile, possibly the coolest name of a district ever btw, and you're freaking out about life? YEEEEESSSSSS!! I totally am! I realize that by the time I come to the end of this post I will probably have reached some sort of peace of mind by changing something about the way I have been thinking about things lately, but at the moment, that question is seriously like an annoying sibling constantly pointing their finger at me, but never actually touching me. Maybe it's the fact that I've lived in LA for a total of 3 months and I still don't have a paying job (internships are great, I can't argue with that, but experience doesn't pay my rent), or maybe it's that I live with four girls in a two bedroom apartment that all want to kill each other, (ok, that's not entirely true, but drama is sort of inevitable when you have that much estrogen crammed into one space. Love you roomies! And I mean that...), or maybe it's just the sudden realization that has been sinking in that I am actually done with school for the rest of my life and I still don't have a five-year plan. I don't know, but suddenly I am realizing once again that I am clueless as to how to even do what I want to do. Let me explain...
There are so many talents and interests that I have...so many things I like to do and want to pursue in my life, but I'm just not sure what to pursue first or really what aspect of each avenue to pursue. For instance, I absolutely love to paint. I would love to have a studio in my home where I could spend ours just creating and painting crazy things. I would also love to be able to sell those paintings for lots of money so I could have another source of income while the film thing has its breaks...but in order to that, I most likely need a website, which I don't know how to create and can't even start to unless I have paintings to sell, which I can't do unless I have the money for the canvas, which I only have a little of until I find a job...which seems to be the biggest dilemma of all. What kind of job should I get? I'm definitely pursuing a career in production design, but currently my pursuits have only led me to non-paying gigs which are great for contacts and experience, but not so great for my wallet. I would also love to get paid to write (which I am sort of doing by editing my dad's book, but I would really like to not have my parents always being the one paying me to do things if ya know what I mean), but that can't happen until I actually have something written that I can sell, which I could do I guess but then there's the whole issue of time and needing a job to support myself while I write... *sigh*
So I think you are probably starting to get an idea of the never ending dilemma I seem to be facing. A thought has occurred to me that I should just go out and get a regular 9-5 job until I get myself settled and am a little more on my feet. BUT I'm not sure that would really be a great idea. I mean, I've tried doing those monotonous jobs before, going in every day at the same time, doing the same exact thing that isn't really very fun at all, coming home wishing you had more time to do what you want to do but are to exhausted to do. It doesn't work. That to me almost seems more depressing than being a starving artist. Selling your soul to monotony. It's hell. So I am stuck in the midst of indecision and ultimately feeling lost on a road in the middle of nowhere with no map to tell me where I am.
But alas, there is hope my friends! Despite the stress of feeling completely clueless, I seem to be having a wonderful time enjoying life in the moment. I've been meeting so many new and amazing people recently and building relationships that I dreamt of having when I lived here last year. It's been amazing! I'm finding that people are truly what make life meaningful. Without the relationships that I have right now, I would be one sad and depressed person. So thank God for people! I've been thinking a lot about my dreams and what I want to do in life, but the more I think about it, my dreams seem empty if all I am really wanting in my dreams is a title or an experience. And I don't really think that is my heart at all, though it may be a part of it. I think deep down, my dream is just to do what I was created to do with the people I was created to do it with. I mean think about it, what good is it if you gain all the most amazing awards and achievements in the world, but you have no one to celebrate it with? Now that is downright depressing. So I've been doing a lot of things that I have been wanting to do for a while, and amazingly enough, I've been doing them with PEOPLE. Ha! Don't you love that?
So I guess the only peaceful thought I can offer myself is that if I do end up homeless without a job, at least I know a bunch of people that would feed me and give me a place to stay. See, it really is all about who you know and not what you know! Anyway, I think that is where I shall end this lovely contemplation, and I promise to try to be content with where I'm at in life. I truly am thankful for the blessed life that I live and I know my worries are so small in comparison to the crazy stuff people deal with all around the world. Someday I will figure out how to do this thing called life. Who knows, maybe all it takes is one single step in any direction for everything else to fall into place...
