Five months after packing two giant suitcases and boarding a one-way flight from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, my boyfriend told me he was leaving the city I had relocated to for him.
In just a moment, I realized I was alone in one of America’s biggest cities, wondering if I had made the right choice.
After securing a job, I moved to Los Angeles for my first love
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As cliché as it sounds, I was a small-town Midwesterner who had dreams of moving to the big city after growing up watching TV shows that glamorized Hollywood.
I finally got a taste of this fantasy when I took summer classes in Los Angeles. It was during one of these visits that I met someone there … my first love.
This relationship gave me the final push I needed to move to my dream city. But before making that plunge, I thought it best to have a job lined up.
After months of applying for LA-based positions, I finally landed my dream role in music and programming at a radio station I admired.
At last, I felt ready to pack up my things, move to California, and begin a new chapter with my boyfriend by my side.
He moved out of LA a few months after I arrived, and everything changed
As I was getting established at work, learning how to drive in LA traffic (and find parking!), and navigating life more independently, my boyfriend was studying and preparing for his own career.
Nearly half a year after I’d moved, his career path led him to relocate outside Los Angeles. This was not the way I had expected things to go.
We had both longed to date in the same city to get a truer sense of our compatibility. Now, I was filled with doubt. I wondered if he was as committed as I thought, since he was willing to relocate so soon after we’d finally ended up in the same place.
The relationship was over. And, disheartened by how things turned out, I had two options: move back home or stick around and try life in LA on my own.
I decided to stay and invest in my career, friendships, and passions to keep my mind off the ways my new reality differed from the vision I’d had when I moved.
Staying was one of the best decisions I made, and it changed my life
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With much more time to myself, I turned to creative outlets to help process the loss of the life I had imagined. Music had always been a passion of mine.
As a musician and composer, I knew a friend who played guitar, so I asked him to collaborate on a piece to perform later that year for our church. It was an easy way to make a new friend while getting to pursue a hobby I loved.
I also decided to fully commit to my professional development. Though I was in broadcast media at the time, I discovered I had a stronger passion for print journalism.
I quickly learned how important networking was in LA, and how it could lead to even bigger opportunities. My roommate connected me with someone who gave me my highest-paying freelance writing job, which helped launch my freelance career.
Soon, I was contributing to national publications, beginning with Business Insider, something I never imagined when I first moved to LA. Those early assignments laid the foundation for the journalism career I still have now.
Some of my closest relationships today are with people I met in the city, and the friend I played music with ended up becoming my husband. We now have a toddler son who loves banging on the piano and drums.
Moving to LA for someone else certainly didn’t turn out how I had expected, but I wouldn’t change a thing. After all, it led me to the beautiful life I’ve created for myself years later.