Anniversaries

Time flies. Just the other day I was counting down the weeks until my cousin arrives and she has come and gone. I just had my two year anniversary with Los Angeles – we’re in love now and doing much better, thank you, and the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 is quickly approaching as well. Just like everyone else I still remember where I was (Webb City, MO – my Victorian apartment), what I was doing (getting out of the shower and ready for school – a junior at Missouri Southern State University) and what my first reaction was: “why are they showing old footage of the World Trade Center bombing?” And then it dawned on me that this was different. I stood there; completely naked in my living room for several minutes while I watched one of the greatest and most terrible moments in history unfold in front of me. My journalistic instinct quickly kicked in and I realized I had to go to campus to see how we would cover the story. Once I was at Southern, I learned that all the other students were leaving – meeting up with loved ones, roommates, family to make sure everyone was ok. While they went home we went to work covering the events. Photographer Whitney Benfield and I found our story, like a lot of other journalists did, at the gas station. I covered the reactions of the people at the pump while she took pictures. That story ended up in the Associated Collegiate Press special edition book covering September 11th. If you had told me ten years ago that I would be living, surviving and eventually thriving in LA I don’t think I would believe you. I’m sure I thought I would be running some newspaper or married or something. I’m glad I chose this path. When I first moved here two years ago, I had almost no money. Literally zero. I had a car that to this day I still don’t know how it made the trek half-way across the country. I lived in a crazy party house with a group of guys I’ve never met before as my new roommates. I didn’t even have my own furniture, I sublet another girl’s life for 6 months and I still credit Steffany for getting me through that first grueling, depressing yet wonderful first half of the year. I worked every second I could and went to school over 45 hours per week. I ate food that was well past its shelf life and I got sick from it. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 9 straight weeks. They started out “fancy”; with nice bread and natural PB with organic jelly, to regular wheat with name brand PB and jelly to bargain generic brands of all three. I drank Two-buck Chuck on a very regular basis…To this day I cannot willfully or naturally consume either of these things. Ten years ago the MTV VMA’s were postponed because of 9/11, two years ago I remember watching some awards show for scary movies and now I’m sitting from row at the VMA’s, so close to the stage one of Beyonce’s extensions threatened to whip me in the face. Did I work harder than anyone else who has ever moved here? HELL no, I just worked as hard as I possibly could and I kept going, even when I knew I was at the very bottom darkest part of the adventure. Have I reached my peak? Not by a long shot, this is the absolute beginning. At this very moment I’m taking a mental snapshot of where I am in my apartment in the Hills, on a Friday night after a great evening on the Westside, glad to be in bed and excited to see where I’ll be 10 years from now.