The Last Five Years?

It has taken me the last five years. Five years, four new states, (technically) nine moves, two educational programs, two cats, and one life goal. Have you ever seen the movie The Last Five Years? The one with Anna Kendrick? Without spoiling anything, it’s a musical movie where she’s an actor who explains how she got to the point she’s currently at through flashbacks of the last five years of her life. Who would have guessed?

You’re probably wondering what the heck that has to do with anything? Well, I’m about to do the exact same thing. Except with fewer musical numbers and with words rather than a film. Here I am, an actor, explaining to you where I was five years ago versus where I am now. With the same dream following me throughout.

When I was seventeen years old and it was time to start applying to colleges, I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to start right then. I told my parents I wasn’t going to college, I was moving to LA and I was going to go to auditions and have a career. You can imagine their response—it was absolutely the f*** not. They sat me down, told me I needed a plan B, C, and D. I needed to go to college first and get a degree and I could decide what I wanted to do after that. I did all the things; I talked to my moms sorority sister who’s in the business and got her advice, I applied to colleges in Chicago since that was the closest major city to me for the industry, and I decided I didn’t want a backup plan. I wanted only a Plan A and I intended to get it. I went to New York and studied film at a summer program. I moved to Chicago and got my BFA in Acting. I moved to a different apartment every single year because of one thing or another. Whether it was too little space, not a safe area, or my roommate ended up being a psycho. Basically, the college experience! I never stayed in one apartment longer than a year.

If you’ve read a story of mine before, chances are you know what happened after that. I moved my previous four years of life back to Missouri. I packed, unpacked, repacked, moved to Phoenix, then unpacked again. Tale as old as time, am I right? I always told myself Phoenix would be temporary. I always said it was just a year. And by ‘always said’ I mean I told anyone who asked so that at the end of the year I had no choice but to buckle up my courage and move again or else look a coward.

For all of these moves, I was never alone. My parents either brought the truck with furniture, or my aunt was helping me deep clean the apartment I was moving out of because I was simultaneously in Zoom classes, or my mom and I were driving a Uhaul together halfway across the country. I kind of activated ‘Princess Mode,’ if you will. 

Princess Mode is when I do a little bit of work, pretend I’ve done more than I have, then let others do the rest. 

This is something I got away with a lot as a kid. It’s actually one of those things that sadly only works with family… Being the middle child is great because it gets me out of a lot of things. It also helped that I didn’t see my family a lot while I was in Chicago, they were more willing to help me move because it meant they got to spend time with me. My mom actually likes to pack, move, unpack. And she’s really good at it! No matter what she says, she usually jumps at the chance. My parents (and sometimes brother) usually did the furniture, while I did boxes and smaller things and began maneuvering everything into the new space. 

This time, though? Moving to Los Angeles? I had to deactivate Princess Mode. After all of the sixteen hour day trips to and from LA to tour apartments, I ended up just giving up. Apartments were going so fast that I just had to make a split second decision! I did a virtual tour of an apartment similar in layout and location to one I’d viewed and I just applied, signed, and paid the deposit for it without even seeing it in person. I sort of was on a time crunch, my sister wasn’t sure if she was going to renew the lease on our Phoenix apartment so I really needed to find a place in LA to immediately take over before that lease ended. The only thing is, I got the lease to sign the day before I left for an extended business trip to Chicago. The lease could only start as late as two weeks after the documents were signed, they couldn’t push it past that. It just so happens that the trip also lasted two weeks. I didn’t have a single thing packed and yet the day I came back, my new LA lease started! You can imagine I was in a bit of a panic. It came to me making two large trips (starting the day after I got back) over a two week timespan in my little Ford Focus and sleeping on the hardwood floor because I didn’t have my furniture. A trip that is anywhere between five and a half to eight hours depending on traffic, by the way! Halfway through the month, my sister and her boyfriend were going to drive a Uhaul with all of my furniture in it. The day before I rented a Uhaul for the following weekend, I found out that they couldn’t get off work anymore and just wanted to wing it the next day instead. So, that day I booked the truck, they loaded it up, and her boyfriend drove through the night with the truck. He arrived around four in the morning, and we unloaded it all until around six in the morning, neither of us had slept. I drove him to the airport a few hours later and spent the rest of the day putting together furniture and unpacking by myself. See!! Princes Mode deactivated. 

This past two months after my lease started, I have done the following! Dissembled my bed and bed frame, packed up my entire life within two twenty-four hour periods, driven throughout the night with a fully loaded car on multiple occasions, reassembled my bed and frame (I actually accidentally did this incorrectly but I don’t hate the result), and moved my furniture around my apartment. I attached a mirror to a vanity with a screwdriver. I bought a shower rod and installed it myself. I saw that my window screens weren’t fully closed and I fully attached them so Al can’t fall through them. I took my car to Jiffy Lube the first day after my ‘change oil’ light went on. I’m going to have to DIY fix two separate lampshades that got detached along the trip. I can parallel park now! I don’t even suck at it anymore and it no longer takes eleven plus attempts! 

Let’s talk about parking for a moment. Reader, when I say I used to suck at parking, I mean I have had three separate parallel parking lessons in the last nine months. My friends Larry and Ashley taught me in Phoenix, and my sisters boyfriend taught me again when he drove my furniture. As such, I used to avoid it like the plague. Or, someone would take pity on me and parallel park for me. Usually Larry. Princess Mode activated! But if I’ve learned anything over the last two months living in Los Angeles, it’s that I need parallel parking in my repertoire like I need breathing. I was doing okay those first two to three weeks, mostly trying to avoid moving my car any chance I got. Now I parallel park at least twice a day! And sometimes I get it on the second try! This is progress. I feel like a grown up. I was so proud at first, I’d text Larry every time I did it correctly and he would text me back some half-believing praise because #validation. If I thought parking was bad in Phoenix, that was child’s play. At least if I came home at 2:30 in the morning in Phoenix, I might be able to scrounge up one parking spot. If I come home late from an acting job here, I’m very much out of luck. I heard that parking here can make or break your day. It is very much worth more than gold. 

I have felt so accomplished in my feats this past month! I will say, while I look back in retrospect, I didn’t always feel that way. There are so many things I hate about moving. Hilarious that I do it so much. 

I really hate having to make sure I have packing tape. Miniscule, I know. But it’s such an annoying thing to need. I remember when I was repacking everything in Missouri a little over a year ago, I found Finding Nemo duct tape that was nearby so I used that to close boxes. I just always end up running out of packing tape! Sometimes I use blue painting tape instead. I really hate the way that I start out so optimistic in regards to how many cardboard boxes I have, then I realize I severely miscalculated. I’ll pack like three small boxes full of music boxes and trinkets and it’ll be packed so delicately that several hours later I’ll question why I took up so much space with so few items. Where is the box for the library of books?? Or the jewelry boxes, or my dead cats ashes?? Get your relativity together, Sam. I always forget how many clothes I have too. This past move, I got halfway through my closet, I’d only had one of my three dressers packed, and I just thought, ‘damn I still have so much more to go.’ Also tupperware! How is it that I can get rid of so much when I move into a new place and by the time I’m moving out, it’s already tripled! I minimized my tupperware collection last month and yet already, I’ve found I have three more containers. It’s from the containers of frosting that I’ve eaten with a spoon. Don’t judge me, we all have our vices. 

Mostly, I hate how expensive it is. I thought cross country moving was expensive. Try moving wholly unprepared to Los Angeles by yourself the day after a two week long trip to another state, with only a month and a half before a two week long trip abroad… What was I thinking? I always thought the most broke I would ever be was college. Um. Think again, Samantha. That first month and a half after the move was brutal. I was just barely covering my bills, I was buying ramen to eat. Hello?? You know you’re broke when you’re eating ramen. Before the end of the first week in LA, I had already gotten another job. Hook, line, and sinker. No one can resist not hiring me after an interview, I have interview superpowers. But it was a restaurant that wasn’t open yet. So I had to bide my time. And now? I’ve gotten it all figured out. 

I’m financially stable, I have an entire color and style coordinated wall of shoes, I have a car and an apartment and two jobs and a full body mirror in my kitchen, and I can see the Hollywood sign from my bedside window. I’m doing the damn thing! I mean, I’m still a walking disaster of a human being, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I at least know how to use a screwdriver now. 

Five years ago I was telling my parents I was moving to LA. I mean, it took several years and looks a bit different than I thought it would. But look at me now!