In short, Los Angeles has simply surprised me. I’ve met some of the most dear, sincere folks out here. People who want to help, and care, and guide. Want a few examples? Okay, okay, twist my arm. ; )

– > Meet Autumn. She lived in Nashville during the time I was there, but I really didn’t know her. My second day in town, she brought over homemade soup and pumpkin spice muffin cakes and helped me put together IKEA furniture. I barely knew her, but she knew moving was overwhelming, so she more than made herself available to me.

– > Meet Julie. She’s the casting agent I met in August, just to ask questions and learn more about this world I was hoping to dive into. She’s an incredibly busy individual, and I was hesitant to reach out to her, since I’m out here as an actress and she’s on a side of the business that could potentially be helpful. (I suppose that’s another blog post on how I feel about networking.) But I knew she had a dog, and I was desperate to find a place to board my pup while I was in New Orleans for a wedding. I texted her and, after reminding her who I was, asked for recommendations. Instead, she told me that she would love to watch Dutch for me, as she knows how overwhelmingly expensive LA can be. (She’s right…the average place to board your dog here is $60 a day. Woof. Literally.) But she accepted Dutch with open arms (and let me cry on her couch for an hour when I dropped the pup off).

– > Meet Ashley and Rick. Two individuals who have invited me out to meet people and have treated me like family. Ashley sent an email out to her group of friends asking them to welcome me to the family, and to keep an ear out for part-time jobs for me. Rick has been asking people he meets if they have any room for me on staff, AND he bought me sushi. Their kindness and hospitality astounds me.

So that’s the nutshell. I could go on. Every day there has been a situation or experience with kindness and truly lovely people.

And I’m happy.

Glad to be alive.

Excited about this time in life. And the future.

Seriously.

First, to catch my three blog readers up, I ended up going to Scotland. Best decision I ever made. I don’t know that I can begin to express how healing it was.

(Yes. I said healing. Which is dramatic. But it’s also sincere.)

Unbeknownst to me, I changed a lot over the past four years. And not all for the better. Slowly, I became a very insecure girl. I felt like I had to offer people something in order for them to be friends with me. Many of the people I surrounded myself with would get embarrassed of me when I would do something that, for me, was just me being me. Little by little, I found myself being overwhelmingly anxious walking into just about any situation. Like my work, my input, my abilities, my qualities, my everything would be looked down on or unappreciated. I never felt like I was enough. And I also realize that was my issue, and not the fault of the people I was around.

But because I hadn’t even realized what I had become, is the reason why I was so surprised when Scotland proved to be so encouraging. Here’s the abridged reason as to why:

– > Girls in pubs are KIND. They are not threatened by you, as a fellow female, that you will steal their men or attention. They will buy you a round of drinks and strike up conversation with you for no other reason than you’re a human and it’s fun to meet new people.

– > Men and women alike are hospitable. They don’t care about what you do for a living, or what you can do for them, they truly just want to make sure you have a wonderful time in their country. One glorious example…I had met a group of people around my age two nights before I left and Frances, one of the girls, said she wouldn’t let me spend my last night in Edinburgh alone. She she asked me to meet her at her boyfriend’s pub the next night. We met there, then went and picked up a pizza at her favorite take out restaurant, then went back to her flat and watched British reality television and talked about what we want our weddings to be like. I was floored. I couldn’t believe that someone could be so kind AND take the initiative with a complete stranger.

– > The other travelers I met were equally kind. Two guys from Israel were particularly encouraging. And they weren’t working to be…they were just so interested in having genuine conversation with the people they were around. I was baffled at how easily they struck up conversation with other people, and how openly and warmly everyone responded. I feel like I’ve been accustomed to every person you approach treating you as though you’re trying to get something out of them…so this was a huge juxtaposition in my head.

– > It’s just a beautiful country. So…that was nice.

I want to keep going about how the healing has just continued out here in LA…but long blog posts overwhelm me, so we’ll save that for another day. But I just wanted to let you in on a piece of this. Because it’s good. And I had to share. : )