// December 28th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // I Love LA., LA Done Me Wrong
I said goodbye to my brother Jon today. A year ago he moved out here to Los Angeles to live with me. Straight out of High School, he’d never lived away from the parents before. Since I’d been on my own for some years I felt the heaviness of easing him into the “real world.” Yes, the “real world” of Los Angeles. If it is such a thing. Me, big sister Bel, cosmopolitan, savvy to the world, polished. Wow, was he in for a letdown.
Psychiatrists might say this here blog of mine is the manifestation of a deep inner need to create a sense of community out of a place that has none. Or has one that is constantly being shuffled and re-dealt. In my four years in Los Angeles I’ve seen several people leave, including two of my very best friends, and now my brother.
The first was Nova who I’d met a couple of times in college. She was my sister Star’s friend. We didn’t run in the same circles. When I re-met her in the big bad town of Los Angeles, however, instant deep friendship formed. She eased me into the real world of Los Angeles. “Bel, you seriously can’t dress like that out here. We’re not in the backwoods of Florida. What are you thinking?” She said when I wore a ridiculous hippy getup, complete with cargo pants to the Abbey. She was never afraid to say what was on her mind. Living in Los Angeles wasn’t on her mind. She’d had enough of trying to help her husband’s music career and wanted to raise her toddlers in Colorado.
James Tudor, was my next best friend. A person who again, I instantly bonded with. A brilliant young mind who’d moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. At the age of 15 he’d made enough money playing the stock market that he’d moved to France for a couple of years paying his way through Cours Florent, a prestigious acting school in Paris. His warm, yet hillbilly family were left behind, mouths ajar. James subsequently came to Los Angeles, took some acting classes, starred in some films while working to launch Nintendo Wii, where we met and became best friends in a matter of months. I was heartbroken but happy for him last year when he shed the hustle of the Los Angeles acting scene to move back to Ohio and become a Doctor.
My dear little bro Jon, on the other hand, moved out here to find something, he wasn’t sure what. Having always looked up to me, he perhaps thought I’d make whatever inner turmoil he had better. We’d laugh and joke and smoke and drink. Half of that we did do. Jon is funny as hell, brilliantly musically minded, instantly likeable with a keen sense of awareness. Maybe not self awareness. He doesn’t quite see his full potential. I wish he could see himself through my eyes, but I can’t grow up for someone else. So now I let Jon go, wish him the best and trust that he will find his own life’s path, Los Angeles or no Los Angeles.
