What Have I Become?

A few weeks ago, I was off on an adventure with a new LA friend, and we were using the drive time to get to know each other better.

"Well," I said. "I'm a totally different person now than I was five years ago."

"Really?" he asked, perplexed. I don't think he could imagine me as anything other than what I am.

"Yeah, I mean, some elements are the same - in some ways I feel like I've reverted back to the smart girl I was in high school - but five years ago, I was all about the party."

I then began to enumerate some of the most important things in my life, all of which rose to prevalence in the last five years:

• My blog, 2006
• Architecture and urban exploration and historic preservation, 2006
• The desert, 2007
• Photography, 2008 (though that was the advent of digital photography in my life; 35mm came two years before)
• Hiking, 2009

Just to name a few.

I explained that, in 2006 and before, I was equally obsessed with not missing out on things, but at the time, the thing I was most desperate to not miss out on was, as I call it now, "the party." I turned down invitations for daytrips and road trips and weekend excursions in favor of open bar parties and accidental sleepovers because I was afraid to miss out on New York City nightlife and all that comes with it - drama, romance, excitement, spontaneity, danger.

It seems ridiculous to me now, all the time I wasted sitting in bars alone, waiting for cabs out in the snow, falling asleep on the subway with pizza sauce dribbled on my winter coat, using its fur collar as a pillow.

But in those years that I began reinventing myself, evolving, experiencing a crisis of my existence, I also went through some necessary trauma: ceasing communication with my parents, quitting my job, losing one of the loves of my life and enduring two years' of subsequent celibacy...

I can say now I'm better now for it. I'll always hold onto that part of me that I call "Party Sandi," who relishes a birthday, wedding reception, film premiere, or awards banquet, but I've allowed parts of me to emerge that I never thought existed, or could exist.

Five years ago, if you'd have asked me to go on a hike, or tell me about some cool place that you can only hike to, I would've said, "Uck, who'd want to do that?"

And now, you know what? I would. I want to do that.

Related:
Am I the Same Girl?
A New Version of Me?
Spare Some Change
Put the blame on me, if you want to...

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