The Uber pulled up to my Lower East Side apartment. My friend Melanie helped me lug my luggage downstairs – a suitcase, carry-on, and guitar. She’s been there in a few of my final moment type situations with her mom vibe and encouraging wave. When it comes to life decisions, we are on opposite ends of the spectrum with myself valuing adventure, freedom, and challenge and with her valuing building a good, stable life free of sudden movements. She would never blow up her life in the way that I have. Then again, I was never the type of person who would do something like this until I was someone who would do something like this.

Through the tinted window, I saw Saurabh. He got out of the car, and we had a round of introductions. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. We had dated briefly and then were friends until we had a bit of a falling out. And then there he was in my life again, on the same flight to LA, picking me up in an Uber.

We caught up as we headed to Newark and complained about the Jersey airport situation. There was an airline apology, and then we were there starting our new chapter of friendship and making plans. The universe does conspire to reopen connections sometimes, at the right times.

LAX was bitterly cold, similar to NYC in temperature. I wondered if the rest of LA would be this cold as well. It seemed so, though I tried to convince myself that the puffy jackets were donned in anticipation of the destinations of these traveling passersby.

We wound our way to Beverly Hills, where Lily was waiting for me with wine and delicious minestrone in support of my new veganism. The dog and cat were there as well, ready to shed all over me and make me sneeze (the cat). It was so surreal and yet so normal.

So far, rebuilding my life has entailed:

• Trying to be vegan but just eating so much cheese and chocolate chip cookie crisps from Lily’s pantry it’s ridiculous
• Making friends with Jean-Luc the dog and walking him around the neighborhood
• Writing my LA project plan in corporate style
• Classpassing
• Setting up client meetings and potential partner meetings
• Researching and setting up my schedule for writing, art, and music classes
• Spending too much time in Whole Foods and grocery stores

And then to serendipity. My first real night in LA, my friend Mei Mei called from Taiwan saying she would be in LA for the night.

And then today, I ran into another old friend on the street, just like that! It was a street with no one else on it in Beverly Hills. I couldn’t believe it.

There are the things you do and the way your life is, and so much of that is formed by the relationships and the people in your life.

Kismet, says the universe. Make a home.