Los Angeles and a love note

What if you could piece together your perfect day.

Do you ever think about that?

What would it look like? What would happen to you? How would it make you feel?

What if you woke up next to your best friend, laughing at your miraculously white pillow cases, proud that somehow both of you had managed to take off your makeup after a long night of champagne and warm chocolate chip cookies (gooey, with sea salt.)

And what if you spent your morning giving your old pup obnoxious kisses, and laughing so hard with your brother that you fell to the floor and almost peed yourself.

What if you hugged your mom for a few more seconds than usual, and breathed her in because she smelled like home.

What if your uber driver carried your suitcase from the front door so that you wouldn’t have to drag it in the snow, and gave you a Twix bar for the ride. (A real one, not just a fun sized one.)

And then you surprised yourself and found that the suitcase you had packed hungover, actually had everything you needed.

And what if there were no lines at the airport and your flight left early.

And you landed in Los Angeles, and it rained and you didn’t care because you got to see an old friend.

And then you hugged her tight and you cried because you had missed her, and because a sad thing had happened to her and you were there to try to make it all better somehow.

And what if, and what if, and what if.

And what if those “what ifs” weren’t “what ifs”, and you didn’t have to think about what the perfect day might look like, because the perfect day had already happened.

I spent five days last week in Los Angeles (half pleasure, half work) and it took me a few days to sort out my mixed feeling.

I don’t love LA. I still don’t.

But last week, I loved the way it made me feel.

I now realize it was never LA. It was the people, the moments of joy.

I got to spend time with one of my best friends, cozied up in the most charming boutique hotel, mending a broken heart with shoe shopping, chic cocktail bars, and soul cycle.

Her strength, her positivity, her relentlessness and new found motivation to seek her own joy- that gave me joy.

I saw another old friend from college, a woman who I am incredibly proud to know, who now lives in LA. She loves LA. She is LA; all the good parts, none of the bad: she is the California sunshine, the Pacific Ocean calm. Her energy and her joy being there, that was contagious.

It reminded me of the time I spent in Los Angeles last year, strolling Venice beach and cruising the California coast with another close and wonderful friend. And yes, the coast was beautiful and Venice beach was fun, but it was the person who I shared it all with that brought me my happiness.

Dear readers…

What started out as a commentary on the concept of a perfect day, has now ended up a love note of sorts to the incredible women in my life.

And while it bothers me at my very core that there is no clean tie from beginning to end in this piece, I’ve decided not to mold this musing into some neat literary formula when clearly my heart had other things to say.

It’s Valentine’s Day, after all, and I’m using that as my excuse for why I’m writing with my heart today, and not with my head.

To my friends, to my family:

Thank you, I love you.