I always wanted to write a book.
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to start writing a memoir. Sounds easier said than done. I had so many chapters and memories I was putting together that I wanted to share. My goal was that when I passed one day that people could have a copy of it. It's my way of saying thank you to the world, to God for letting me come into this planet and for sharing my experiences. Hopefully someone that reads it will offer them some hope or how to deal with a certain situation whatever the case may be.
Before I left for California, my dad suggested (and I had also previously) that I should write a simple will before I leave. You may think at 30-years-old that having a will at that age is young, and some of you may be right, but with me going to the western side of the U.S. with really no one but to depend on but myself, I decided it was the right thing to do. There's a part in the will that asks what "gifts" I want to give to the attendees of my funeral and I told my mother (who was helping me with it) that I want people to have a copy of my memoir.
She gave me this sarcastic look like, "Really Kateri?"
"I'm serious mom!" I told her. "I want people to have it, I want people to take away something from it."
"Ooooookay..." she said.
This past year was hard for me to focus on writing the memoir. Besides the fact that sometimes it gets sickening to sit there and talk about yourself and what you've been through, I was feeling a sense of loss physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
You see, back home, I really did have it made. I had a great support of friends and family, I had accomplished what I wanted to in my career at that point and I was working hard. I had it all. What more could I ask for?
I called my mom in in May of 2010 crying. Of course, she was out of town in Ohio, visiting my grandmother. Whenever I am really upset about something, it usually happens when she is in Ohio. At first she thought that my dad and I had a fight, which wasn't the case.
"Mom, I can't do this anymore," I told her through tears. "I want to leave. I want to go to LA and live my life. I've done everything I could here, I feel like there's nothing left for me to give." This was also a period where I was working too much, I was emotionally drained and getting about 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
I think my mom saw it coming sometime in the future after we took a trip to Los Angeles in 2008. She told me she'd miss me but she understood that this was something I had to do.
I don't fully know why Los Angeles does it for me, it just does. It's tranquil and I like the energy. I always pictured myself living in another area. I once met a woman years ago when I was doing a liquor tasting and somehow we got on the subject of other states and what it would be like to live there. She told me that she wished she had lived someplace else before she had gotten married.
The LA Diaries are about moving forward and at times looking back of what I left (and still have) in Minnesota. Talking about back home is a lot more easier for me now now that I am in a different place. I want to start posting some of the things I have written in the past and current. I also want to talk about the journey I will be going through.
For me, moving to California was the best thing I have ever done in my life so far.
But my writing is the thing I am most passionate about.
Love, Kateri
