Every shift I would meet someone new.  Someone handsome, someone funny, someone edgy and hot.  I started giving my number out to these guys without hesitation.  It was a new feeling for me.  I was so used to being with just my ex or just being by myself for the last three years that I think I went a little crazy.  I started going on dates.  Almost every night.  With a new person.  I started lying to some guys in order to go on a date with another.  At my peak I think I was dating four guys at once…and I would rotate them.  I would PLAY them. Just like my ex played me.  I realized that I was doing this to get back at what was done to me for so long.  To feel empowered that I could do this to men too.   It was fun and exciting for a minute.  I think I got off on the fact that I had all these men at my disposal…that I could have emotionless sex (with only a couple of them) and move on…that I didn’t owe any of them anything because I kept them all at arm’s length.

I went from being bored and lonely to just…lonely.  Because none of these men were the one.  None of them I fell hard for, because if that was the case, there wouldn’t be four or five, there would just be one.  Eventually I realized I really didn’t like any of them enough to bother seeing them anymore.  Instead of it being a great way to spend time, without the sparks I should have felt, it became a waste of time.  I started feeling bad, I guess my conscience was finally kicking in…because I did really hurt a couple of them, I played with them and they really liked me more than I thought.

Slowly but gradually, I saw them all less and less, until I was ok with just spending the night alone at home, which I had barely done since I got back.  I was beginning to be myself again, less stressed out by being caught by my serial dating, and more focused on me and my work, and spending time with my girlfriends and their kids.

But then, just as things were settling down, I met the man I call Marlboro Man…and my world turned upside down…

Arriving back in LA was both intimidating and exciting.  My two best friends picked me up and getting into the car with  them, I realized I also had a family here.  My real family is unconditional love and comfort…and my “friend family” is just as strong but in a different way.  My few good friends in LA care for me and show concern for my well being as well…I guess just without the pressure that I get from my real family.  Which is refreshing after three months of loving lectures…”)

After a couple of margaritas and a lot of laughs, I felt right at home again. Without the headache.  Things were already looking up. 

I’ve heard of stories like these that sounded like they were being told to me in a foreign language I could never understand.  So for this to happen to me was nothing less than surreal and traumatizing. 

Living on my own in Los Angeles, my “loving” boyfriend was the only person I trusted.  He was the one I would go to and vent about all the horrible people in LA, he was my family here.  So it was debilitating  to find out that he was indeed the worst person of all.  The shock and betrayal became suffocating.

My first panic attack quickly ensued.  I used to always think that my girlfriend  stricken with them was just being a drama queen when she would recount her attack stories to me.  Suddenly I had this new compassion towards anyone who suffers from panic attacks…because it really is SUFFERRING.  You feel like you are going to die, and are constantly fearing your next one.  For months I was not myself, I was numb and void of any emotion.  Alcohol no longer relaxed me but gave me headaches.  Food was no longer of any importance and my already insomniac situation became insupportable.  I found myself hooked on Xanax which fogged my mind while both sleeping and awake.  Coworkers  missed my smile.  I dropped ten pounds on my already petite frame.  I had to get out of LA.

  I ended up going to Cocoa Beach, Florida, where my parents live, right on the ocean…a perfect place where I could find myself again, heal, recharge my batteries and come back to LA the happy person I once was.

Leaving LA is always weird.  When you leave after trashing it for so long all of sudden you start seeing the beauty in it and wonder what you might miss while you’re away.  Not only the sunshine, the palm trees and the hikes in Runyon Canyon, but the other selfish things…like I was going to miss Ray Lamontagne at the Wiltern, Halloween in Hollywood and all of the anti Prop 8 rallies with my gays.  But I had to leave.  My soul needed me to, whatever was left of it.

After almost giving my Lebanese mother her own panic attack from my drastic weight loss, I slowly started eating again…food was my friend again.  My sister that also lived there had just quit smoking so I decided too as well, even though I was only a social smoker, to officially quit myself.   Our condo was right on the water, and although there was nothing more soothing to me than to take walks on the beach right when the sun was going down…it took me almost two weeks to make it down there.  I wasn’t ready for what the ocean does to me.  It makes me see things clearly.  It makes me realize things…and I wasn’t ready for that.  I wasn’t  ready to blame myself for what I had let happen to me for the last two years of my life.  I wasn’t ready to ask myself what I had accomplished all those years away from my family living and struggling in New York and LA.  I wasn’t prepared to accept that I was turning thirty and had nothing to show for it but a string of broken promises, careless commotion and damaging relationships.  All of which distracted me enough to wonder myself what dreams I had moved to LA to pursue.

The day I made it to the water I think I cried enough tears to fill the whole ocean I was staring at.  It was a huge feeling of release… and then a huge feeling of responsibility. To finally turn my life around.  To becoming an assertive, non-apologetic, confident woman.  To using my head and to not be so trusting of my heart.  To doing what’s best for me for once instead of whats best for others.

Being around my parents reminded me of the fact that I come from a good family with morals and values, and that I wasn’t demanding the kind of respect I deserved. I’m smart, talented, attractive (I would normally not say that but it’s a new day), speak three languages…why was I lacking so much confidence?  Why was I letting strangers in LA make me feel less of myself?  Why was I letting snakes and sharks determine my self worth?

I was going to return to LA a different person.  No more being a doormat to my friends and lovers who took advantage of my good nature.  No more wasting time in places I didn’t want to be in.  No more meetings with “producers” who I knew just wanted to sleep with me and had no intention of taking me seriously.  I was going to focus on my career and my career only.  Not fall in love with another asshole that wasn’t good enough for me in the first place whom I just felt sorry for.

After three months of reading, healing and eating, I moved back to LA, ready to start all over again.