A chance to thrive?

MY HUSBAND SUGGESTED WE MOVE CROSS-COUNTRY TO L.A.

- BLAIR GLASER

SAMIA AHMED For The Times

In the fall of 2019, my husband sat me down in our Hudson Valley kitchen, which overlooked our old birch. “I think I need to move back to Los Angeles,” he said.

I had just turned 50, and we'd been married for one year. I looked at him as if he’d suggested Mars.

“I know,” he said. “But I don’t think there's enough work here.”

He had just finished directing a documentary. He wanted to return to the city where he had lived and worked in the industry for 17 years to see if he could drum up old connections for new work.

Was this a test? I remained silent while my mind reeled.

L.A. was never a place in which I imagined myself thriving. I first moved there after college to pursue acting and live with my mogul-wannabe boyfriend. We broke up within a month, and my life became a California cliche: I joined a cult-like spiritual practice with a glamorous Indian guru.

Although I found chanting and meditation to be very healing, after a year the relentless sunshine grated on my depressive nature and I moved back to my hometown of New York City, where I tried to hide my California woo-woo beneath a wardrobe of black.

When I'd return to L.A. to visit, my insecurities lined up like the palm trees on Hollywood Boulevard. After two days, I'd start eyeing my mushy backside with disdain in restaurant windows. My thick, curly hair made me temperature hot, while everyone around me was slim, tanned and sexy hot. I'd replay the time an agent told me to come back after I'd lost 15 pounds and how my troupe of college friends all got industry jobs and appeared to be thriving in the Hollywood ethos that felt so empty to me.

Moving back to L.A. as a middle-aged married woman felt like reconnecting with an ex with whom things ended badly. Had enough time passed that it could work? Or would all of our “issues” with each other return?