“So, what brings you to Los Angeles?”
The question that I have equally loved and hated to answer for the past three weeks. The story is beautiful, but the fast answer rips away my independent, grrrl status faster than a Sarah Palin fundraising dinner.
“I moved here to be with my boyfriend.” Short answer. Cringe.
Taking a big chance and making changes to be with the person we love is daunting. In fact, if any friend of mine were going to tell me they were going to sell their house and quit their job to move across the country for a boy, I would have staged an intervention.
The intervention dialogue would look something like this:
“Have you lost your mind? What are you going to do for work? Who is going to take care of you when you fall out of love? What if he leaves you? Let’s go to a Bikini Kill concert so you can screw your head on straight, ok?!”
But, alas, I am the girl who did just that. I met someone, fell in love, sold everything, quit a ridiculously great paying job, and drove my car with him from Akron, Ohio to Los Angeles, California. I’ve wrestled with feeling like I’ve lost my independent woman status and some would argue that I have.
Can you be an independent woman in a relationship where you acknowledge being dependent on another person?
What makes me an independent woman? I used to say it was being self-sufficient, having a great job, having a couple degrees under my belt, and owning my home. But with most of those things gone, I’ve had to re-define what makes an independent woman.
In my life, at this moment, being an independent woman means having courage. Courage to leave everything, courage to step out of comfort zones, and courage to open yourself up to new challenges and adventure. We may take confidence in having our own place, our own jobs, our own things, but those are temporary. Homes, jobs, and things cannot be what defines us as independent women.
The courage to take chances and make things happen – that is my new definition of an independent woman. So, as the queen of Independent Women (Beyonce’) once said, “All you women, who are independent, throw your hands up at me.”
Being an independent woman means having choices and having freedom. The choice, to live on your own and be successful, or to live with someone you love and be successful, or whatever, is what defines being independent.
I mean, even if you are living with another guy, that doesn’t mean you’re no longer independent. So long as you still have all your experience, your education, and can go out into the world and get a job, etc., if you ever need too, then you’re still independent.
It’s only when you get stuck in a situation, and have no way of taking care of or providing for yourself, that you lose that status.
Plus, moving cross-country from Akron to LA, seems pretty independent to m.