resolutions and revelations
# t w e n t y
After a long hiatus I am back and will be back for the foreseeable future. I missed writing but I also needed to take a break to allow experiences to breathe and not just be content for publication. My next newsletter will cover more of that but for now here is my first newsletter back and first one of 2023!
For a long time I’ve been wanting to write about my trips to New York over the last few years. Over the course of 18 months I’ve gone back and forth 3 times and although I’ve always felt like something was drawing me there I could never figure out where the string that was pulling me began. Initially it felt like I just needed a new experience, new scenery to shake off the isolation of the pandemic. Whenever someone asked why I kept going back my answers varied from wishing I had lived there in my twenties so I was entertaining a crash course in my thirties to dating being a lot easier on that coast (which is a whole other story to write about for later). But over the course of 2022 those excuses faded as I realized how grateful I was to live in LA during my twenties and dating in NY was only fun because I was vacation dating- and there is nothing that gets me matches faster than putting “only here till ____, show me around!”
My first trip there in August 2021 was only supposed to be 10 days. But after a week in I convinced myself to get a hotel and stay for two weeks. At the time I blamed it on splurging for my birthday, but something kept compelling me stay a bit longer. I returned to LA and almost immediately found a way to go back for 6 weeks. It was almost too easy how the puzzle got pieced together to allow that to happen. When I returned from that 6 weeks, I was then determined to move there. I didn’t know how that would happen but I was resolute to do so. I went on dates in LA with clear intentions that I was only looking for something casual because I was planning on not staying in LA that much longer. I never hated LA, but I felt that string pull tighter in a different direction. I was ready for new experiences, new people and I thought I would find that in New York. I was tired of doing the same jobs and my life felt too cyclical and I needed a break
But as the months raged on in 2022, my life in LA opened up more and more in the best ways. I believe I had one of the best years of my life in 2022, with new experiences, new people and what I was hoping to find in New York I was finding daily in LA. A big thing I did was let go of the idea that my happiness would begin in a writer’s room. I realized that my happiness was actually directly in front of me. I started reframing my situations and truly, deeply began to love the life I was creating. I started working for a catering company doing events, which felt humbling at the time but through that met the most incredible people and have had some of the best new experiences. I knew I was never going to pack up my writing aspirations so I started to expand my views on new ways that could take form. I stopped thinking in ideas for pilots or features and started leaning into the experience as they happened instead of figuring out the narrative I could create around it. I just let life happen which allowed me to solidify LA as my home. And even though I put aside comedy writing, I did finally land a writing job that pays me money. It’s consistent and nice and I am very happy.
Going into 2023 I was ready with a whole list of intentions and resolutions for the year ahead. In 2022 I leaned into getting what I want and I indeed got a lot of what I wanted. My mentality was on solid ground that 2023 was going to open me up to more new experiences, more money (hopefully) and continuing to build the life I laid a foundation for in the last few years. I was resolute to keep the momentum going.
However, I still couldn’t shake New York. It was always there lurking in the back- staring at my whenever I opened a calendar begging to schedule a trip. Whenever I happened to come across a picture of me there I felt a pang to return, like I was looking at a version of myself that felt at home. It has been comforting to know that through my trips I have created a tiny community over there of people and places I love (and even have my own Dodger bar). The last time I was there I was able to reconnect with a college friend and it just felt like another string being tied around me from across the country. I thought maybe it was calling me back to run the NYC marathon, since I now have a deep-seated hatred for LA’s new marathon course. Just something to get me back out there with a purpose, rather than just a vacation because I will never learn to just relax.
If you read my substack or have ever talked to me for more than 5 minutes you know I’m adopted. It’s something that I have been unpacking for the last 5 years and have been pretty open about it through this newsletter. I had a closed adoption so I’ve never had any information about my birth family except my birthfather was Greek. When I was 17 I found a letter from my birth mom in my parent’s stuff that mentioned she had a son after me. It always felt like finding them was a bigger task than I could ever accomplish so I had been at peace with knowing I have a half brother out there somewhere and maybe one day we would somehow meet. I even wrote a web series about it and have a pilot that I’ve reworked roughly 189 times. The idea of meeting my half brother became content to me, which was probably my brain safe guarding me from actually dealing with the fact I have DNA like mine out there walking around.
Then two weeks ago, casually after Christmas eve dinner, my dad revealed to me information about my birth family that was apparently hidden in his brain this whole time. I don’t think he intentionally kept this information from me, I just think that it never occurred to him I would want this information. We were discussing my 23andme results and after reiterating my birth dad’s Greek heritage, he made the revelation that my birth father was actually from New York, not Miami like I was led to believe my whole life. Then in the next sentence he told me that my birth mother was also a New Yorker and only came to South Florida to have me then moved back. He further dropped the information that when she did move back, she married my birth father and they had a son together. A lot for any day but felt especially heightened having to process the information in real time around the Christmas Eve dinner table.
So yeah somewhere out there is a full blooded brother of mine and potentially all those times I’ve been to New York he or my birth parents could have been sitting right next to me on the subway. And yes, I have probably already thought of the scenario you are currently thinking of and want to pitch to me. The what-ifs and what-could-have-beens felt dizzying in the immediate 48 hours of receiving this info and the realization that the string that kept pulling me over there was actually much more weighted than Tinder being easier to handle.
It also feels like things would be a lot easier to manage in that what-if brain of mine if the big revelation was that they were from Wisconsin or Montana or even Canada. But knowing that it was the one place that has had a chokehold on me for the last 18 months felt bigger than I could ignore. Understanding now that those pictures of me in New York where I felt like I was looking at someone at home had been true all along- that a part of me was there this whole time and I finally was able to unlock the reasoning. And even if my birth family is long gone from New York, I can’t deny this was some sort of string being pulled towards them.
I do believe in right timing and I do believe going to New York these last couple years without the information that my birth family lived there was a gift since I could spend my time there outside of the gravity of the situation. I think perhaps I got this information at the exact right time in my life to handle it to the best of my emotions. Before my dad dropped these revelations into my lap Christmas Eve, I have been very proud of the person I have been becoming. I have learned to love all my alone moments and take risks and come out feeling confident in myself even when I am surrounded by rejection. My intentions for the year have (of course) shifted from making one million dollars to possibly seeking out my birth family, but I don’t feel the dejection I used to when my plans weren’t coming together the way I had perceived them to.
How or when I will start the process of finding my birth family is still up in the air and I know I still have some processing and healing to do surrounding this new information. Some of that will happen openly here in my newsletter while a lot it will probably happen privately. I’m not trying to make this into a feature, pilot or documentary since that is the world I am surrounded by but I am just trying to make it happen for just for myself. I always knew if I wanted to seek them out I would need the right conditions and the conditions finally feel steady enough. My next newsletter might not even mention the word adoption- or might only mention the word. I some times grow tired of the label but it’s stuck on me forever, in new ways, no matter how I try to reframe or avoid it. So stay tuned for more updates on this and I’m always happy to talk about it in real life, and yes I will get this out there now: I went through the list of the guys I dated in New York and none of them were born to Greek fathers.
other stuff of brief note:
I really dropped off with my newsletter last year and I do feel terrible about that but in the end it was the best decision for me. Now I’m back and ready to write more than ever. With that being said, there is now an option to be a paid subscriber, which for now I am using as more of a donation based thing until I start putting out more behind the paywall content in the next few months. That just means that my main newsletters will be free unless something huge shifts, but if you would like to support this newsletter there is an option below to update your subscription!