After failing to find a happy, fulfilling life in Los Angeles, Valerie Leonard, 28, is struggling to figure out where she’s supposed to do now. After six major moves in the last four years, Leonard is running out of places to “start over.”
The executive assistant grew up on a small farm in Tennessee, where she “knew there was more to life than this,” and swiftly moved to Memphis upon graduating high school. “I thought moving to a city was going to solve all my problems, but I found just as much stuff to complain about,” said Leonard.
Leonard soon decided the South just wasn’t for her: “My hair never looked good, and I think that’s why I stayed single. I guess guys who can never compare with my father just aren’t into frizzy hair.”
Leonard then headed to Chicago. “I thought people in the North were supposed to be more assertive, but Chicago never encouraged me to speak up when I was at the job I hated,” she said. “It just wasn’t working out, so I just quit and moved to New York.”
Two months later she arrived in Los Angeles, certain that leaving the crowded trains and freezing winters would fix everything. “Every single person in New York talks about moving to L.A., and I thought, yeah, knowing I could brunch outdoors will fix my tendency to blow off friends and just call my mom after work,” says Leonard.
Leonard is disheartened to find similar problems in L.A.. “The West has been the pinnacle of starting over since the Gold Rush. But now that I live here and still hate myself and my life, I don’t know where else to go,” said Leonard. “Even just having a place to tell people I’m ‘probably gonna move’ was enough to get me through in the past. I’m so screwed now.”
At print time, Leonard’s only hope was to “maybe teach English in some foreign country” where she might meet more desperate people like herself that she could relate to.
