In the summer of 2018, fresh off a breakup and mid-plummet into a mental spiral, I booked a reading with a psychic on the Westside of LA. I found her the way most modern pilgrims find their gurus: on Yelp, buoyed by five-star testimonials from strangers who claimed she had changed their lives. I was living in New York City at the time, making a living as an “influencer,” modeling for brands like Calvin Klein and speaking at universities about sexual health, ping-ponging between coasts in an effort to outrun myself—which, spoiler alert, does not work. In an insomniac haze, I decided this perfumed oracle might possess an instruction manual to escape my suffering.
She told me—I remember because I recorded the session—that I would move into a house in Los Angeles draped in bougainvillea. That I would change careers and begin writing. That I would finish a book in this bougainvillea-draped house. And that the butterflies flitting through my garden would be my deceased mother dropping by.
I had no intention of moving to Los Angeles. I disliked LA in the casual, superior way most New Yorkers do. But I was in need of a change. From the outside, my life was put together, but I had a habit of chasing the wrong people, again and again, and no real understanding yet of why. I was cycling through volatile relationships and struggling with what I would later understand as borderline personality disorder.
