In 2008, 2 friends and Myself moved into a new apartment located in Tarzana, California. The move was necessary due to the fact that one was engaged to be married later in the year, and the other was on the verge of proposing to his girlfriend. I Myself had been in a serious relationship and was planning on staying in this particular apartment for only one year, for I had plans to move to Nor Cal in the following spring to live closer to my girlfriend. During the first late afternoon living there, I was moving a couch onto the porch ( because every bachelor pad needs a couch on the porch ), and I remember hearing a car door shut below me. Our porch overlooked the top level of the parking garage. I see a woman holding a red balloon helping her child put on his backpack, lock the car, and start walking down the sidewalk that ran parallel with our building. The woman was a young mom of late 20's and from what I could tell the kid was probably in the 1st grade. She held his hand as they walked past my 2nd story porch, and she looked up at my friend and I, for we were making a ton of noise. We shot each other a smile and a wave as she walked by.
It is now Spring 2012, and I am cleaning out the closet on that very same porch, of junk that needs to be thrown away before I move out in the coming weeks. I hear a car door shut below me and I see the same woman getting out of her car, her child isn't so much a kid anymore, and their 2 year old dachshund dog hopped out of the car behind him. As they approached the path by my apartment, the boy ran by with the dog by his side. The woman looks up to me and waves hello. I give a smile and wave back. It been 4 years since our first interaction had occurred. Over time I witnessed this young mom and her child become a small family before my very eyes. When I moved there, I was under the impression that it was just going a place to rest my head before I started my life up in Nor Cal. Little did I know that it was going to be the apartment where I was going to finally grow up. It wasn't until recently that I realized how much I wasn't all that much different from that woman and her child. Our only interaction would be from my porch as she went back and forth from her car. But I witnessed little instances that were major in her life, and they always seemed to parallel my own.
I'm sure she didn't want to live in that little apartment raising her child alone just as much as I didn't want to live there any longer than a year so I could go and start my new life up north. I heard everything from teaching her child discipline, phone calls to a dead beat ex-boyfriend, to teaching her son how to walk the dog. These occurrences were major life happenings going on her life, and I witnessed them from my porch. Strangely enough, she would always walk by as I would be going through shit of my own. Everything from the demise of a 3 year relationship, my phone calls about changing careers, and my very last drink of cheap vodka ( almost 2 years sober from that bottle ).
I was in that apartment 3 years longer than I expected. It was in no way a bad thing. Although, there were times where I was unsure how to proceed. And I'm sure that woman thought the same thing. I think that is why she bought the puppy. I noticed that with the addition to that puppy, it created a sense of growth in the relationship with her son, and it was also a way to help teach her son responsibility. The day they brought that puppy home, was around the same time I left behind my life as an actor. I chose to bring stability back into my life and get a job at the radio station. I never got the names of this woman or her son and I'll never truly know her full story, but I believe God put them in my life to let me know that we are all in this together. I wasn't going to really understand this concept until I had moved out of that apartment and into my new living situation. It was also because of learning that lesson that I was able to finally let go of my past and move on with my life. I finally feel like my past will never come back to haunt me, for I have come to peace with what God has in place for me ahead. All I can do now is live by the faith of God because he has everything under control. And I encourage you all to do the same, life is so much easier once you grab onto that concept.
"Did she let him go or did the four winds blow him away. Does she even know She's the girl with the red balloon." - The Civil Wars
