Finding Your Way...

February 19, 2008

Hi. I'm Kabira. I live in Silver Lake, California and I am 29 years old. Twenty nine and 3/4 years- to be specific. Recently, I have noticed that I am very much in the process of wrapping up my 20’s... like a present, to be handed to myself on my 30th birthday.

I have been looking forward to my 30th birthday since I was 25. The first half of my 20’s was grueling and confusing. I remember being 22 and literally saying to a friend of mine, "What am I supposed to do all day?" If you don't know exactly what you want to "be" when you graduate from school, and find no road map for life in the great beyond- the path that you take can be scary, lonely, epic, dark and long. Like all great explorers, you are hacking your way into uncharted territory-- your young adult years.

When I was 26, a friend in her 30's gave me a piece of advice that really helped me along my road. She said, “Nothing you do before you are 30 is a waste of time.”

Thank God, because I did a lot of different shit in my 20's. I just now counted and, quite appropriately, it seems I have had 20 different jobs during my second, roaring decade.

I have been a student, a cocktail waitress, an off Broadway wardrobe manager, a juice bar girl, a wardrobe intern on a film set, a hostess at the Standard Hotel diner, a model, a cataloger of non-violent artifacts (think Gandhi's sandals), a seamstress' assistant, a dress maker, a featured music video extra (one involving a mud pit, Jared Leto and fire hoses), assistant to the President of American Apparel (with no hanky panky there, thank you very much), assistant to an acting teacher, assistant to a composer, sales girl at Fred Segal, a substitute AP English teacher, a party planner/celebrity wrangler, a coordinator for a politico documentary film company, a political activist, and, finally (though certainly not ultimately), a field deputy for a Los Angeles politician.

That is the arc of my 20's. It's my arc. And each experience prepared me, if not for the next adventure, then for another one down the road. The path from student to city council deputy could have been a straight one, but I decided to take some unscheduled detours along the way. Eighteen, in fact. And in doing so, I've had quite a journey-- the great creative process that is my life.

Whether you are an "artist" or not, our lives are our own works of art-- unique to us, our great contribution to the planet. Who knows what adventures the next 4 months hold for me? But whichever way I go, I rest easy in knowing that no matter what it is, for me it will be perfect.


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