I developed this fairly well-rehearsed speech right before I moved to L.A. – partly out of necessity, though I only just figured out who exactly needed it.

Everyone I encountered wanted to know why I was moving, how I was feeling, and when I’d come to this decision. By the time I was ready to move I’d perfected my lines to the point of answering the questions before they were asked…

• Someone: Hey Jessie, how are you today?
• Me: Good, good – feeling really solid in my decision to make the move now because I’ve established some strong connections out there that will make my transition a lot easier.
• Someone: Um, sorry, out where?
• Me: L.A. – yep – so it’ll be a rough few months once I move in, but I’ll be living with the boys and have a lot of good family friends, so I really think I’ll be totally acclimated in no time.

…slaaash before the subject was broached.

Same went for the first few weeks after I moved. Tell someone you’re fresh off the New York City boat, and they’re bound to wonder the same few things – what for? why now? who do you know? Or at least those are the three questions their faces very clearly read when you introduce yourself and (generally without prompting) announce that you’ve just arrived.

Thus the “thoughts upon my departure” speech was tweaked to “thoughts upon my arrival”:

• “I’m just going to take my time really learning the industry before I dive into my ultimate goals here.”
• “I feel very grateful to have a full-time job to get me started on two feet and learning the ropes.”
• “My whole attitude about living in L.A. is to not pretend it’s anything like New York, you know? – appreciate it for what it is, not what it’s not.”

After a few encounters I started to notice a slightly different mantra creeping into my rationale routine. I think it grew out of people asking me what it was like to live in Manhattan in my early twenties, or maybe because someone said I was lucky not to have been in L.A. as a poor, 20-something? Somehow something like the following line was added to the act:

• “You know – I really feel like moving in my later 20’s is right for me. I did the entry-level struggle in New York so I’m not jaded about the entertainment industry, plus I feel like I have a better head on my shoulders in relation to the whole fame and success thing. You know?”

No one asks, “so, could you provide a one hundred word reflection on your decision to move to L.A. at 27 and not 23?” And yet here I am waxing logical about the age at which it is best for one to transition from one epicenter to the other.

…which would be all fine and well and typical of my tendency to speak in three to five sentence sound bites when nervous if not for the fact that I think I might be wrong.

I think there’s a chance that I moved to L.A. too late.

See when you move to this city at 23 you’re part of a whole pool of 23-year-olds who all know the same amount of information about the industry – zero. You begin to climb the ladder together – falling down or off around the same rough patches and helping each other up along the way. You learn all the names of the major agencies, who works there, and who they work for. You memorize all the acronyms and production terms and times of year when specific things like TV pilots happen. And eventually you begin to know who around town is the real deal and who’s not; who can be trusted and who can’t; who’s slept with whom and how recently.

The greatest L.A. learning curve isn’t figuring out how to avoid rush hour traffic going from west to east – it’s learning to speak the language of the industry and, often more importantly, learning who you should be speaking it to.

This is not a, “turns out you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” sob story. I’ve been here for 4.5 months and learned and incredible amount. I’ll be here for 4.5 more and learn an incredible amount more. And one lesson among the current set is that you can arrive here and achieve your goals at many different ages. 27 is not, literally speaking, too late.

This is a, “is it better to grow up in this world than out?” “Grow up” meaning career-wise. “In this world” meaning the ascent from some kind of assistant to some kind of professional.

My post-move mantra rudely suggested that people who move to L.A. at 21 are jaded by 27. Are they? Or are they writing their first hours of network television, making their first talent deals, and logging enough hours on set to earn them entree into organizations with acronyms I still can’t remember?

It will take me at least a year to really know how things work around this town. Yes, I’ll have the discerning eye of a New Yorker and the perspective of someone who’s worked somewhere other than here, but what would life be like if I started here at 21 and moved to New York in an alternate version of now?

It’s less a regret and more just a wonder. My timing was based on hundreds of factors that I couldn’t and wouldn’t change. But existing way at the bottom of a steep learning curve does make you wonder what starting earlier would have looked and felt like.

So is there a right time to make your way to this crazy place? Can you do it too soon or too late? And, maybe more importantly, how long does it really take to catch up?

(note: these questions are in not rhetorical)