Dani California.

A year ago, if you had told me I would someday live in California, I would have laughed at you. A year ago, GDB and I were still circling each other, looking for the chinks in each other’s armor where we could slip through to endeavor forward on the march of relationship being. A year ago, I had a job where I read all day, and then went to class, and while class was getting on my nerves, I loved my job. A year ago seems like a mighty long time ago.

It seems funny to me that the last few weeks have found me struggling with different things. Rebound Boy. Student loans. GDB’s reappearance and subsequent announcements. My asshat of a roommate. Missing my social life from home. Wondering if I was still funny if I never laughed anymore on this coast. Figuring out what I need to do to make school work in the fall. Working overtime and stressing that this wasn’t a job I could do forever. What did I want to do? Declarations of love. Declarations of apathy. I’ve been bending every which way I can, and yet the hits still keep coming.

I taunted fate last night. “What else can you possibly do?”

Apparently, fate always has the last laugh.

I left my office this morning at 9:30. After arriving at 8:30. In that short hour, I managed to send out a few e-mails, schedule a few meetings, and get fired.

You would think I would have better been able to control myself. But there’s only so many times you can hear, “We’re not sure if this is the right fit.” I heard it once before, with AmeriCorps when they couldn’t decide if they wanted me to do more or less, and when I tried to do what they wanted, I failed anyway. I heard it again today, when they said, “You’re fantastic and we love having you, and you’re great at all the things we didn’t hire you for, but you’re not so good when it comes to the things we did.” Meaning, I suck at copying, filing, calendaring, and other basic administrative responsibilities.

I almost laughed. Am I being fired because I have a brain and prefer using it? Maybe it’s because the one day I called out sick last week after working overtime multiple weeks in a row, they panicked and thought I didn’t order their lunches. Am I being fired over lunches? This is almost absurd.

Yet tears still clogged up in my eyes and no matter how I tried to hide them, the red around my now turquoise colored irises gave them away. I was offered tissues. I was asked, “Do you want to talk about anything?”

Is there ever anything to talk about when you get fired?

I left, after it was disclosed that I could stay home for the next two weeks and they would still pay me anyway, until May 7th. I went home. I called my parents. The first time I’ve ever been fired.

On one hand, this solves the whole roommate asshat problem.

On the other hand, what am I going to do between now and school in September?

I cried. I texted my closest friends and e-mailed the ones who could maybe show me some hope. I realized, I now have four months of nothing to kill. So I thought about it.

What if I go to Thailand? And visit my best friend who has been living there for almost a year now? (And try to convince Lisa to get her passport and meet me there?) What if I do the famed drive down the California coast line, scarf blowing and wind in my hair? What if I stay with Avocado a few days in San Diego? And visit friends in L.A.? What if I extend my trip to Seattle to include Vancouver and spend more time with Princess Pointful? What if I drive back across the country in someone else’s car, just driving to see the lands and not necessarily even the sights? I learned in Arizona that I can happily gaze at a cacti-grown landscape for an hour without a single comment, admiring the beauty of such a stark land. What if I make this the road trip I’ve always wanted to take, my laptop my only companion and my thoughts centered on the scattered white lines of the road below?

Suddenly, the paycheck seemed insignificant. My passport flaunted its empty pages, with lands I’ve always wanted to but never have been. It still stings to know I couldn’t make it work here, after everything I’ve somehow endured. But somehow, having this physical escape from the shackles of this life that I constructed here suddenly makes all the difference in the world. Calmly, rationally, I posted all my furniture on Craigslist. I put together my list of things to do before I move. I made some tentative plans for the summer, feeling my way towards some form of income.

It’s not about California or bust anymore. Admittedly, I am hesitant to try my hand in a new city, but I am reluctant to make New York my safety. She should never be anyone’s safety.

In the gears of the landing wheels of a plane, the churning of a bus’s wheels, the quiet rev of a car’s engine, I don’t expect to find any of the answers I’ve been looking for. I know things are going to remain unsteady for a long time, wish as I may it weren’t. But I will find adventure, words on lined notebook paper inspired by my journeys, temporary escape from the things that have weighed heavily on my mind, dancing wind chimes upon a Pacific breeze.

I may not be leaving for a few more weeks, California, but you showed your teeth. And somehow? I know no matter what happens, I’ll land on my feet. Slightly worse for the wear, perhaps a bit battered and bruised from all the curveballs I’ve been hit with since moving here, I’m looking forward to leaving you behind. My story is meant to continue somewhere else.