It’s been eight months. Eight long, tedious months of watching everyone else’s life go on as you wait in your holding pattern – waiting for a job, a boyfriend, something or anything to get you out of the funk you’ve fallen into. You watch friends get engaged, family members get married, former coworkers fall in love and so forth. You’re still stuck in your apartment, which has become significantly filthier since your little adventure began in May, despite your large quantities of free time. A friend comes over and remarks that your kitchen smells… not just of the dirty dishes piled in the sink, but of depression and abandonment. You feel weighted down by everything around you and everything that’s happened.
And then you’re not. 
Then you’re driving down Interstate 5 with all your belongings (minus your very comfortable, very expensive bed and anything else that wouldn’t fit in a cargo van) and your dog. You head north to a new part of the state – wine country, God’s country, the land of milk and honey… nothing but a life of leisure and hiking and sampling bottles that run $70 a piece. Well, not for you, anyway.
This isn’t the wine country of overpriced country weddings and bike tours. This is you admitting defeat. This is you forgetting that just because a recruiter says the job is yours doesn’t mean it is as such. This is you forgetting to downsize your apartment when you had the cash to move to the Valley or Echo Park. This is you forgetting to get a roommate. This is you moving in with your parents. Again.
Diarist Lizz Westman
“So now what are you going to do?”
Apparently leaving your home for a place 40 minutes outside San Francisco means you are giving up on your profession of 10 years. Now you can finally become that banker or lawyer or clerk at Macy’s furniture store that you’ve always aspired to be! After all this time, you realize that it was the steady gigs and paychecks that were holding you back. Of course, any comment is construed as you being snide or spoiled. Defending your professional life is you declaring a war upon work.
“Seriously, so what are you going to do?”
It may not be your fault that the economy has collapsed, but it is your fault for being out of a job. Other people have jobs. If 10 percent of the workforce is unemployed, then 90 percent of the people are working. Why aren’t you one of them?
“Do you have any other plans?”
The question is repeated. And repeated. It stops being a question and quickly transforms into an accusation. Everything you’ve done wrong in the past 15 years is spread upon the kitchen table like a horrible tarot deck. Today they picked the “majored in American Studies” and tomorrow it will be “eats store-bought pasta sauce.” Next week you’ll get in trouble for being fired from that job 5 years ago because your morning dj pap sounded “too NPR.”
You leave as often as possible to try to enjoy your new environs. You hike in redwoods and marvel at the natural beauty of the area. You wave to the sea lions basking in the local sun. You may become more deflated and defeated with each passing day, but at least the city isn’t on fire.
–Lizz Westman
Andy Brooks
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DaveR
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