Today marks the six month anniversary of our exile in Bakersfield. Or as I like to think of it, the halfway mark. I say halfway because we signed a year lease here at Casa Bako and we aren't in the financial position that we can just walk away. Plus, we'd probably be sued for breaking the lease and then there'd be a public record of us living here, and I don't think anyone wants that.
Six months... it seems like it's been a lot longer. The boyfriend is at the edge of an emotional meltdown. So am I. I keep telling him to just pretend we're like Martha Stewart in jail and it's only a matter of months. Just hum a happy tune and make ponchos and it will all be over soon.
Despite what's written in the blog, we really did make an honest effort to make a go of it here, to view the glass as half full. In the first couple of weeks it actually seemed like a possibility, settling here. But then the hopeful optimism faded, the scales fell from our eyes and the empty glass reality set in.
The whole "fish-out-of-water" scenario makes for great (or not so great) sitcoms, but for real life there's precious little to recommend it. There isn't anything inherently unlivable about Bakersfield, if you choose to live here. Clearly half a million people seem to think so. And lord knows there are worse places still. But circumstances landed us here, not choice, and if the circumstances were reversed I'm sure the outcome would be the same. If some poor Bako ex-pat had landed in West Hollywood they could easily write just as snarky a blog about the experience.
So we're doing our time, trying not to break, another six months. And then what?
Where will we go? How will we get there? And what will we do once we're there? No fucking clue.
But we're halfway there.
