true story

scene:
small town alabama in the early 80s
a moderate house
an unusually long driveway
a dog constantly chained up (with one of those nasty choker chains) to a tree in the backyard
a woman caught up in a loveless and abusive marriage

plot:
after years of unhappiness, the woman decides she needs to extricate herself from her predicament. slowly the bottles appear. one. then another. then two more. the neighbors begin to ask questions. first and foremost, they ask her why she has begun to line the edges of her driveway with her empty wine bottles. the woman tells them that she is planning on leaving her husband, and when she sets the final bottle into place she will drive away and never come back.

on one brisk autumn afternoon that fateful bottle is put into position. with both sides of the driveway fully fenced in by misery, the woman retreats inside her house. hours later, her car fully packed, the woman drives back home to new orleans and is never heard from again.

disclaimer:
i know this story is true because i work with the woman who was her next door neighbor.

tie in:
if you've been following the last 9 months or so of my life, you'll know that i've been playing a waiting game. in a way, i feel like i've been lining a driveway of an undisclosed length. i moved out to california thinking that i would only be here for 6 weeks. nearly 6 months later, i'm still putting down my bottles and hoping that the end of the driveway is near.

this is not to say i've been miserable. one of my friends claims that i have a gift for finding joy in the absolutely mundane. on paper, you couldn't pay me enough to live my life, but in actuality, i am doing wonderfully except for the waiting. the waiting kills me.

my driveway:
i say with great confidence that last week as i was placing one of my daily bottles down, i finally saw the end of my driveway. today is friday. in five days (wednesday, march 12th), i will know if i should start packing up my car to leave, or if i should wait another 2 months for the moving truck. i will either be moving 45 minutes west (into the san francisco city limits) to begin my dream job or i will be heading east to either cincinnati or boston (either of which would be fine by me) to begin a job which is not necessarily my dream job, but one that is an amazing growth opportunity and will lead me one step closer to getting my dream job down the pipeline. for the first time i can remember, i'm in a win-win-win situation where all roads lead to awesome.

check back on wednesday for more details (although i might know the scoop as soon as monday evening).