The Cleansing

Today is my final day and Camarillo, and I’d be lying if I said I was ecstatic about that… for a multitude of reasons. As I prepare for my move I’ve been downsizing my whole life to only fit into one 5X8 U-Haul and a 5x10 storage unit.

I used to have the quintessential middle class life. My then husband and I were a DINK (Dual Income No Kids) power couple making bank in aerospace. I had a beautiful home with 9 foot ceilings, black granite counter tops, manicured laws in both the front and back yards, with a mortgage of $700 bucks a month because we bought it during the housing crash. Decorative river rock in our flower beds with rose bushes. The rock facia and American flag in the front. The kind of house that everyone else in the neighborhood has their houses appraised against. Built a shed in the backyard and were in the process of building a backyard studio before we sold it. Why? Because we needed more space for bullshit.

We had all the toys too. A race quad, two dirt bikes, a street bike, a deiseal truck, a travel trailer, sports cars… all bought brand new. A sand-rail, that we only drove a handful of times. Guitars, computers (I had three computers, why? I don’t fucking know!), a leather couch, flat screen TV’s, a home gym.

Enough money to eat out every night if we wanted to.

We never checked our bank accounts before swiping at the gas pump or store.

Wanted plastic surgery? I paid for my boob job and tummy tuck… CASH.

Blow my money on sushi dates and coffee? No problem.

Want to pay for my second masters degree? Did it in cash.

A life of surplus. A middle class wet dream.

But I was empty. Something was always missing. The highs of purchases soon worn away, and I found myself alone but surrounded by bullshit. This wasn’t the fault of my husband. Tragedy had hit us both hard, making us both realize what we wanted out of life was totally different from each other. I won’t speak of what he wanted, because that’s HIS story to tell, but I soon realized that I didn’t want to waste my life hidden behind all the stuff I bought in a nice house in the middle of BFE (or “Bumfuck, Egypt” for you more refined types).

For those of you who don’t know what California City, CA, is let me describe it to you. Cal City was once designed to be the next big resort town, but due to several issues and very corrupt politics it became one giant bust. Growing up, it wasn’t so bad. It was mostly middle class families who worked at Edwards Air Force Base and there was quite a bit of community involvement. These days… not so much. Cal City and it’s neighboring town of Mojave are two of the most bizarre places you’ll ever go. Beautiful, middle class homes and a huge PGA Golf course juxtapose to run down houses and poverty. Mojave is the same way: the center of aerospace innovation (SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, Stratolaunch, Global Flyer, Voyager, etc.) with a trap house down the street. When I worked for Virgin Galactic, I would always find it weird that here we were ushering VIP’s like Sir Richard Branson, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and even Vice President Mike fucking Pence around Mojave while people lived in a motel just a quarter mile away. A fleet of fifty something white and black Land Rovers roaming down the pot hole ridden streets, going about our business. This isn’t to criticize Virgin Galactic, but rather to illustrate how bizarre the town of Mojave truly is. You had some of the richest people in the whole world next to some of the poorest and most desolate in the state.

But that’s what makes Mojave great: you can do really cool shit here that you can’t do in any other airspace. As for California City, it is a motorcross dream. You want to ride dirt bikes and go shoot guns in the desert? Wanna make a giant bon fire? Go for it. It’s a place of both absolute freedom and despair. For me it’s mostly despair, but to each their own. I won’t spend a great deal of time talking about this place (you can checkout the podcast “California City” if you’re really curious), just to illustrate one of the many reasons why I’m not thrilled to have left affluent Camarillo for California City again.

More on the part where I had all the things… yes, the “cleansing” as I call it. I think I bought so much stuff over the years to burry myself in the fact that I was not happy living in my home town. I’d justify it by telling myself I was doing cool shit like putting people into space with VG, or that I had all this money to blow, but really that was a padded bra of insecurity. I had tried to separate myself from the others who were driving busted cars and living in apartments by surrounding myself with stuff that showed I was in a higher class. I was so miserable. They say you can be miserable while doing 80+ on a street bike… I’m here to tell you they’re wrong.

I had left to go to college in Fresno, but was drawn back because my soon to be husband was working a good job on base. I then left to live in New Mexico, but was drawn back kicking and screaming again. This time, I’m pulled back clawing my way out like I’m being buried alive in a fucking coffin.

Here I am, 33 years old, with nothing. Two masters degrees, making the most money I’ve ever made in my life… sleeping on a Ikea Futon in a friends spare bedroom with garbage bags of clothes because I sold everything I owned. This is both strangely terrifying and liberating at the same time…