California Sunshine

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. The alarm clock wails out harshly into the dark. Anabelle’s eyes flutter open in confusion and try to take in her dark bedroom that surrounds her. 4:00 AM, the clock on her phone displays. Ana groans. She doesn’t do 4:00 in the morning. So naturally when she hears the invasive noise, she presses snooze and rolls back over.

4:30 she wakes again to the sound of a different noise that consists of her ringtone blaring through the early morning. With an attempt to clear the sleep out of her voice, she grumbles out an “‘ello?”

“Ana, honey its 4:30, you have to get up so that you can catch your flight.” She hears her mom say on the other line. Oh yeah, that’s why she set her alarm, she has a 6:30AM flight.

“Thanks for the wake-up call, Ma” Ana manages to get out.

“You’re welcome. Now come downstairs when you’re ready, I made muffins for your departure!” Gosh moms are great sometimes. Muffins are perfect to wake up to, they just add a little extra incentive to escape the warm pillowy cave that is Ana’s bed.

With that, they disconnect from one another and she slowly starts to rise out of her cocoon of a blanket. Anabelle is moving to Los Angeles today. She had just finished her second year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was accepted into an awesome internship program in Marketing over at UCLA. She is to start her fall semester in just a couple of weeks.

Now, could she have just continued studying marketing here in Wisconsin? Absolutely. But the prospect of what else she was leaving behind made the move much more enticing. She needs to get away from him.

Plus her sister lives out there, and she really wants to live with her.

Slowly but surely, Ana sits up in her bed. She can smell the freshly baked muffins downstairs and inhales deeply, taking it all in. As she looks over at her luggage all packed in the corner, the realization finally hits her; She is officially moving away from Wisconsin…to CALIFORNIA of all places.

The thought of it alone brings a big silly grin to her face and is enough to finally get her out of bed. She then immediately proceeds to get ready by washing her face and pulling a brush through her hair. After throwing on her travel clothes and adding a touch of mascara, she is officially ready to go!

She grabs her luggage all at once and looks back at her childhood room one more time. She gazes at all of her pictures with her friends from high school plastered on the walls and begins to feel a bit nostalgic. It feels like she is leaving for college for the first time all over again. Maybe she would miss this beer and cheese lovin’ state after all…just not the insane winters of course (because let's be honest, they can be quite awful!).

After making one final sweep of the room to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, Ana switches off the light and heads out of the room. Before making her way to the muffin-madness that is about to occur downstairs, she stops and gets out her phone. She opens up the Facebook app and uploads her status;

Excited to finally be moving to Los Angeles today! In the words of Bilbo Baggins, “I’m going on an adventure!”

With that she puts away her phone and heads downstairs to leave for her flight.