In 2005 I quit my mind-numbing nonprofit job and my holdover-from-college boyfriend. I packed a four-door Honda sedan with all of my earthly possessions (clothes, my sewing machine, records, a few books), said good riddance to New York, and set out for San Francisco -- a city where I had only a four-month internship. No friends or relatives. No place to live. My mother informed me, several times, that she was praying for me.

That cross-country drive -- which I made alone -- was the best trip I have ever taken. If you asked me about it back then, I would have told you it was because of the western landscape, which is indeed gorgeous. Endless prairie and red rocks and limestone cliffs and salt flats and piney forests. But really, this trip (do you still call it a "trip" if nothing that can plausibly be called "home" exists on either end?) was about me heading in a direction I'd always wanted to go. I had always wanted to drive through the mountains alone. I had always wanted to work for a magazine. I had always wanted to live in San Francisco. And here I was, doing it. Everything was possibility. I had complete confidence that I would find a place to live before I arrived (thank you, Craigslist sublets/temporary). I had complete confidence that I would find fantastic friends. I had complete confidence that this was the beginning of my real career. When I saw the Welcome to California! sign, I cried. At the time, I thought it was because the Technicolor green of Tahoe was just so stunning after a long day of driving through the monotonous Nevada desert. Ha.

Five years and three months later, after having quit a different job and boyfriend and city, I have repacked the Honda (clothes, my sewing machine, records, a few books) and am driving westward again. I left DC before Christmas, toasted to the New Year in Milwaukee, will celebrate my 29th birthday in San Francisco, and am due to arrive in Austin at the end of the month -- with stops in Iowa, Kansas City, Boulder, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Marfa, and Midland along the way. All told, it's more than 5,000 miles.

January is a decidedly unromantic month for a road trip. The days are short. Most of the country is cold and grey at best, impassably stormy at worst. But it does have the advantage of being the start of something. New scenery for a new year. And even if the interstate looks the same for miles on end, there are concrete signs of progress. Kansas City, 143 miles. Boulder, another 10 hours. I am literally going somewhere. I have always wanted to quit my editing job and be a freelance writer, if only for a few months. And here I am, heading in that direction.

Over the holiday, in a binge on a J-school syllabus's worth of narrative nonfiction, I re-read The White Album. In it, Joan Didion describes San Francisco as "a city dedicated to the illusion that all human endeavor tends mystically west, toward the Pacific." Unsurprisingly, given that I tend to ascribe mystic properties to both the West and Joan Didion, I've been thinking about this observation a lot.

See, I have also driven cross-country from West to East. Twice. Once to New York, once to Washington. I made both of these trips, which I remember as pretty unremarkable (which is to say I don't remember much about them at all), with other people. I have gone West when I'm seeking greatness, and East when I'm feeling resignation. West is possibility, East is inevitability. West is risky, East is safe. It's not that I've been unhappy on the East Coast. I have found great friends and professional success there, too. But going West always seems to mean moving toward something new and wonderful. I realize this is just a narrative I've imposed on the series of choices I've made, but it also feels true in some objective sense.

On this trip, San Francisco is not my final destination, but I've slackened my route sufficiently so I will wend my way through. There was no other way to plan it, really. I have to go all the way to the Pacific.