The first night back in Scranton was the worst.

            He had just left her there, by the fountain. He was standing there, apologizing, and then he was gone. She stood there in a daze, unable to process what happened.

            Somehow she managed to call her friend. After that she didn’t really remember anything. She knew it involved alcohol. A lot of alcohol.

            It took her three days before she went back to Scranton. And that is when it hit her – she was alone. Sure she had been single before. But that was in Stamford. So she wasn’t alone. She could go out with friends, visit her family, or even drive to New York whenever she was feeling down.

            Scranton was different. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she hadn’t really made friends in Scranton. She knew people at the office. But she definitely didn’t want to hang out with them, especially Pam. And outside of the office, she was mostly with Jim. She didn’t really have anyone else.

            She silently cursed herself as she pulled into the driveway. It hadn’t seemed so bad, four months ago. But now, she was stuck with a six-month lease, just two blocks away from her ex.

            As she entered her apartment, she was overwhelmed by memories. He had helped her move in, helped her decorate. On the end table, there was the picture of them at the fair last year. His beer in the fridge. His book on the couch. He was everywhere.

            This was not going to be good.

            The next morning, Karen ventured into work. The confrontation in the break room had been tense, to say the least, and the rest of the day was no different.

            Karen left work rather dejected. She was going to stay. She had made that decision. Sure it would be rough, but she was more than just Jim’s girlfriend. She had been dumped before, and survived. So what if they were still working together…with the girl she assumed he was now dating. She could handle it, right? She was an adult. She wasn’t going to let stupid teenage mind games ruin her life.

            Karen took a quick turn into the grocery store. She had realized last night that she had no food. She managed to scrape together a meal of baked beans and biscuits, but that wouldn’t work tonight. She needed real food, and soon.

            She grabbed everything she wanted, from ice cream to Raisin Bran. By the time she reached the produce section, her cart was full. That didn’t stop her from buying apples, lettuce, tomatoes, grapes, mushrooms, strawberries, bananas, and anything else she liked.

            When she saw pineapples, she paused. Jim hated pineapples. He practically had a phobia about them. She remembered when he first transferred to Stamford. They had had a Memorial Day party around that time, and she had made fruit salad. Josh had joked that she only brought that since it was something she couldn’t screw up (and he was half right). It was a basic fruit salad – pineapples, grapes, bananas, and various berries. She offered some to Jim, and he practically jumped in fear at the suggestion.

            He wasn’t allergic, and it wasn’t even that he disliked the taste, he had explained. He just didn’t like pineapples.

            It hadn’t made sense then, and it still didn’t. But now Karen didn’t have to worry about Jim.

            She grabbed a whole pineapple and nestled it on the top of her cart.

            Karen had bought a GPS earlier in the year. Before the trip to the beach, before New York, before the mess. Jim was terrible with directions. He even got lost driving to the grocery store, despite having lived in Scranton his entire life (Karen couldn’t help but laugh at that memory, and his insistence that the grocery store had moved since the week previous). Every time Jim drove, she made him use the unit (against his protests). It still had all ‘their’ spots programmed in – Dunder Mifflin, Blockbuster, the grocery store, the Y.

            She confidently hit delete all, and programmed in her new destination – Utica, NY. 185 miles.

            When Karen arrived in Utica, all she had was a suitcase of clothes and a few other necessities. Most of her stuff was still back in Scranton, waiting until she found an apartment to live in.

            She found a hotel close to the city center. Memories of Days Inn room 228 quickly entered her mind. Hotel rooms were all the same. All the commercials neglected to mention that – the room is just that. A room. Four walls with a bed and a bath. It would seem new and different at first. But, after a day or two, it would just become a place – a place to sleep, a place to think, a place to be.

            Karen was determined not to let that happen here. She would not spend weeks and weeks in that room. She emptied her car, and then drove off to find an apartment.

            She nearly felt guilty choosing the first place she saw. She wanted to do research, which apartments had the best ratings, the best amenities, the best rates. But something about Candlewyck Apartments grabbed her attention and wouldn’t let go. She filled out the paperwork and signed the lease, she could move in next weekend.

            When the moving truck arrived from Scranton, she was determined to do it herself. Maybe Jim had helped originally, but this was still her furniture, her decorations. She was ready to reclaim them as her own.

            Eight hours later, she was sweaty and exhausted. Her mattress was still on the floor, but it was at least in the bedroom. She still had boxes on top of boxes, and tools out on the counter. But it was her own.

            Karen was like an impatient child. She remembered waiting, watching out the window for her dad to come home from work. Now, 20 years later, she was doing the same thing. This would be the first time her parents were in Utica (they had never even made it to Scranton).

            It was 11:48 when she saw her dad’s old Accord pull up in front of her complex. She quickly looked in a mirror, and then glanced around her apartment. Everything had to be perfect. She had to show her parents she did the right thing moving to Utica.

            They were duly impressed with her apartment and its location. She showed them around town, where she worked, where she shopped, before a quick lunch at her new favorite bistro.

            They spent the afternoon catching up. Karen’s niece Rebecca was talking now, and no one could get a word in edgewise. Her parents’ dog, Clunkers, was getting old and arthritic. Her parents told stories about her neighbors, and old friends she went to high school with. Karen updated them on her job and the move.

            As they left that evening, Karen’s mom whispered in her ear – “I’m proud of you, sweetie.”

            She never realized it, how difficult it was to make friends as an adult. When you were a kid, all you had to do was look around, friends were everywhere. As an adult, how do you start?

            At work, she was the boss. To try to become friends with her employees seemed sad, and rather desperate (like Michael, she thought, nearly cringing). She never saw anyone at the apartment complex, except for maybe a few minutes out in the breezeway. She would go out to bars, only to have drunk guys hit on her all night.

            She needed to get out of the house, interact with others. Every morning she would walk in the park. She joined a yoga class at the local rec center. It was tough at first. A lot of times she didn’t even want to get out of the house. But slowly, she came to enjoy it, and it showed.

            After yoga one night, she went out for drinks with some of her Sally and a few other people. She found out that her and Sally were both from Connecticut (although Sally was from Hartford), Nicole also liked reading mysteries, and Erin had a daughter the same age as Karen’s niece.

            Slowly, her circle of friends grew. She knew whom she could count on when she had a flat tire (David), who was always up for a movie (Ashley), and who to call about American Idol (Brooke).

            Utica was slowly becoming home.

            On October 12, 2007, Karen Filippelli turned 30. When she was a child, she always imagined that by her 30th birthday, she would be married with kids and living in New York. Well, she was living in New York (but not the city like she imagined), but the rest didn’t happen. But, for the first time, Karen was okay with that.

            She met her friends after work. They saw The Heartbreak Kid, and then went out for dinner at Grimaldi's.

            She got a card from her parents along with a gift card to Target. Her sister sent her an updated picture of Rebecca with a painting the two year old made. She set all of the cards and presents out on the table, and spent the evening looking through them. She got cards from relatives she hadn’t spoken to in a year (not since the last birthday), she was surprised they even had her new address. She had cards from old friends, those still back in Stamford.

            Even though it wasn’t what she had imagined for her 30th birthday, it was still one of the greatest days she ever lived.

            It was Saturday night, and Karen was sitting by a campfire. If someone had asked her two days ago how she thought she would be spending her Saturday night, camping would have been the furthest thing from her mind. But that morning, Erin had called, freaking out. Her daughter’s Girl Scout troop was going camping that night, and the other mom scheduled to help out came down with the flu. No one else was coming, and she couldn’t handle eleven girls by herself.

            So Karen packed a duffel bag and went camping. And she liked it. She liked being surrounded by nature, and seeing the stars. The air felt different somehow, clearer, fresher. They made s’mores and sang campfire songs. They told ghost stories – at least, until one of the younger girls started to cry. Karen hadn’t felt this alive and young in a long time.

            But when Monday came, Karen was still surprised when she decided to look up local camping spots. Never before had she thought camping would be enjoyable, but maybe this weekend had changed that. Going camping once or twice a month, really get out there with nature, back to the basics to escape the craziness of work and life – it was worth looking into.

            This new Karen was surprising herself every day, and she liked that.

            One stupid day. That was all it could take to set her back nearly 6 months. She should have known offering Stanley a job couldn’t end well, but she needed a new salesman, and Stanley was one of the best (at least, that she could stand to be around). She never expected Michael, Dwight, and Jim to break into the office and break her copier.

            Seeing Jim, the first time since Scranton, it hurt. She couldn’t lie to herself. He was happy. She was finally moving on, but still. He was happy. He was happy with her (Karen still couldn’t bring herself to say her name).

            She came home from work, disgusted with herself. She thought she moved on, she really had. But today had ruined everything. She looked around her apartment, at everything she had so lovingly put there in the past 6 months, and it all seemed stupid now. Twenty-four hours ago, she loved her new life. Now, because of him, it seemed like a waste.

            How do you know you are officially over someone? For Karen Filippelli, it was when she first saw David Adams. It wasn’t love at first sight; it wasn’t even necessarily like at first sight. It was just different.

            They had met on a camping trip. He was a new, and had forgotten a flashlight. Karen was initially annoyed; a flashlight was required for wandering around in the woods. However, as they talked, it turned into more teasing than annoyance, joking about monsters and being scared of the dark.

            They talked for hours, the last rays of sunlight disappearing, and the only light from the dying campfire. As they looked around, only a few others were still out moving around. They laughed about how long they had spent talking, but still reluctant to go back to their own tents.

            They eventually left the campfire, with a shy wave goodbye as when they reached Karen’s tent.

As she lay down, closing her eyes to go to sleep, she realized it. Thoughts of Jim were the furthest thing from her mind. She was finally over him.